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>AuthorIT is a "total solution," meaning that your content creators would
>stop using FrameMaker, Word, RoboHelp, StarTeam, etc. All content would
>be created in and managed with AuthorIT. This could turn out to be a
>pretty sweeping revamp of your existing workflows. I would also suggest
>that you verify that AuthorIT provides support for all 15 languages on
>your target list, as well as any others you think you might add in the
>future.
Something to consider, too, is the life expectancy for your content. Is this material you'll have to continue to update for a long time? How much reuse of content is possible between publications? What's the quantity in topics/pages/modules? If you have several thousands of pages of material, AuthorIt probably won't suit your purposes.
David's right to bring up the localization issue. However, I spoke to two folks from AuthorIt just a couple of weeks ago, and they're very serious about their localization support. I have no doubt that they'll do what they need to support whatever language sets they need to support.
David also mentioned some of the enterprise content-management solutions like Documentum and Vasont. I've worked on a CMS project involving Vasont. We had all of our content in XML, and the content was localized into 25+ languages. It was a huge undertaking. However, having localized XML data proved to be worth it. Production time was reduced dramatically, and in the end, we essentially had a giant translation memory. The client saw some huge savings in that regard. Getting there was a bit painful, but ultimately it was the right direction for the client.
Bill Burns
Documentation Supervisor/MS Help MVP
Quality Design Systems
bburns -at- qds-solutions -dot- com
