Chrystal Software New Product: Canterbury: Content Management for FrameMaker Work Groups; Seybold Seminars Name Canterbury a New Technology "Hot Pick".

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 1, 1998-- Chrystal Software, a Xerox New Enterprise company, announces Canterbury(tm), document management software that enhances one of the publication world's most functional publishing tools -- Adobe(R) FrameMaker(R).

Editors of Seybold Reports have chosen Canterbury as a "Hot Pick," a standout new technology to be featured at Seybold Publishing '98, Sept. 1-3, San Francisco, Calif.

Canterbury is an out-of-the-box product that manages the information within documents. FrameMaker users need only to import existing documents into the repository to immediately transform their work group into a collaborative authoring enterprise. With Canterbury, users manage "living" documents by reusing pieces of information versus archived -- or "dead" -- documents.

Canterbury goes beyond traditional document management by applying the principles -- access control, versioning, security, search -- to the components of information that make up documents. By understanding the structure of documents and the relationship between various components within documents, Canterbury enables authors to precisely locate information based on context as well as content and to manage the reuse of information across the document set.

"Being able to manage documents at the component level, being able to reuse and re-purpose the information, being able to dynamically assemble documents from individual components; this trend is being fueled by applications such as Chrystal Software's Canterbury," said Nathaniel Palmer, senior consultant for the Delphi Consulting Group.

Leverage Today's Documents; Create Tomorrow's Knowledge

This new, advanced technology extends FrameMaker's functionality, allowing publishing organizations to better store and manage the components of information that comprise FrameMaker files and books. A client/server solution, Canterbury lets authors continue to work from FrameMaker, while storing new or legacy files in a safe and highly leveraged manner. The content management software allows authors to better manage access, revision, and reuse of large, complex documents.

For example, Canterbury can track changes within FrameMaker documents, right down to the paragraph level. If Karen, who works in the morning, makes a couple of small changes in a chapter, Diane, who works in the afternoon, can come in and see exactly what she changed and why. Meanwhile, David, who has reused Karen's material too, sees the changes. In fact, since all versioning information stays attached to components wherever they are reused, anyone who takes this material can immediately view its entire revision history.

"Canterbury helps Adobe FrameMaker customers work more productively and cost effectively by enabling them to easily reference and reuse the content within their documents," said Marion Melani, group product manager, Adobe Systems. "Documents published in FrameMaker are typically long and complex, and Canterbury's ability to know exactly who made a change and where -- at the component level -- will be of particular value to our customers."

"Canterbury is a publishing-enhancement tool that delivers significant and immediate benefits," said R. Steven Kiser, president and chief executive officer of Chrystal Software. "Canterbury's ability to manage reuse of information - copy, paste, remember - not only delivers higher productivity in the creation and maintenance of documents, it enables huge savings in managing translation into other languages."

How It Works

Canterbury infers document structure by referencing FrameMaker's paragraph tags -- much the same way that a table of contents describes the organization of a publication. By understanding the structure of a document, the system allows authors to quickly share useful components of information, from a paragraph or warning to procedures and sections, between FrameMaker documents. This structure can be used to manage sections of information within a document or determine the appropriateness of information for reuse in other documents.

Authors can easily access the system since it is fully integrated with Adobe FrameMaker. Standard open, save, and close now facilitate document check-out, reuse, and check-in from the familiar interface. This greatly reduces training time. Easy-to-use Navigation and Search tools allow authors to quickly view, edit, and reuse any FrameMaker information stored in the system.

Built Upon Proven Architecture

Canterbury shares a common underlying technology with Astoria, Chrystal Software's flagship product. Astoria is a content management solution for technical publishing organizations. Astoria manages explicitly structured content (e.g., SGML and XML documents), implicitly structured content (e.g., FrameMaker documents) and unstructured content (e.g., text, images, logos, presentations, screencams, audio, video, etc.). With it, publishing teams can share information and coordinate their work by setting up a central repository for content destined for print, the Web, and CD-ROMs.

"Canterbury was built for an audience with real business needs," said Colin O'Brien, vice president and chief executive officer of Xerox New Enterprises. "Now FrameMaker enterprises can realize the benefits of content management long enjoyed by the structured authoring community."

Chrystal Software, a Xerox New Enterprise company, is built on a foundation of leading-edge content management technology. The company has a worldwide presence with partners in key markets and customers in automotive, aerospace, telecommunications equipment, publishing and other industries.

Chrystal's customers maximize the value of their information assets and achieve real benefits in improved time to global market, simultaneous distribution to the Web, paper, and CD-ROM, and delivery to markets of one.

Astoria 3.0, released in March 1998, is a content management solution for organizations producing technical publications and other kinds of business critical documents. It works with current authoring tools to provide precise control over valuable information assets.

Commonly, these include a variety of graphics, illustrations, tables, Microsoft Word, and FrameMaker files, and often there is new media and structured file formats such as SGML and XML.

Copyright 1998, Chrystal Software, Inc. All rights reserved. Chrystal Software and Astoria are registered trademarks of Chrystal Software, Inc. All brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

CONTACTS: Chrystal Software Inc.

Nancy Mumford, 619/676-7791

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MJE Marketing Services

Grant Rabjohn, 619/682-3841