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XML IS THE WAY TO AVOID “BALKANIZATION” OF ELECTRONIC BOOK FORMATS, SAYS DATA CONVERSION LABORATORY’S MARK GROSS
FRESH MEADOWS, NY—FEBRUARY 21, 2001—Publishers looking to ready content for any of the four main electronic reader formats need not be victimized by the competitive ‘balkanization’ of choosing one display format over the others. “If they use a rich, flexible markup like XML, their content can easily be converted to any of these popular formats,” says Mark Gross, president of Data Conversion Laboratory, the nation’s leading service facility for converting and repurposing data.
“As Peter Lewis notes in his February 5th Personal Technology Column in Fortune, at the moment, the four main suitors for ebook content display are: Microsoft Reader, Gemstar’s eBook, Adobe’s Glassbook, plus a handful of variations for the Palm platform. Trying to bet on which format will emerge, even going by past history, is like trying to bet on the Kentucky Derby a year in advance.
“Publishers would do well to think of XML as the stem cell of the electronic publishing business. By using this basic building block, publishers can craft their content into any ‘life form’ they want—even multiple formats,” Gross says.
“The XML investment publishers make now will save them months, and perhaps millions, when electronic publishing really takes off, and that day is not far into the future,” Gross concludes.
Data Conversion Laboratory is the leader in implementing complex data conversion solutions for government and military agencies, including the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and the Library of Congress, and integrators such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Mantech and United Defense. It also serves such publishing giants as McGraw-Hill, Wiley, Harcourt, Wolters Kluwer, Lippincott and Reed Elsevier. Other customers include: Lucent Technologies, McDonnell Douglas, Gulfstream Aerospace, United Technologies, John Deere, the New York Public Library and New York University.