Global Information Management News & Articles

In a mobile world, it’s easy to forget about multilingual content. While translating and converting content into a variety of languages is not always easy or affordable, Lingotek is making things better for Drupal users. Thanks to a partnership with Acquia, the commercial company that provides support for Drupal, the Drupal community will be able to translate large amounts of its content.

When we think about global information management (GIM), it’s important that the right information gets translated into the right languages so it can be made available to the right people.

SDL Language Weaver, who just launched a new GIM product called SDL BeGlobal, knows these principles.

Common Sense Advisory analyst firm recently released their rankings of 16 content management systems attempting to answer the following question: “Which CMS delivers the best support for multilingual and multiregional use?”

Only a few months after they consolidated their business divisions under the SDL (news, site) brand, another major announcement is coming from the global info management organization: a new General Manager is set to lead the North American operations for their Web Content Management Solutions division, formerly known as Tridion.

Across Systems, the masterminds behind the Across Language Server has released the fifth generation of its central software platform. This latest product iteration introduces new features, as well as new concepts that employ business intelligence in multi-language documents and content.

If you were still not quite convinced that global content management is a pretty big deal nowadays, take a look at the latest research saying that 35% of companies surveyed have more than 10 websites with almost 50% of those published in over 5 languages.

This research comes from a Web CMS vendor e-Spirit (news, site). With all disclosures in place, let’s take a closer look at the numbers revealed during this exercise.

According to the vendor, global proliferation of a multitude of information channels and the general content boom are causing the worldwide web content crisis.

The survey of more than 100 businesses suggests this information explosion contributed to the following findings:

• 78% of content management systems (CMS) content authors are marketers
• 66% of those surveyed are frustratrated with the amount of time it takes to manage their global websites
• 20% of respondents complain about language barriers and content translation challenges
• 30% of marketers have up to 100 intranet sites and 50 external websites to maintain.

Sounds like an outcry for an efficient global approach to content management, doesn’t it?

Organizations struggle with the amount of content they have to manage 9 to 5, we get that. No pressure, but your website visitors are not likely to commiserate with your organizational woes and technological difficulties.

Your visitors are hungry for information, they’re impatient and demanding, and if they cannot find that (preferably, relevant and accurate) info quickly (and we mean really quickly), there’s a chance they may never come back to your lovely and freshly redesigned website with all those sweetly integrated recommendation and text mining engines.

Web content management technology on its own is of undeniable importance, we know. Nevertheless -- dare we say it? -- it is less about which CMS you use, but more about your business strategy, implementation and methods of using it. Most importantly, it is about people and processes around it. Hardly any Web CMS can do that job for you.

With all the aplomb of a wet Monday in November, SDL (news, site) (which refers to itself in a recent press release as the ominous sounding “The Group”) announced quite casually this week that it has made lots of money in the first half of this year. Net interim cash of £32.9 (US$ 56) million to be precise.