Unified tool suites

It's more important than ever to be able to deliver the right information, to the right audience, in the right format, and at the right time. To do so may mean a unified toolset. The right information means pulling only relevant content. The right audience should be identified and targeted with content that is appropriate to their job and experience level. The right format could be a PDF for them to print, or help delivered to their smartphone, or more detailed online information on a tablet, or ideally in whatever medium they want. And the right time is when it's needed which includes being able to find the information.

Consider your full needs, not just one set of needs and then do your homework. Having an XML tool from one vendor, a video generation tool from a second, a publishing tool from a third vendor, and a graphics tool from a fourth may make sense if there are specialized needs that a unified toolset cannot meet, but that is no longer the case. More than one vendor offers tools that can meet all your needs. So why pick a unified toolset? There are several good reasons.

A unified toolset can:

• Reduce the overall cost of ownership

  • Learning extra tools is easier if they are integrated and you already have them on your system

• Lower the purchase price since you end up with four or five tools for the price of two or three.

  • If you need a few of them anyway, then for a couple of hundred dollars more you can double your library of tools.

• Be fully integrated with each other in away that the individual tools are not.

  • Menu options allow you to launch one tool from within another, based on what you are working with.