Content Management Matters ™

CMS Watch has a new report out that many organizations are sure to want to read. It's called The XML & Component Content Management Report 2008 and it's review of the leading Component Content Management vendors and XML tools on the market today. With all the conversations happening around DITA today and the number of vendors coming out with XML-based solutions, you need to understand the market well to know how to work within it.

Refresh Software has just released an updated version of its proprietary component content management offering.

Woven together by DITA, XML and web publishing experts, SR2 7.1 utilizes an SOA-based J2EE content repository. It installs directly into the IT back-end and sports a simple interface for front-end users.

SR2 also:

• Automates the development of technical documentation
• Makes it easy to author content on a hosted interface, or via Microsoft Word
• Enables XML content publishing across the Web, or on intranets, internet, RSS and portals
• Deploys DITA-based content architecture for topic-related authoring and content repurposing
• Supports any programming language using Web services or SQL, including .NET and Java

The updated offering also supports data migration, hot deploy external triggers, back-end search, and -- for the aesthetes -- customized WYSIWYG buttons.

JustSystems is hosting a complimentary webinar called "Fast-track Single Sourcing: The Road to DITA Success," part of its XML Advisor Webinar series.

The event takes place on Thursday, 25 October at 1 PM Eastern. Attendees will learn how to build a business case for the Darwin Information Type Architecture (DITA), currently the standard for XML-based and single-source (a.k.a. component) content management.

You'll also learn how to define topic templates, conditional text and metadata; considerations for specialization and training end users; and how to customize DITA output or create a tool checklist.

Lots of handy-dandy stuff. Register here.

In.vision and Vasont have just developed a product integration relationship to better address the needs of publishing clients.

In.vision is a software provider for enterprise XML authoring; Vasont builds single-source ECM systems that help manage and store multilingual content.

In particular, the pairing will yield an extension that allows Xpress Author for Microsoft Word users to access, deposit, search for and reuse content kept in Vasont databases. Word users will also be able to build XML documents that include sophisticated data structures (think DITA) for multi-channel publishing.

CMS Watch and the Rockley Group recently teamed up to create a more comprehensive CMS industry report.

To aid in this venture they are releasing a call to Component Content Management users to participate in a web-based survey. Those who complete it may receive a free hour of consulting from the content-savvy pair.

In an ongoing effort to refine (and define) single-source content management, Vasont releases Vasont 11, the latest version of the powerful solution intended to help businesses better organize multi-tiered, structured and repetitive but multi-lateral information.

Sound convoluted? Baby, you don't know the half of it.

Analyst firm CMS Watch and consulting services vendor The Rockley Group have announced plans to team up on a new CMS industry report. The collaboration will produce the forthcoming "Content Component Management Report" and will focus on and evaluate Content Component Management technology, otherwise known as single-sourcing content management technology.

This is an area of the CMS landscape that has historically not been well understood, nor broadly discussed. Read on for the report details.