DITA Maturity Model

JustSystems Announces DITA Maturity Model Co-Authored with IBM

Industry's First Graduated Methodology for Implementing Darwin Information Typing Architecture to be Featured in Joint Webinar

New York, NY, USA. February 04, 2008.

JustSystems, Inc., the largest independent software vendor in Japan and a worldwide leader in XML and information management technologies, today announced the availability of the DITA Maturity Model, which was co-authored with IBM and defines the industry's first graduated, step-by-step methodology for implementing Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA). The co-authored maturity model will be introduced in a JustSystems and IBM joint webinar on February 5, 2008.

"DITA makes sense wherever content is highly branded or regulated and broadly leveraged, from technical documents to marketing materials, regulatory filings, customer communications and beyond," said Paul Wlodarczyk, vice president of solutions consulting at JustSystems. "The DITA Maturity Model recognizes that each organization is adopting DITA at its own pace. So, the model starts from square one, laying out the key steps that any organization can take to successfully adopt DITA."

"DITA is emerging as one of the preferred approaches for document authoring and publishing due to its cost and efficiency benefits," said Ken Bisconti, vice president, IBM ECM products and strategy. "To greater leverage content reuse, more technical publication organizations are making the move to content management systems, where DITA becomes an increasingly important component. The DITA Maturity Model will help provide organizations with a methodology, best practices and success criteria for a graduated, stepwise path to full exploitation of DITA."

A Stepwise Approach to DITA Migration

One of DITA's most attractive features is its support for incremental adoption. Users can start quickly and easily with DITA using a subset of its capabilities, and then add investment over time as their content strategy evolves and expands to cover more requirements and content areas. However, this continuum of adoption has also resulted in confusion, as communities at different stages of adoption claim radically different numbers for cost of migration and return on investment.

Authored by DITA experts Michael Priestley of IBM Corporate User Technologies and Amber Swope of JustSystems, the DITA Maturity Model addresses this confusion by dividing DITA adoption into six levels, each with its own required investment and associated return on investment. Users can assess their own capabilities and goals relative to the model and choose the initial adoption level appropriate for their needs and schedule. The six levels of DITA adoption include:

Level 1: Topics. The most minimum DITA adoption requires the migration of the current XML content sources.

Level 2: Scalable Reuse. The major activity at this level is to break down the content in topics that are stored as individual files and use DITA maps to collect and organize the content into reusable units for assembly into specific deliverables.

Level 3: Specialization and Customization. Now, users expand the information architecture to be a full content model, which explicitly defines the different types of content required to meet different author and audience needs and specify how to meet these needs using structured, typed content.

Level 4: Automation and Integration. Once content is specialized, users can leverage their investments in semantics with automation of key processes and begin tying content together even across different specializations or authoring disciplines.

Level 5: Semantic Bandwidth. As DITA diversifies to occupy more roles within an organization, a cross-application, cross-silo solution that shares DITA as a common semantic currency lets groups use the toolset most appropriate for their content authoring and management needs.

Level 6: Universal Semantic Ecosystem. As DITA provides for scalable semantic bandwidth across content silos and applications, a new kind of semantic ecosystem emerges: Semantics that can move with content across old boundaries, wrap unstructured content, and provide validated integration with semi-structured content and managed data sources.

The upcoming webinar, "The DITA Maturity Model: Fast-Tracking Your Enterprise Content and XML Adoption Strategy" will be held Tuesday, February 5, 2008, at 11:00 am PT/2:00 pm ET. Sponsored by KMWorld Magazine, the webinar will be moderated by KMWorld publisher Andy Moore and will feature DITA Maturity Model authors Amber Swope, principal consultant at JustSystems and Michael Priestly, lead IBM DITA architect, IBM Corporate User Technologies. To attend the webinar, please visit:

http://www.kmworld.com/webinars/justsystems/05FEB2008.

For more information on IBM, please visit http://www.ibm.com.

About JustSystems

JustSystems is a leading global software provider with a 27-year history of successful innovation in office productivity, information management, and consumer and enterprise software. With over 2,500 customers worldwide and annual revenues over $110M, the company is continuing a global expansion strategy that includes the launch of its new enterprise software offering called xfy (pronounced 'x-fie'), and XMetaL content lifecycle solutions. JustSystems has worldwide office locations including global headquarters in Tokyo, and regional offices in New York, Palo Alto, Vancouver, and London. The company currently employs over 1,000 people. Major strategic partnerships include IBM, Oracle, and EMC.

Prepared by Robin Cover for The XML Cover Pages archive. See general references in "Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA XML)."

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JustSystems, Inc., the largest independent software vendor in Japan and a worldwide leader in XML and information management technologies, today announced the availability of the DITA Maturity Model, which was co-authored with IBM and defines the industry's first graduated, step-by-step methodology for implementing Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA). The co-authored maturity model will be introduced in a JustSystems and IBM joint webinar on February 5, 2008. "DITA makes sense wherever content is highly branded or regulated and broadly leveraged, from technical documents to marketing materials, regulatory filings, customer communications and beyond," said Paul Wlodarczyk, vice president of solutions consulting at JustSystems. "The DITA Maturity Model recognizes that each organization is adopting DITA at its own pace. So, the model starts from square one, laying out the key steps that any organization can take to successfully adopt DITA." "DITA is emerging as one of the preferred approaches for document authoring and publishing due to its cost and efficiency benefits," said Ken Bisconti, vice president, IBM ECM products and strategy. "To greater leverage content reuse, more technical publication organizations are making the move to content management systems, where DITA becomes an increasingly important component. The DITA Maturity Model will help provide organizations with a methodology, best practices and success criteria for a graduated, stepwise path to full exploitation of DITA." A Stepwise Approach to DITA Migration One of DITA's most attractive features is its support for incremental adoption. Users can start quickly and easily with DITA using a subset of its capabilities, and then add investment over time as their content strategy evolves and expands to cover more requirements and content areas. However, this continuum of adoption has also resulted in confusion, as communities at different stages of adoption claim radically different numbers for cost of migration and return on investment. Authored by DITA experts Michael Priestley of IBM Corporate User Technologies and Amber Swope of JustSystems, the DITA Maturity Model addresses this confusion by dividing DITA adoption into six levels, each with its own required investment and associated return on investment. Users can assess their own capabilities and goals relative to the model and choose the initial adoption level appropriate for their needs and schedule. The six levels of DITA adoption include: Level 1: Topics. The most minimum DITA adoption requires the migration of the current XML content sources. Level 2: Scalable Reuse. The major activity at this level is to break down the content in topics that are stored as individual files and use DITA maps to collect and organize the content into reusable units for assembly into specific deliverables. Level 3: Specialization and Customization. Now, users expand the information architecture to be a full content model, which explicitly defines the different types of content required to meet different author and audience needs and specify how to meet these needs using structured, typed content. Level 4: Automation and Integration. Once content is specialized, users can leverage their investments in semantics with automation of key processes and begin tying content together even across different specializations or authoring disciplines. Level 5: Semantic Bandwidth. As DITA diversifies to occupy more roles within an organization, a cross-application, cross-silo solution that shares DITA as a common semantic currency lets groups use the toolset most appropriate for their content authoring and management needs. Level 6: Universal Semantic Ecosystem. As DITA provides for scalable semantic bandwidth across content silos and applications, a new kind of semantic ecosystem emerges: Semantics that can move with content across old boundaries, wrap unstructured content, and provide validated integration with semi-structured content and managed data sources. The upcoming webinar, "The DITA Maturity Model: Fast-Tracking Your Enterprise Content and XML Adoption Strategy" will be held Tuesday, February 5, 2008, at 11:00 am PT/2:00 pm ET. Sponsored by KMWorld Magazine, the webinar will be moderated by KMWorld publisher Andy Moore and will feature DITA Maturity Model authors Amber Swope, principal consultant at JustSystems and Michael Priestly, lead IBM DITA architect, IBM Corporate User Technologies. To attend the webinar, please visit: http://www.kmworld.com/webinars/justsystems/05FEB2008. For more information on IBM, please visit http://www.ibm.com. About JustSystems JustSystems is a leading global software provider with a 27-year history of successful innovation in office productivity, information management, and consumer and enterprise software. With over 2,500 customers worldwide and annual revenues over $110M, the company is continuing a global expansion strategy that includes the launch of its new enterprise software offering called xfy (pronounced 'x-fie'), and XMetaL content lifecycle solutions. JustSystems has worldwide office locations including global headquarters in Tokyo, and regional offices in New York, Palo Alto, Vancouver, and London. The company currently employs over 1,000 people. Major strategic partnerships include IBM, Oracle, and EMC. Prepared by Robin Cover for The XML Cover Pages archive. See general references in "Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA XML)."