Content management in the web browser

Anyone who works as a technical writer himself or has come into contact with this very profession in some other way knows his or her ultimate hidden talent: technical writers are true software jugglers. Translation tool, CAD software, PIM system, word processing program, terminology database and much more - All of this brings the technical documentation under one roof and in harmony every day.

What such silo landscapes also mean, however, are cost-intensive jobs. If you have to jump between several professional tools, you not only need great manual skills, but also high computing power and enough licenses at hand.

The question that inevitably arises is: how can we prevent such complex landscapes from bursting at the seams of profitability in the future?

Performance guarantor for technical editors

The answer is quite simple: via the way to the web. If companies cannot easily reduce their system landscapes and put applications on hold overnight, then at least new investments should be lean.

A browser and Internet access - that's all you need to use Smart Media Creator. You can't get any leaner. As a so-called "web application", the SMC is a software that does not have to be installed locally on the user's computer and used there, but runs on a central server. Every user can access the SMC via a specific web address - from anywhere and with any conceivable terminal device.

Decentralized working through central data storage

Decentralized working is becoming increasingly important. Anyone who had doubts about this until now will be proven wrong by the past months alone. This results in new, in part increased requirements for a future-proof editorial system.

First, a high degree of flexibility is required. Web-based solutions are platform-independent - so the SMC does not care whether its users prefer to work with Mac, Windows or Linux. The editors do not have to worry about the fact that certain files are no longer interchangeable. But a web-based system can also show its advantages outside the editorial office. If, for example, the content can be easily accessed from the workshop or factory floor - perhaps even in conjunction with a content delivery portal - then we can talk about real mobile working.

Central data storage instead of unmanageable data silos at the individual editors creates transparency and also contributes to the standardization of content and workflows. This means that the essential prerequisites for decentralised work have already been created. When content cannot be copied several times, but can simply be reused in a modular fashion. When, thanks to complete versioning, all editors know what the status of each publication is. And if an increased overview leads to the fact that one can take care of things for which one otherwise does not find time.

Reliable performance combined with a wide range of functions

An application that can be used solely via the web browser quickly gives the impression of being "simple" but not powerful. After all, it is hard to imagine how highly complex functions can be realized in a browser alone. The low technical requirements also underline this doubt. But: behind web-based solutions there are always powerful servers. We are talking about a conglomerate of many computers that work together and exchange information with each other. Compared to a standalone desktop solution, this network provides many times the performance and memory. Web applications are therefore more fail-safe and faster than desktop applications, also because they can always benefit from a balanced load distribution.

This has another important advantage: through an intelligent system architecture and the use of state-of-the-art development environments, the system becomes very flexible and customer-specific requirements can be put into practice not only very quickly, but often without much additional effort. Further developments in the basic technologies used also regularly lead to useful new innovations. This only increases the already large range of functions even more. Therefore, web applications are additionally dependent on desktop applications in questions of future viability.

The trend points towards the web

Flexible workplace regulations in the company, home office or simply historically grown hardware and software infrastructures that no longer want to understand each other: the browser does not know these problems. The fact that everything is moving towards powerful client-server architectures with a web client is a general trend that also affects the area of CMS/editorial systems. So why not use this opportunity now?

Give your technical editing and marketing departments an advantage in digital progress. We are happy to help you with the changeover - just contact us.