The Global Association for Contact Center Best Practices & Networking

Maidenhead, UK - June 30, 2010 – SDL, the provider of Global Information Management solutions, announced today the acquisition of Xopus, a provider of online XML editing. The acquisition by SDL’s Structured Content Technologies division addresses the growing trend to broaden the adoption of structured authoring beyond technical writers.

Founded in 2001 in the Netherlands, Xopus has emerged as the leading provider of a friendly and simple-to-use online XML editor. By making XML authoring and editing easy to work with, the Xopus editor addresses the growing demand to extend the benefits of structured content beyond the classic technical publication organization.

"Our structured content technologies already drive proven efficiency gains for a wide range of global customers," said Mark Lancaster, Group CEO of SDL. "Xopus removes one of the most difficult barriers to XML adoption: the complexity of authoring and reviewing in XML. We plan to integrate Xopus with our suite of structured content technologies as well as the larger SDL Global Information Management product suite."

"Xopus realizes significant business benefits by becoming part of SDL," said Laurens van den Oever, CEO of Xopus. "We gain a powerful worldwide sales channel and support infrastructure, as well as becoming part of a much broader suite of technologies that enhances the value of our product and offers an end-to-end solution."

"We find that 71% of companies review documentation with three or more departments outside of technical publications, and as many as 24% of companies seeking input from five or more departments," said David Houlihan, Senior Research Associate, Aberdeen Group. "The technical complexity of XML authoring tools causes securing this feedback from subject matter experts, such as engineers or lawyers, to be one of the most frequent challenges cited in the development of documentation. By exposing this content to reviewers in a way that’s easy to consume without technical training, SDL offers to add greater efficiency to documentation development."

The Xopus organization will become part of SDL’s Structured Content Technologies division. Laurens van den Oever will take the role of Director, Structured Authoring Solutions, reporting to Kevin Duffy, CEO of the division. A prototype integration already exists between SDL Xopus and SDL Trisoft™, the company’s Component Content Management system for DITA. Looking forward, SDL Xopus will be integrated with SDL LiveContent ™, the company’s dynamic publishing solution. Future integrations are envisioned with SDL Contenta (R) for S1000D and related markets, as well as SDL’s suite of Global Information Management technologies.

About SDL:
SDL is a provider in the emerging market for Global Information Management (GIM) solutions that empower organizations to improve the quality and accelerate the delivery of multilingual content to global markets. Its enterprise software and services integrate with existing systems, including XML content and Content Management Systems, to manage global information right through from authoring to publication.