Today comes news that SDL is acquiring Idiom, Inc. for US$21.7 million. Idiom was one of the first global information management systems (GIMS) to jump on the DITA bandwagon and they did it in a big way, forging partnerships with CCMS vendors Astoria Software and XyEnterprise CCMS, and authoring tools JustSystems XMetaL and PTC Arbortext Editor.

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?