Press Releases

Astoria Software and Idiom Technologies Poll Audience of Global Manufacturers on ECM Success Criteria

SAN MATEO, Calif. and WALTHAM, Mass. — October 22, 2007 — High costs, cumbersome regulatory requirements, lawsuits and lost business opportunities are just a few of the challenges facing multi-national manufacturers today as they seek solutions to produce multilingual product information that can be delivered across multiple end-user touch points. Many global manufacturers are not only successfully meeting these challenges, but are achieving cost benefits and competitive advantages from deploying enterprise content management (ECM) systems. To yield the greatest benefits, an enterprise needs to follow best practices in implementation.

Astoria Software and Idiom Technologies, Inc. today revealed findings surrounding the success factors for ECM adoption in a multilingual corporate environment.  The two companies harvested these results through a poll conducted during a recent Webinar titled, “Globalization Meets Content Management: A Best-of-Breed SaaS Approach.” The Webinar featured Chip Gettinger, vice president, services and sales support for Astoria Software; Bill Rabkin, globalization evangelist for Idiom Technologies; Frank Miller, senior consultant for Comtech Services, Inc.; and a customer executive representing a leading global engineering and manufacturing corporation.

More than 300 C-level executives, information architects, product management directors, developers, documentation specialists and technical writers registered for the event. The attendees were polled on the following key questions:

1) What is the most critical business challenge driving your organization to consider a global ECM solution?
Over one third (35.3%) of respondents said globalization and translation requirements comprised the toughest challenge, matching the percentage of respondents who cited content reuse across multiple business groups. Other top responses included time-to-market (17.6%) and customer satisfaction improvements (11.8%).

2) Select the factor that you think is most critical to meeting your project objectives.
More than one third (38.6%) of respondents said gaining executive buy-in was the most critical factor in achieving project goals. Other significant elements included successful pre-planning and change management (31.6%), validating the return on investment (ROI) (19.3%) and implementing a standard like the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) (10.5%).

The Webinar offered dynamic examples of how one global manufacturer with facilities in many different locations around the globe has experienced outstanding benefits from a state-of-the-art content management system designed to produce multilingual product documentation for use across the entire organization. The discussion also highlighted the advantages of a SaaS deployment that included adoption of the DITA information standard in a multilingual environment.

Attendees learned best practices to deploy ECM across an enterprise, including:

• Ways to build fast documentation solutions
• Methods for producing globalized documentation solutions
• Tactics for simplified, straight-forward customer communications
• Strategies for leveraging content management systems to improve a company's bottom line

An archived version of the Webinar is accessible at http://www.bulldogsolutions.net/ASTSW/AST10102007/frmRegistration.aspx?bdls=12043.

For more information about Astoria Software, please visit www.astoriasoftware.com. For more information about Idiom Technologies, please visit www.idiominc.com.

Related Links

Webinar Replay: "Globalization Meets Content Management: A Best-of-Breed SaaS Approach"
http://www.bulldogsolutions.net/ASTSW/AST10102007/frmRegistration.aspx?bdls=12043

Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA)
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=dita

Idiom Technologies, Inc.
www.idiominc.com

Comtech Services, Inc.
http://www.comtech-serv.com/

About Idiom Technologies, Inc.
Idiom® Technologies is the leading independent supplier of SaaS and on-premise software solutions that enable our customers and partners to accelerate the translation and localization process so content rapidly reaches markets worldwide. Unlike other companies serving this market, Idiom offers freedom of choice by embracing relevant industry standards, supporting popular content lifecycle solutions and partnering with the industry's leading language service providers.

As a result, WorldServer™ GMS solutions are fast becoming an industry standard, allowing customers to expand their international market reach while reducing costs and improving quality. WorldServer is used every day by organizations possessing many of the most recognizable global brands to more efficiently create and manage multilingual websites (e.g., AOL, eBay and Continental), localize software applications (e.g., Adobe, Beckman Coulter and Motorola) and streamline translation and localization of corporate and product documentation (e.g., Autodesk, Cisco and Business Objects).

Idiom is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, with offices throughout North America and in Europe. WorldServer solutions are also available through the company's Global Partner Network™. For more information, please visit www.idiominc.com.

About Astoria Software
Astoria Software drives efficiencies in dynamic product documentation with on-demand delivery of structured content management. GE Healthcare, Texas Instruments, and other Forbes Global 2000 manufacturers rely on Astoria to meet rigorous market demands - increasing product volumes, accelerating time-to-market, and concurrent global customization. Astoria On-Demand reduces documentation costs up to 90% and compresses product launch cycles from months to weeks. Astoria Software is based in San Mateo, California. For more information, visit www.astoriasoftware.com.

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Elena Annuzzi
TECHMarket Communications
650-704-8664
Elena@TECHMarket.com

Susan Willson
Greenough Communications
617-275-6529
Swillson@greenoughcom.com