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JustSystems, the largest independent software vendor in Japan and a worldwide leader in XML and information management technologies, today announced the availability of XMetaL Author Essential. The move gives the company’s European resellers, systems integrators, and other partners, as well as large enterprise customers, a full-featured, XML-based authoring tool that can be integrated into their broader structured content solutions.

“XMetaL helps organizations get to market faster with information products by bringing structure to managing high volumes of valuable content,” said Aaron Deitcher, vice president of North America and EMEA for JustSystems. “XMetaL Author Essential extends those advantages to our European partners, who are looking for best-of-breed XML authoring software to integrate with the solutions they are bringing to market, as well as large enterprise customers that want to customize and integrate their in-house systems.”

Inside XMetaL Author Essential

XMetaL Author Essential lets content creators efficiently create information that can be repurposed into the languages and formats demanded by content recipients. JustSystems partners and customers can combine XMetaL Author Essential with content management and publishing systems of their choice to deliver a solution that can be used by writers and reviewers even without XML knowledge.

Highlights of XMetaL Author Essential include:

• Ensures the validity of XML documents, keeping authors focused on creating value-added content
• Provides flexible interface and multiple views, allowing authors to work in a simplified, word processor-like environment, while providing power users access to all aspects of a document’s structure and code
• Allows authors to create reusable content, improving the consistency and quality of deliverables, while reducing translation costs
• Accelerates custom integrations with high-level APIs that support both open source and commercial systems
• Optimizes the entire user experience and ensures high adoption with configuration options that meet specific needs of content creators and unique workflows
• Offers unparalleled support for industry standards and interoperability with enterprise applications
• Ensures a familiar work environment and avoids costly, locked-in proprietary technologies by taking advantage of standard programming languages, development environments, style sheets, access protocols and all major XML specifications

Nick Mongston, EMEA sales and marketing director for JustSystems, said, “In today’s current economic climate, we have provided an industry-leading solution to enterprise customers looking to save money in the deployment of XML authoring solutions. XMetaL Author Essential gives European organizations the ultimate authoring solution to generate large volumes of information requiring customization, personalization, or distribution in multiple formats and languages.”

Pricing and Availability

XMetaL Author Essential is available today with prices starting at 441€. Interested parties can contact their local resellers or contact Tracy Newman of JustSystems at +44 (0) 1462 895 014. A trial download of XMetaL Author Essentials is available at http://na.justsystems.com/Essential.

For more information on JustSystems, please visit http://www.justsystems.com/ and the JustSystems Knowledge Center at http://na.justsystems.com/KnowledgeCenter.

Recent News and Resources

News Release: JustSystems Revs XMetaL Author Enterprise for Documentum Webtop; http://na.justsystems.com/releases-220

News Release: JustSystems Unveils XMetaL Community Forums; http://na.justsystems.com/releases-215

News release: JustSystems XMetaL Author Enterprise Adds MS Windows Vista Support; http://na.justsystems.com/releases-216

About JustSystems

JustSystems is a leading global software provider with three decades of successful innovation in office productivity, information management, and consumer and enterprise software. With over 2,500 customers worldwide, the company is continuing a global expansion strategy based on its xfy enterprise software, XMetaL content lifecycle solutions, and its pioneering work in enabling XBRL financial reporting technologies. JustSystems is one of the 2008 KMWorld 100 Companies that Matter in Knowledge Management, a 2008 EContent 100 member, and was recognized on the 2008 KMWorld Trend-Setting Product list for XMetaL. Major strategic partnerships include IBM, Oracle and EMC. For more information, please visit http://www.justsystems.com.

All brand names and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

JustSystems Helps Service Bulletins at Eurocopter Take Flight

NEW YORK–JustSystems, the largest independent software vendor in Japan and a worldwide leader in XML and information management technologies, today announced that XMetaL, its market-leading structured authoring application, is implemented by Eurocopter, the world’s leading helicopter manufacturer in the civil and public services markets. Using XMetaL, Eurocopter has improved the production and quality of the more than 600 Service Bulletins it publishes each year.

“Eurocopter’s Service Bulletin teams face the daunting task of creating and maintaining hundreds of impeccably accurate maintenance documents in multiple languages for thousands of customers,” said Jake Sorofman, senior vice president of marketing and business development for JustSystems. “Their XMetaL solution simplifies the process, replacing complex structural display with an intuitive user interface that hides the complexity of the underlying markup from non-technical users.”

Emily Poisson and Yves Roques of Eurocopter said, “The challenge we faced was that authoring our Service Bulletins required technical writing skills we had lost to subcontractors. We turned to JustSystems’ partner Sollan and XMetaL for a solution that embedded the technical writing knowledge into the tool itself. Now, our helicopter specialists can focus on writing helicopter content, while XMetaL handles the structured content details and Sollan development helps the user with contextual assistance.”

XMetaL at Eurocopter

Eurocopter provides Service Bulletins for its over 100 helicopter models as part of its ongoing, post-sales customer service and support. Available in English, French, German, and Spanish, the Service Bulletins describe any inspection and/or modifications that must be made to helicopters in the field. Service Bulletin content is based on ATA 100 standard augmented by Eurocopter requirements, which defines both document appearance and content including pictorial design, images, tables, and more.

Prior to XMetaL, the customized version of Microsoft Word that the company was using as its authoring tool lacked appropriate authoring controls, leading to quality and consistency problems. With XMetaL, documentary rules are embedded in the tool itself, helping Eurocopter to maintain its Service Bulletin writing know-how.

To achieve this goal, Eurocopter worked with Sollan, a key JustSystems partner, to define requirements, develop business processes, and ultimately deliver the “YES” solution, which is built on XMetaL and XMetaL extensions. The YES solution simplifies the entire Service Bulletin authoring process. The author can focus on improving the quality of Service Bulletins while XMetaL ensures a consistent Eurocopter style by enforcing the appropriate terminology or paragraph.

The YES solution lets Eurocopter produce several documents from one master file, which facilitates content reuse and ensures information accuracy and consistency. Any changes to the master file are automatically integrated into final documents impacted by these changes. The YES solution also expedites translation by automatically translating chapter titles, standard sentences, and other document components. Other benefits include Service Bulletin management improvements and reduction in the number of master files.

Paul Terray, project leader at Sollan, said, “Eurocopter’s overall objective is to provide up-to-date maintenance information for high-cost capital equipment where safety is critical. They can’t afford to make a mistake in their documentation. To deliver the YES solution, we had to deal with information management and structure issues, and develop a system that reflected Eurocopter’s business processes. XMetaL is the perfect technology for this solution — it uses standard technologies, provides a friendly interface to the writer, and offers a base for our development to support Eurocopter processes.”

For more information about Eurocopter, please visit http://www.eurocopter.com. For more information about Sollan, please visit http://www.sollan.com. For more information on JustSystems, please visit http://www.justsystems.com/ and the JustSystems Knowledge Center at http://na.justsystems.com/KnowledgeCenter.

Dans le cadre de ce projet, Sollan a mis en place un nouvel outil de production documentaire, en quatre langues basé sur XMetaL, destiné à la réalisation de documents officiels appelés Services Bulletins.

Lien vers l’article (en anglais) :

Speed of issue: Eurocopter moves to XML-based service bulletins
Malcolm Wheatley, senior contributing editor, Marignane, France — Manufacturing Business Technology, 6/11/2008 1:09:00 PM