FW: DITA Adoption SWOT Analysis

["JoAnn Hackos" <joann.hackos@comtech-serv.com>]

JoAnn T. Hackos, PhD
President
Comtech Services, Inc.
710 Kipling Street, Suite 400
Denver CO 80215
303-232-7586
joann.hackos@comtech-serv.com
 

-----Original Message-----
From: David J. B. Hollis [mailto:dhollis@AandOConsultancy.ltd.uk] 
Sent: Monday, August 18, 2008 3:21 AM
To: JoAnn Hackos; Joseph Gershon
Subject: DITA Adoption SWOT Analysis

Hi, JoAnn & Joseph

DITA Adoption SWOT analysis, appended.

Many thanks,
David


Strengths

Significant body of research from MIT, IBM et. al. over many years
resulted in DITA Single source, reusable publishing workflow for
structured content DITA Open Source Standard adopted by OASIS Continued
support to open source community from IBM - structure & tool- kit
Adopted by many corporations, many of which also support community DITA
resources abound! Cf. Brenda's & Kristen's recent resource lists.
TC work in support of translations/localisations & broader business
content semantics Specialisation built in Well supported by tool vendors
& consultants


Weaknessess
The 4 key requirements: DTD/Schema, Toolkit, Instruction manual, user
mailing list - from 4 seperate sites Toolkit is just that - a toolkit,
not an application Requires not inconsiderable customisation, in several
disiplines: ANT, CSS, XSLT, XSL-FO Many TAs don't have required skills
and/or may not have access to required skills Primary focus on computing
needs - h/w & s/w Specialisation can be a red herring, especially in
early stages of adoption No CMS
Summary: there's a lot to understand and take on-board


Opportunities
For OASIS to become a true focal point for DITA adoption Simplify
'adoption hurdle', expecially w.r.t toolkit Make the toolkit more 'off
the shelf' & easily customisable


Threats
Single source, reusable publishing workflows for un-structured & semi-
structured content, e.g. Author-it and others, which can include a CMS
Commercial interests from tool vendors can lead to semi-proprietary
solutions Commercial interests from consultants lead to confusion from
plethora of web sites