It will be interesting to see how these companies blend. Really Strategies, while having some experience with DITA, has largely focused on traditional publishing, while DocZone.com has almost exclusively focused on DITA-based technical publishing. Over the last year we have seen each of them "inch" into the other's market as DITA is being adopted outside of technical publishing and publishing, and media companies have begun to look for low cost XML solutions (e.g. SaaS).

Publishing and media companies are under a lot of pressure to "innovate or die" as traditional print-based journalism has begun to rapidly disappear. Really Strategies offers a relatively high-end solution for publishing and media and a client/server-only version. DocZone.com provides a low cost SaaS version. Together they can potentially serve a broader range of customers.

DocZone.com is in a unique position in that its product is portable to any underlying XML technology. The value of portability was shown when their original platform XHive Docato (now known as XDB) was bought by EMC. They maintained that platform and rapidly built another version on top of open-source Alfresco. At the same time, they simplified the interface and consolidated their intellectual capital in the user experience. That type of innovation should stand them in good stead as they blend the technologies.

In addition Really Strategies will gain from DocZone.com's European presence and strong global focus.

Really Strategies has pledged to maintain DocZone.com's product and customer base. The combined companies will be headquartered in Audubon, PA. So.... (for the second day in a row), "tread with caution" if you are considering buying either DocZone or Really Strategies, as it could be quite some time before things truly settle down.

Now SDL has acquired Component Content Management (CCM) vendor XyEnterprise. Time will tell how this acquisition plays out, but it does illustrate how the CCM marketplace could be consolidating into larger players

At first glance it appears to be an odd acquisition, since, as our CCM research subscribers know, XyEnterprise Contenta and SDL Trisoft compete head to head in the marketplace. On closer look however, there is some logic in the acquisition. SDL Trisoft provides pretty strong DITA capabilities and reuse in a multilingual environment. Though not a large vendor, XyEnterprise brings a range of products:

• Contenta, a DITA and S1000D CCM
• XML Professional Publisher (XPP), an XML-rendering engine
• LiveContent, a dynamic delivery engine

SDL says that XPP and LiveContent will be integrated almost immediately. SDL has also indicated that Contenta's S1000D version will continue to exist as a separate product and the strengths of the DITA version (e.g., workflow, authoring bridges) will get integrated into SDL Trisoft. That will not be an easy task, and we anticipate it will take years to complete.

So there are some additions with XPP and LiveContent, and some gap filling (e.g., S1000D), but SDL has a long way to go to make this a truly integrated product. And while XPP is a good rendering engine with a long track record relative to its nearest competitors, it has also grown a little long in the tooth now, and has not kept up to date with all of the newer standards (like XSL-FO).

As in all acquisitions there will inevitably be fall-out and change, and just how well a small New England-based firm like XYEnterprise will operate as a part of a European roll-up remains an open question. How nicely they will play with the Trisoft team is also something to watch closely. So.... (you could see this line coming), tread with caution if you are considering buying either Trisoft or Contenta, as it will be quite some time before things truly settle down.

In simple terms the Quark XML Author 3.0 has been integrated with IBM FileNet Content Manager P8 4.5 to provide DITA functionality in an enterprise environment. And though most industry partnerships are barely worth the paper they are written on this one is at least interesting - if not quite the revolution it proposes.

This is not the first time that FileNet has supported XML; they had an integration with Arbortext about 10 years back that enabled companies to author in XML and store in FileNet. However, at that time it was Arbortext that supplied the smarts for managing the XML, FileNet was essentially a "dumb repository." This time is a bit different. IBM has modified FileNet to support DITA and XML, with Quark providing a Word-based XML authoring experience.

To be clear, though we welcome this announcement, as always we have to treat it with a good dose of skepticism. Such skepticism is justified as this is not the first time an XML implementation in FileNet has been pushed to the market. Additionally this announcement is not an acquisition of Quark by IBM for the purposes of driving DITA -- simply a partnership, and both have many partnerships.

Nevertheless, there are three industry trends that are currently driving the adoption of XML, Component Content Management (CCM) and DITA in the enterprise.

It is becoming possible to author in a familiar, non-threatening editor
For years, XML editors have presented a technical interface to users, largely because these editors have been around for more than a decade and used to be used by technical authors. Now tools are becoming Word-like or even Word with XML "under-the-cover.". For example Quark XML Author for Word is (unsurprisingly) Microsoft Word with a C# plug-in. It looks and acts like Word, with underlying structure is supported by Word styles. It is an XML editor, but more importantly it is Word.

DITA for narrative documents
The OASIS DITA for Enterprise Business Documents subcommittee has been working on solutions to present an aggregated view (e.g., document view) of DITA rather than the traditional topic-oriented view. DITA content can now be presented as a document that looks like a traditional Word document, but with DITA topic structure under the covers.

Growing awareness of the cost of unstructured content
A growing number of organizations now see the unstructured content that exists in narrative business documents as standing in the way of processes that could potentially be automated end-to-end. This lack of structure leads to inconsistency, poor readability, and the inability to reuse content. In many cases, because of the inherent lack of structure, content remain hidden. Moving to highly structured content can be another step towards optimization and automation of content processes.

IBM is of course a sizable market player, so their attempt to broaden the reach of DITA and by default XML and CCM across the enterprise is noteworthy. With EMC also making some moves into the sector through their acquisitions of XHive and Document Sciences, it's a market that is starting to heat up, the big question we are all asking is, "is this just a marketing phase, or is this a trend." We'll keep watching.

In recent years Quark has lost ground to Adobe InDesign. There are many reasons for that, but from our perspective (XML & Component Content Management), Quark simply did not handle XML very well, and InDesign was more capable in that area. Quark began to signal an interest in XML when they announced the hiring of their new President and CEO, Ray Schiavone, formerly President and CEO of Arbortext, one of the frontrunners in XML-based authoring and publishing products. Schiavone brought a considerable amount of knowledge about XML to Quark and quietly hired a number of former employees of Arbortext that had left after its acquisition by PTC.

Quark more strongly positioned themselves in the XML multichannel publishing world with the launch of their Quark Dynamic Publishing Solution (DPS) in March of this year. DPS uses Quark Transformation Engine, essentially an XML rules-based engine, to convert content coming in from many sources to XML then renders it to multiple channels.

The acquisition of In.vision now takes the XML publishing process back to the content contributor -- Word of course being a ubiquitous authoring tool. While some would argue that QuarkXPress is an authoring tool, it is really oriented towards designers - few content contributors would ever want to work in Quark directly.

What does Quark gets out of the acquisition?

• Integrated XML-based content contributor software, making dynamic multichannel publishing accessible to broader areas of the enterprise
• Expertise and functionality in SPL (Pharmaceutical XML standard) and DITA (fastest growing XML standard)

What does In.vision get out of the acquisition?

• Global sales force
• Access to broader opportunities for the use of its products

But what does the customer get out of this? Well, In.vision and Quark have been working together as partners for a number of months, with some hand-offs to show for it. But the integration is not complete. For example, you can't just say "publish to DPS" from Xpress Author. DPS is treated much like a call to the DITA Open Toolkit. Round-tripping from XML to design to XML is possible, but not productized yet.

In the long run, customers may see some benefits:

• Access to XML-based publishing software that allows not just simple layout, but full camera-ready layout
• More DITA-based publishing for the enterprise

This acquisition moves In.vision from a small XML solutions company into a much larger realm, and this allows Quark to move closer to XML-based enterprise dynamic publishing. But full integration will take time. We'll keep watching...

While SDL's GIMS and Idiom often went head-to-head as competitors vying for content management integration, when it came to XML-based content component management, Idiom frequently won because of it's strong XML and DITA support.

So in light of SDL's recent moves, SDL now supports a variety of different tools in this space:

• Acquisition of Tridion (web content component management system)
• Minority share investment in Trisoft (multichannel content component system)
• Acquisition of Idiom (strong support of XML-based global information management)

Of course, as with most roll-ups, these products partially overlap as well. Customers should not assume an "integrated suite" here, at least not yet. But it makes me wonder...could an XML-based authoring tool be in the offing for SDL as well?

Content components facilitate translation through content reuse (write once, use many; translate once, use many), decreased cost of preparing translated content for multichannel publishing, and improved cross-channel translation (content is no longer siloed based on format such as HTML, Quark, etc.). DITA provides additional support for translation not found in traditional XML. However, with the translation of components rather than full documents, there does come an increase in the complexity of translation management as there are many more "chunks" to manage.

This is just an investment, not an acquisition, and I expect SDL will continue supporting its partnerships with Astoria, Vasont, and XyEnterprise. But I think that SDL's investment (along with EMC's X-Hive acquisition last August) signals greater attention to component content management and XML among larger vendors.

The availability of SaaS options is a welcome sight in the component content management space. Often the customers that need CCM the most do not have the budget or the technical resources required to support a client-server product. SaaS is particularly appealing to global teams with global content because it can facilitate 24x7 access and translation linkages.

The SiberSafe product has been one of the few lower-cost solutions in this space, and a SaaS alternative presumably makes it even more affordable, but the effectiveness of any hosted offering is also heavily dependent on customer service, not one of SiberLogic's strength in the past...

This type of payment plan is not unusual for the mobile phone industry, but is certainly radical for the SaaS space. Enterprises typically turn to a SaaS provider for two reasons: they don't want to or don't have the resources to support the technology, or they don't want to tie up funds to purchase the technology -- they'd rather pay for it over time.

DocZone's "Pay-Per-Minute" service is certainly focused on the issue of costs. Customers can buy a block of minutes for a fixed price per minute, with larger blocks receiving discounted rates. Rates range from 39 cents/minute for 2,500 shared minutes a month to 24 cents/minute for 50,000 shared minutes a month. There is no limit on the number of users that can share the minutes.

At first glance, this new pricing scheme sounds expensive. After all, haven't we all at some point experienced outsized mobile phone bills until we found a better plan or controlled usage? However, looking at it from the perspective of a small business with, say, six users, the numbers could become enticing:

• A Traditional/Classic plan would cost $695/user per month, and let's say two reviewers ($50/month) or $4,270/month
• A block of 10,000 shared minutes would cost 34 cents/minute or $3400/month.

Of course, how many customers know how many minutes they spend using a technology? DocZone.com says they have been tracking usage since the product launched and are convinced that this will provide considerable cost savings to companies.

At minimum people may learn to be really productive. They just need to remember to log off when they answer a call or take a break! It should be noted that DocZone.com will continue to offer the traditional payment plan for those not interested in per-minute payment.

This is definitely radical, distinctly different, and it will be interesting to watch any ripple effect, not only in the content component industry, but among other SaaS products as well.

This came as a bit of a surprise, because Interwoven has had some history of focus in this area. Its "TeamXML" product (released in 2001 after an acquisition) and related integration with Arbortext Editor and XyEnterprise's XML Professional Publisher (XPP) could provide some level of XML content support, content component management, content re-use, and multi-channel publishing. However, TeamXML quietly faded away. I have been pursuing clarification on whether this functionality still existed somehow, because The Rockley Group has numerous clients who license Interwoven and want to be able to use it for more than Web Content Management.

It seems TeamXML never accompanied the major TeamSite upgrade to version 6.0 some time back. Yesterday's final response on the subject came via e-mail from Interwoven, "Team XML is no longer a product offering, thus we don't have a significant amount to share with this report."

Like other CMS Watch analysts, I don't provide advice to vendors, but I find it a little surprising given EMC's recent move more deeply into the content component management field with its acquisition of X-Hive.

Update, 05, September
Interwoven writes to clarify that its customers "have not been asking for XML-based document management," but that its WCM tools use XML to manage website components and navigation.

Three additions in particular provide responses to three frequent complaints heard about v1.0. The new version adds the long awaited "Bookmap" -- better support for books as output -- which includes book elements and metadata in a map structure. This version also includes improved indexing and support for adding structured metadata through the specialization process.

Bookmap provides the structures for separating parts of books that are really navigation and flow-based from content, as well as providing structures for things like title page, front matter, and so on. These changes will make DITA much more palatable to users who deliver books as part of their documentation set.

Revised indexing structures provide the ability to create effective, complete indexes. Definitely lacking in v1.

Finally, the addition of support for specializing attributes provides key functionality that was a glaring issue in v1.0. Users implementing v1.0 were faced with the option of living with the built-in metadata structures of the standard, or to customize outside of the specialization mechanism. This second work-around, however, introduced issues with backwards compatibility for new and improved versions of DITA. The new functionality in v1.1 gives users the ability to extend metadata structures within the specialization framework, making it easier to upgrade to new versions of DITA as they are delivered.

At first glance, it seemed unusual. What about EMC's existing XML offering and content component management capabilities? Una Kearns, EMC's Director of Technology says, "XML is really coming of age; we see it as being central to information management. EMC has been looking for a rich and robust XML repository solution with great strengths in XML and XML query management and X-Hive was the product that measured up. We're very excited about the opportunities to integrate with our existing content component strategy and provide next-generation smart delivery of content."

Over the next year EMC says it plans to have X-Hive/DB become core to every EMC product offering that requires a native XML repository for XML content, and provide robust XQuery for fast search, retrieval and content delivery. Eventually the functionality of Docato will also be integrated. We anticipate that X-hive will first be integrated in EMC's relatively new DITA offering (its "Technical Publications Solution").

Coming on the heels of the recent Tridion acquisition by SDL, which validated the role of XML and content component management in translation, this move highlights the value of XML as an information management tool, moves content component management (CCM) fully into the realm of the enterprise, and increases the functionality of search through XQuery. This also changes the CCM market dynamics, where currently the key players are small companies that provide good solutions, to one where there is now a "heavy" Tier 1/Enterprise competitor in town.

This acquisitions is not without its shortcomings. What's going to happen to the existing X-hive customer base and partner integrations? While EMC has promised to continue to support them and improve the product, I suspect that X-hive will become so deeply integrated that these customers will either be converted to full Documentum or fall by the wayside. Also, it adds another repository to EMC|Documentum's stack after the company spent a lot of energy touting its "single repository" approach to enterprise content management.

I also wonder if this move will be as industry-shifting as EMC has positioned it. Will a good product disappear into the arms of a really big company? Will the integration occur but only be realized in Technical Publications Solution, only one facet of content component management? Will the benefit to the enterprise information management extend only to XQuery and not full content component management to every aspect of enterprise information management? We'll be watching...

Its value lies in not trying to cover the whole spectrum of technical communication; rather it focuses on XML content standards and what it means to business to effectively adopt them. The conference also addresses other issues, such as ROI, migration, authoring best practices, technology, and team / culture challenges. On the whole it's a highly focused event that provides lots of good information for adopting XML content standards.