Leading reference information publisher chooses Arbortext

["Beth Ambaruch" <bea@arbortext.com>]

Leading reference information publisher chooses
Arbortext Adept Editor to power Web-based subscription service

Gale Group makes Arbortext editor foundation for its Odyssey initiative
to deliver academic, educational and business information over the Web


ANN ARBOR, Mich., Feb 29, 2000  -- Arbortext, Inc., a leading provider of
Extensible Markup Language (XML)-based eContent software, today announced
that the Gale Group, a leading international reference and research
publisher, has chosen Arbortext’s Adept Editor as a major component of its
new XML-based Web information system, Odyssey.

Adept Editor provides the Gale Group with an authoring environment for the
creation of XML-based content as well as Document Type Definitions (DTDs)
and authoring templates for entering content in various formats into the
system. The Gale Group’s internal authoring staff and more than 1,000
independent contributor writers who specialize in particular topics will use
Adept Editor in conjunction with Odyssey.

The Gale Group provides reference and research materials to libraries,
academic institutions and businesses. It currently provides print, online,
CD-ROM and microfilm editions of its research and reference publications.
Odyssey is the company’s worldwide initiative to shift from a
product-centric to a standardized content-centric system. The current
product-centric system locks information into incompatible formats where it
cannot work together to satisfy users’ needs. The content-centric model
eliminates those barriers, enabling the Gale Group to offer customers access
to the entire universe of its knowledge with every request. Odyssey will
provide users with personalized information based on their individual
requirements by putting content in an XML repository and dynamically
assembling it to satisfy each request.

“We currently have an enormous volume of content in many different formats.
It has to all work together to have maximum value for the company and its
customers, which is why we created Odyssey,” said Chuck Shaver, VP of
Editorial Systems at the Gale Group. “We turned to Arbortext because Adept
Editor lets us create XML templates for standardizing content from all our
contributors so we can quickly move it out to our customers. Adept Editor
also integrated easily with Odyssey’s other components, which reduced our
deployment time and overhead.”

Adept Editor meets the most demanding challenges faced by organizations that
employ teams of authors, each working with large amounts of material, all of
which need to be disseminated in multiple forms – the Web, CD-ROM and print.
Adept Editor allows authors to write text, create tables, place graphics,
and author web content, books, manuals, catalogs, encyclopedias, and other
business and technical documents.

“Odyssey is an example of how Arbortext can help a company turn valuable,
but static, content into a dynamic system that customizes responses to
individual needs,” commented Arbortext CEO Jim Sterken. “By standardizing
content in XML and publishing information in the formatusers need, Adept
Editor is helping the Gale Group do the kind of personalization users are
coming to expect from Web-based systems.”

About The Gale Group

The Gale Group (www.galegroup.com) is a world leader in reference and
research publishing for libraries, businesses and information technologists.
Best known for its ability to deliver intelligently organized and accurate
information, the company annually creates and maintains more than 600
databases that are published in print, online and in such portable media as
CD-ROM.

In the library market, the Gale Group's imprints include such noted
reference publishers as Macmillan Reference USA, Charles Scribner's Sons,
Primary Source Microfilm and U X L.  In the corporate market, the Gale Group
provides the intelligence data for Insite and publishes the highly regarded
ComputerSelect, a powerful information tool for technology managers. The
company also does extensive licensing of its content to third-party vendors
and Web services, such as Dow Jones and Web MD.

A unit of the Thomson Corporation, the Gale Group is based in Farmington
Hills, Michigan, with additional offices elsewhere in the U.S. and in
Australia, Malaysia and the U.K.


About Arbortext

Arbortext is the pioneer and leading provider of XML-based eContent
software.  Arbortext delivers XML solutions to Global 2000 organizations
including AT&T, Audi, Boeing, British Aerospace, Caterpillar,
DaimlerChrysler, Ericsson, Ford, Fujitsu, IBM, Qantas, Sikorsky,  Sun
Microsystems, United Airlines, Volkswagen, Volvo and West.  Arbortext’s
solutions enable companies to deliver richer, more convenient and more
personalized content to the Web to improve customer and trading partner
relationships.  For more information about Arbortext, visit the company Web
site at http://www.arbortext.com.

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