How Much Does XML Publishing Cost?

When looking at XML publishing, it's tempting to focus on tools. Get the latest whizbang authoring system and all will be well. But there are many other costs to implementing a new authoring and publishing system, they vary by size of organization, and not all are easy to quantify.

Sarah O'Keefe at Scriptorium has published a white paper that looks at the costs of XML publishing. It covers several different scenarios, from a small writing group to the full enterprise.

The estimates provided here are intended as general guidelines. They include items such as:

• Software licenses, such as a content management system, authoring tools, linguistic analysis, translation management software, and others
• Software installation and configuration
• Content conversion services (but not employees rewriting content internally)
• Content strategy development
• Information architecture and content modeling
• Content systems architecture and implementation
• Training

 I like that she itemizes what the paper doesn't cover, but are still real costs that you will have to consider; for example: lost productivity during the transition and IT resources to install, configure, and maintain a new system.

I wish I'd had this paper as a guide a few years ago.