MultiCorpora announced toay the release of version 3.7 of MultiTrans, their software based Enterprise Language Management solution. Among other new capabilities, MultiTrans 3.7 delivers a scalable multilingual and multidirectional text repository, a flexible software-based license manager, enhanced project analysis, and an automated text repository update manager. The new multilingual, multidirectional Global Text Repository allows an organization to manage large volumes of content that has been translated into many languages in a single repository. A software-based license manager enables MultiTrans software licenses to be securely activated and transferred between computers with a simple activation code. The new license manager significantly streamlines the deployment and management of licenses for nomadic workers and across distributed workgroups. Enhanced project analysis capabilities provide comprehensive data to support optimal project workflow decisions. Also, automated pre-processing of distributable Project Reference Packages enables external, off-line users to leverage common language assets, improving productivity, consistency and accuracy. The new text repository update manager automatically updates the Global Text Repository with newly completed multilingual content on an ongoing basis. www.multicorpora.com
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Last week, AeA, the high-tech trade association, released a report titled
"Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404: The ‘Section’ of Unintended Consequences and its Impact on Small
Business." Most readers will find that this paper is worth a
look. The paper argues that:
- Section 404 is more expensive than anyone anticipated — so much so that
the costs far outweigh any possible benefits. - The Section 404 compliance burden is disproportionately large for smaller
companies. - External auditors are taking a "one size fits all" approach to
assessing the effectiveness of internal controls.
AeA’ assertions about the impact on small and mid-sized companies are really
striking. For example …
What became clear during our companies’ discussions on Section 404 is that the cost burden for smaller companies as a percentage of revenue is far greater than for large companies. For multibillion dollar companies, the cost may run at approximately 0.05 percent of revenue, but
for small companies with revenues below $20 million, the costs can rapidly approach three percent of revenue.
This is a striking number. I have no idea how precisely accurate these
results are — but the general thrust of the argument seems plausible: Smaller
companies typically start with less in the way of sophisticated internal control
systems, and the costs of creating such systems must come out of a
proportionately smaller pool of revenue.
Does this report match up with experiences that any of you are having? Send email
or post a comment …
Snowbound Software introduced several enhanced options for its RasterMaster Imaging SDK to help streamline content aggregation processes. By enabling content from Microsoft Word, AFP, and PCL files to be batch extracted developers can create content aggregation tools for asset and content management applications. After the text and formatting data is extracted from Microsoft Word, AFP, or PCL files, the data streams can be imported directly into a variety of databases. The content can then be repurposed for publishing, archiving, or searching. The options are available for the Windows platform including Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, and Server 2003, and will soon be available for the Java Platform. www.snowbound.com
Via Mary McRae at OASIS and Don Day, Chair of the OASIS Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) Technical Committee:
The OASIS Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) TC has recently approved DITA 1.0 as a Committee Draft and approved it for public review. The public review starts today, 15 February 2005 and ends 15 March 2005.
Public review from potential users, developers and stakeholders is an important part of the OASIS process to assure interoperability and quality. Comments are solicited from all interested parties. Please feel free to forward this message to other appropriate lists and/or post this information on your organization’s web site. Comments may be submitted to the TC by any person via a web form found on the TC’s web page. Click the button for “Send A Comment” at the top of the page.
We have a white paper on DITA in general and its potential role in globalization. I am also exploring DITA on behalf of a client, so will stay abreast of this.
Liquid Machines, Inc. announced the Beta release of Liquid Machines Document Control 5.0 for Microsoft Windows Rights Management Services (RMS) for Windows Server 2003. Liquid Machines Document Control v5.0 extends RMS policy enforcement to desktop and enterprise applications including Adobe Acrobat and Microsoft Visio. Additionally, Liquid Machines Document Control 5.0 will allow customers to make optimal use of existing Microsoft investments and use Microsoft Office 2000 and Office XP to view and modify RMS-protected documents created in Office 2003. Liquid Machines Document Control 5.0 for RMS provides users with persistent protection of electronic information throughout the collaborative business process from the moment of creation through distribution, editing, storage, and subsequent destruction and disposal. User actions, such as distilling a rights-protected document to Adobe Acrobat, maintain the RMS policy of the original document on the derived file. In conjunction with the beta availability of Liquid Machines Document Control 5.0 for RMS, Liquid Machines also announced support for RMS Service Pack 1 (SP1). RMS SP1 will enable integration with 3rd party server-based applications. www.liquidmachines.com
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has published the “Character Model of the World Wide Web: Fundamentals” as a W3C Recommendation. It provides a well-defined and well-understood way for Web applications to transmit and process the characters of the world’s languages. This architectural Recommendation gives authors of specifications, software developers, and content developers a common reference, enabling interoperable text manipulation on the World Wide Web. It builds on the Universal Character Set, defined jointly by the Unicode Standard and ISO/IEC 10646. The goal of the Character Model for the World Wide Web is to facilitate use of the Web by all people, regardless of their language, script, writing system, and cultural conventions. As the number of Web applications increases, the need for a shared character model has become more critical. Unicode is the natural choice as the basis for that shared model, especially as applications developers begin to consolidate their encoding options. However, applying Unicode to the Web requires additional specifications; this is the purpose of the W3C Character Model series. This Recommendation is the first in a set of three documents. In development are “Character Model for the World Wide Web 1.0: Normalization,” specifying early uniform normalization and string identity matching for text manipulation, and “Character Model for the World Wide Web 1.0: Resource Identifiers,” specifying IRI conventions. www.w3.org
Topologi announced the availability of a new product line of lightweight, Windows-based tools for processing XML data. The initial products to be released are called Judges, designed to perform a range of validation and data checking, and Detectives, designed to query and analyze XML documents and schemas. These are the first of several applications to be released in the near future. XML Judge lets you validate one or more files using XML Schemas, DTD, RELAX NG and Schematron. Generate usage schemas from a document set to check that new files do not contain valid but previously unused markup. XML Detective reports all the elements, attributes and namespaces: their parents, children, positions, XPaths and in which files these objects do, or do not occur. Topologi Complexity Detective with DTD Trimmer reports the Document Complexity Metric for XML documents, and includes a DTD trimmer that reduces a DTD to a minimal valid structure based on sampling document instances. Topologi Word Detective is a point and click XML indexing tool that reports on all the words found in elements or attributes in individual documents or across entire collections. Topologi Graphics Judge validates JPEG and TIFF files. This utility allows validation of JPEG files against the ISO standard. Good for ensuring that images and image metadata conform to format specifications. The initial products are all priced at US$29. www.topologi.com
IRISCO, a specialist in extraction and processing of PDM metadata, announced the immediate availability of its Elmo Search 2005 software. Elmo Search is an enterprise search product designed to meet the distinct needs of CAD Managers, R&D Managers, IT managers, end-users and senior managers. Elmo Search enables searching within AutoCAD, Autodesk Inventor, Word, Excel, PDF files, emails, and many more document types. It also allows the creation of separate groups of documents, or “collections”, each targeted at specific groups of interests within the enterprise, while complying with existing file security permissions. Elmo Search also constantly monitors document changes in a document collection, automatically indexing new and updated documents on-the-fly within seconds. Easy to use, deploy and manage, it can be installed in “less than 10 minutes”. This software solution ships in two languages (English and French), and is available to qualifying organizations as a free, fully functional, permanent 5,000-document license for download directly from the Elmo Website. The free license can be upgraded to accommodate much larger numbers of documents, at a cost that can be as low as 5 cents per document. Elmo Search 2005 not only addresses the needs of Autodesk users, but also those of all their colleagues, particularly those who share data with them throughout the enterprise. elmo.irisco.com
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