In The Press
Alignent Software Standardizes On MadCap Flare 2.5
World's Premiere Roadmapping Software Provider Replaces RoboHelp® with MadCap Flare, Uses Rigorous Survey to Choose Flare Over Traditional Help Authoring Tools
San Diego, CA, USA – March 26, 2007 — MadCap Software, the leader in multi-channel content authoring and a Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) Visual Studio 2005 showcase company, today announced that Alignent Software has standardized on MadCap Flare 2.5 for delivering its user documentation. Alignent, a pioneer in enterprise roadmapping software to optimize long- and short-term business planning, has purchased multiple licenses of Flare in order to modernize and streamline its processes for creating and publishing context-sensitive online Help content and printed manuals. MadCap's application was selected after a rigorous survey of the industry's top Help authoring tools (HATs). Flare 2.5 replaces Adobe RoboHelp, and Alignent is currently migrating all of its documentation to Flare.
"We are at the forefront of enabling businesses to grow and capitalize on market opportunity through enterprise roadmapping, and we need user documentation that reflects the same level of innovation," said Richard Spooner, QA and Technical Publications Director of Alignent Software. "As a RoboHelp® customer for many years, we grew concerned about the lack of investment in advancing the tool and were disappointed by the dismantling of the original team. With MadCap Flare 2.5, we now have an application based on the latest XML technology that goes far beyond the capabilities of traditional HATs. Equally important, Flare was created by developers at MadCap who had originally designed RoboHelp®. We know we have a team that understands our documentation needs and is committed to supporting us today and in the future."
In choosing a new content authoring application on which to standardize, Alignent initiated a rigorous survey based on 112 documentation requirements. The company reviewed several software packages against these metrics and narrowed its search to four of the most popular tools in the industry: Adobe RoboHelp® 6, AuthorIT, Doc-To-Help 3, and MadCap Flare 2.5. As part of its final review, Alignent then evaluated how each of the four products addressed the eight requirements it considered most essential:
- XML Authoring - enabling Alignent's authors to create and edit content in XML
- File Imports - the ability to import Alignent's RoboHelp® projects (in case a non-RoboHelp® application was chosen), as well as Microsoft Word and Adobe® FrameMaker® documents
- Multiple Online Outputs for Applications - allowing authors to produce multiple online Help outputs that can be attached to desktop software applications
- Context-Sensitive Help - support for windows-level context-sensitive Help, allowing end users to open Help content specific to a particular part of the software interface
- PDF - enabling the creation of PDF files directly from the application simply by designating it as an output format
- Microsoft Word 2007 Support
- Multi-Author Support - offering the flexibility for multiple authors to work on the same project simultaneously and share information
- Localization - including Unicode support for single- and double-byte languages, which would allow writers to create content in English, French, and Chinese.
"When we looked at our critical documentation requirements, MadCap Flare 2.5 quickly emerged as the clear winner by a very wide margin. With its clean, modern architecture and rich import/export functionality, Flare delivered an ease of use and extensive capabilities that RoboHelp® 6, AuthorIT and Doc-to-Help as traditional HATs couldn't match," said Spooner.
MadCap Flare 2.5 was able to meet nearly all of Alignent's highest priority requirements, including native XML authoring and support for Microsoft Word 2007, which none of the other vendors could offer. Although RoboHelp® 6 and AuthorIT joined Flare in enabling the import of FrameMaker® .mif files, Flare was the only tool in the study that had the ability to import native FrameMaker® .book and .fm files.
Three additional factors helped to seal Alignent's decision to standardize on MadCap's software. Two were leading-edge features within Flare: DotNet Help and snippets (reusable pieces of content). A third was the absence of cumbersome propriety tags in the underlying XML code, such as the KADOV tags that Alignent previously was required to work around in RoboHelp®.
"We were thrilled by Flare's new output format, DotNet Help, because it meant that we could improve upon the outdated look of HTML Help and also take advantage of embedded context-sensitive Help," said Spooner. "We also discovered snippets, which let our authors re-use large portions of content in multiple locations. Snippets-along with the freedom from having to work with proprietary tags, such as RoboHelp's KADOV tags-have turned out to be big time savers for us in using Flare."
"With its continual focus on innovation, Alignent is a perfect example of a company that is progressing at the same speed as the technology around it," said Anthony Olivier, CEO of MadCap Software. "We are excited that Alignent has standardized on Flare based a comprehensive analysis of today's documentation requirements and solutions. We're also honored that Alignent views MadCap as the vendor of choice for achieving their documentation goals and maintaining their reputation as one of the most forward-thinking companies around."
About Alignent Software
Alignent is the first and only software company to support the powerful process of roadmapping. Alignent's solutions dynamically connect product and technology planning across the company, empowering organizations to visualize, manage and communicate future directions within a single system. Alignent focuses R&D efforts, fosters cross-functional collaboration and aligns people around a unified plan of record that adapts in real-time to empower accurate, timely business decisions. The world's most sophisticated product and technology planners rely on Alignent, including BAE Systems, Corning, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin, Medtronic, Motorola, Philips, Textron, the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy.
About MadCap Software
MadCap Software is a trusted resource for thousands of companies around the globe for single-source, multi-channel authoring and publishing solutions designed to streamline the process of developing and delivering training content, learning and development programs, technical documentation, online Help, knowledge bases, and more. From authoring, publishing and translation, to cloud-based content management system, to contribution and review in the cloud, you can streamline content delivery and manage the entire content development lifecycle with MadCap Software. MadCap Software’s services include product training, consulting services, translation and localization, and an advanced developer certification program. Headquartered in San Diego, California, with offices in Austin, TX, MadCap Software is home to some of the most experienced software architects and product experts in the content development industry.
