Reasonable Request, Don't You Think?
May 18, 2004
A poster to TECHWR-L wrote today:
My company is considering moving our documentation to an xml-based content management system. However, we are having a hard time finding tools that are easy to learn and reasonably priced (it must cost less than $12,000 to get 10 users up and running, but is expandable to 100 users). Our requirements are:
* wysiwyg xml authoring tool that was created for writers (not developers)
* includes xsl stylesheets for creating HTML help, Webhelp, oracle help
* includes workflow, version control, check in/check out
* can be used with sql and/or oracle databases
While a few of the details are a little out of place to me (e.g., why specifically mention SQL and Oracle?), I like the writer’s focus on a price point for a fixed number of users. I always like thinking of technology rollouts in terms like this (getting n users to get up and running with x and y functionality).
I have to wonder how many solutions there are for the author of this post. ArborText Epic is too expensive, and a lower-cost, general-purpose, XML-aware CMS solution like that from Ektron would likely require some work to support output of chapter- and book-length material to PDF. Also, another poster has already correctly pointed out that the necessary XSL style sheets would require a fair bit of work.
Still, isn’t it reasonable to assume you could launch basic single-source publishing for $1200/user?
Posted by Bill Trippe at May 18, 2004 10:55 PM
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Not only is this a reasonable request - but there ARE systems very solid CMS' out there in this price range.
It's just you need to find the small innovative guys that don't charge $1million for the consulting on implementation.
Posted by Sol Rosenberg at May 23, 2004 3:28 PM