Mark Logic: A Lifesaver for Content Producing Organizations
January 23, 2009
Technology has to reduce costs, streamline product production, and deliver a competitive advantage. Without a payoff, the zippiest technology is not worth too much. Beyond Search casts a skeptical eye on technology that is disconnected from the real-world of today’s financial crises.
This week, the Beyond Search team was given a briefing about some interesting new functions and services for the Mark Logic platform. If you are not familiar with Mark Logic, click here to read an interview with the company’s senior manager, Dave Kellogg, or click here to access Mark Logic’s description of its next generation data management platform and content processing system. (The demos are quite useful by the way.)
What’s new?
First, Mark Logic has developed a MarkLogic Connector for SharePoint. There are somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 million SharePoint licenses in the world at this time (January 2009). Microsoft provides some basic tools, but for industrial strength content manipulation, the Mark Logic platform with its support industry standards like the XQuery language and Open XML adds beef to the anorexic SharePoint frame.
With the connector, an organization can move content automatically from SharePoint into the Mark Logic system. Once in the Mark Logic environment, the content can be sliced, diced, index, classified, and repurposed. In fact, once set up, the SharePoint system feeds content into an automated publishing system that is more agile than the multi million dollar enterprise publishing systems that IBM and Hewlett Packard are pushing on their customers.
Mark Logic’s SharePoint connector includes an added bonus. if a SharePoint system goes south, the content in the Mark Logic system can be made available to a rebuilt SharePoint system. The benefit is that Mark Logic adds an no-cost insurance policy for SharePoint. Although a solid product, SharePoint has idiosyncrasies and the Mark Logic platform, the new “active library mirroring”, and the “workflow integration” components give content producing organizations levers on which to boost their competitive advantage.
Think automation. Think cost control. Think product agility.
Second, Mark Logic Toolkit for Word is a new and much needed rework of a 25 year old technology. In the 10980s, publishing and content producing organizations used XyWrite III+ to provide writers with an environment. The writer would type into the XyWrite system. When the file was saved, XyWrite would perform important housekeeping functions automatically. For example, a newspaper company could ask a reporter to file using XyWrite. When the story was complete, XyWrite would insert the reporter’s name and title, insert standard tags, and include the typesetting codes so the story could flow into a DEC 20 ITPS publishing system or its equivalent. XyWrite was acquired by IBM and orphaned hundreds of publishing customers, including the US House of Representatives to name one.
Now Mark Logic has created a XyWrite for the 21st century. The idea is that a content producing organization can build an application with the MarkLogic Toolkit for Word. The application runs in Word. Since many professionals work exclusively in Word, almost any content task can be automated in part. The idea is to remove certain burdensome tasks like inserting metadata into a document, copying it to a specific location, and notifying a colleague that the draft is available for inclusion in another document. The Toolkit makes it possible to eliminate some of the human tasks in order to reduce content production delays and minimize errors introduced via repetitive tasks. Humans get tired. Software does not. If you want additional detail, click here.
Mark Logic interface for Word. © Mark Logic, 2009. Used with permission of Mark Logic.
Net Net
Beyond Search tracks innovations in data and information management. Mark Logic is an interesting company because it points the way content manipulation systems are moving; namely:
- Open standards and easy extensibility
- Practical functions that reduce the costs associated with content production and manipulation
- Support for applications that are–whether one likes or dislikes SharePoint and Word or not–the standard for certain organizational tasks.
The inclusion of a work flow component adds to the usefulness of the Mark Logic solution. We’re impressed. A happy quack to the engineering team at Mark Logic. Now, what’s next?
Stephen Arnold, January 23, 2009
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