Astoria and SDL Partner to Help Manufacturers Accelerate Global Content Delivery and Improve Customer Satisfaction

Siemens Medical Solutions Standardizes on Astoria/SDL, Saves $1 million

Stuttgart , Deutschland
Donnerstag, 22. September 2005

SAN MATEO, CA and MAIDENHEAD, UK – 22nd September, 2005 – Astoria Software, Inc. and SDL International today announced a partnership to provide joint solutions to multinational manufacturers. Global information management solutions from Astoria and SDL help manufacturers rapidly publish and deliver accurate, high quality content to international markets.

 

Siemens Medical Solutions faced issues such as changing market forces, increasing compliance requirements, the growing global market for medical products and along with it, increasing demand for local language information. Astoria, the leading provider of XML content management solutions for dynamically publishing business-critical information, and SDL International, the world’s leading provider of global information management solutions, successfully addressed these issues for Siemens.  Built on the industry standards XML and DITA, the Astoria-SDL solution manages information for complex products with long lifecycles, frequent technology changes, and global usage. 
By standardizing on Astoria and SDL to publish its more than 190,000 product manuals annually in 18 languages, Siemens can now update technical content on a weekly basis instead of only twice a year. Consistency and accuracy have improved while the number of manuals printed has been reduced by 90%. The result is significant reductions in Mean Time To Repair (MTTR) and First Time Fix Rate (FTFR), while  localization costs have been reduced by more than 30%, generating projected annual savings of over $1 million.

“With Astoria and SDL, we transformed our business,” said Uwe Danner, content management systems project manager at Siemens Medical Solutions.  “We improved the quality, accuracy, and timeliness of our global product information, and reinforced our worldwide standing for quality and performance.”

“Content management becomes more difficult when dealing with multilingual information,” said Joe Eschbach, vice president and chief marketing officer for Astoria. “By combining SDL solutions with Astoria’s XML Content Management Platform, multinational companies gain consistency of voice, richness of local nuance, and improved document production.”

“Our partnership with Astoria Software enables manufacturers to enforce consistency for global product and service documentation,” said Terry Lawlor, vice president of worldwide marketing at SDL. “This is particularly important for ensuring compliance and improving service levels in regulated industries such as medical device manufacturing.”

About Siemens Medical Solutions
Siemens Medical Solutions is one of the world’s largest suppliers to the healthcare industry. The company is known for bringing together innovative medical technologies, healthcare information systems, management consulting, and support services, to help customers achieve tangible, sustainable, clinical and financial outcomes. From imaging systems for diagnosis, to therapy equipment for treatment, to patient monitors to hearing instruments and beyond, Siemens’ innovations contribute to the health and well-being of people across the globe, while improving operational efficiencies and optimizing workflow in hospitals, clinics, home health agencies, and doctors' offices. Employing approximately 31,000 people worldwide and operating in more than 120 countries, Siemens Medical Solutions reported sales of 7.07 billion EUR, orders of 8.12 billion EUR and group profit of 1.05 billion EUR for fiscal 2004. Further information can be found under: http://www.siemens.com/medical.

About SDL International
SDL International (London Stock Exchange: 'SDL') is the world’s leading provider of global information management (GIM) solutions that empower organizations to improve the quality and accelerate the delivery of multilingual content to global markets. Its enterprise software and services integrate with existing business systems to manage global information from authoring to publication and throughout the distributed localization supply chain.

Global industry leaders such as Audi, Bayer, Best Western, Bosch, Canon, Deutsche Bank, Kodak, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, Reuters, and SAP rely on SDL to provide enterprise software or full outsourcing for their GIM processes. SDL has implemented more than 100 enterprise GIM solutions, has over 100,000 software licenses deployed across the GIM ecosystem and its global services infrastructure spans more than 50 offices in 30 countries. For more information, visit www.sdl.com.

About Astoria Software
Astoria Software, Inc., is a leading provider of XML content management solutions for the dynamic publishing of business critical information and documents.  It provides the only author-centric packaged software system that enables component-based content management from the document to the element level.   This flexible approach to managing content enables Astoria customers to share, re-use and re-purpose information across thousands of complex documents ensuring easy assembly and delivery.   The company’s more than 100 customers are progressive organizations who publish complex, complicated business critical information and documents that change constantly.   Among them are Cisco Systems, Texas Instruments, The Boeing Company, Lockheed Martin, General Electrical Medical and Cessna.   Astoria is based in San Mateo, Calif.  (www.astoriasoftware.com).

For more information please contact:

Eileen O’Rourke                                          Karl Kadie   
Astoria Software                                         SDL International (US)
+1 650 357 7477 x111                               +1 408 743 3612
eorourke@astoriasoftware.com                   kkadie@sdl.com 

Lisa Kelaita                                                 Fiona Ribeiro
New Venture Communications                    SDL International (Europe)
+1 650 340 6766                                       +44 1628 410 120

Informationen zu SDL International

SDL ist der führende Anbieter im Bereich globales Informationsmanagement (GIM) und bietet Technologielösungen, mit denen Unternehmen die Bereitstellung qualitativ hochwertiger mehrsprachiger Inhalte für internationale Märkte beschleunigen können. Die Unternehmenssoftware und Services von SDL werden in bestehende Unternehmenssysteme integriert, um globale Informationen von der Erstellung bis hin zur Veröffentlichung über den verzweigten Lokalisierungs-Workflow zu verwalten.

Marktführer wie ABN-Amro, Best Western, Bosch, Canon, Chrysler, CNH, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Philips, SAP, Sony, SUN Microsystems und Virgin Atlantic beauftragen SDL mit der Bereitstellung von Unternehmenssoftware oder Hosted Services für Prozesse im Bereich globales Informationsmanagement.

SDL hat bereits über 480 Unternehmenslösungen für globales Informationsmanagement implementiert, weltweit sind mehr als 150.000 Softwarelizenzen im Einsatz, und das Unternehmen bietet 10 Millionen Kunden pro Monat Zugriff auf On-Demand-Übersetzungsportale. Im Rahmen einer globalen Infrastruktur, die über 50 Niederlassungen in 30 Ländern umfasst, bieten mehr als 1.000 Experten Beratungs-, Implementierungs- und Sprachdienstleistungen an. Weitere Informationen erhalten Sie unter www.sdl.com.

Alle Marken sind Eigentum ihrer jeweiligen Inhaber.
Nicola Bogle (SDL)
+44 (0)1628 417225
nbogle@sdl.com