Executive Summary

Autodesk, Inc., one of the worlds leading 2D and 3D design software companies, creates tens
of thousands of pages of product documentation and help for its users every year. Because
Autodesk operates internationally with users in more than 106 countries, its software and the
associated content needs to be localized into as many as 18 languages. Such localization has
proven to be a time-consuming, highly manual, and costly process, yet it grows in importance
each year as the company and its global user base continue to grow.

The documentation and localization teams at Autodesk have long been interested in the
adoption of a new system that would improve on the management of the authoring and
localization functions. In 2003, the company formed a cross-functional team to evaluate
potential systems, and recommend a new system and processes and tools for implementing
the system.

The result of this cross-functional project was the adoption of Idiom WorldServer, together
with Adobe FrameMaker for structured authoring in XML. Following an initial pilot of the
system, Autodesk has since migrated more than eight million source words of content into the
system, resulting in localized content totaling more than 74 million words. Impressively, users
have highly automated workflows and powerful tools for automatically creating outputs such
as PDF, Compiled Help (CHM), and HTML.

The implementation of the system has not been without challenges. The initial spike in
userscoupled with a lack of a common data model and shared toolsleft the
implementation team with a very challenging and at times unsustainable environment.
However, the team made some very wise midcourse corrections, implementing a standard
model and standard tools, and now has hundreds of productive users on the system.

As Autodesk looks back on its initial phases of work with the new system, it can point to
significant success of the system, including large volumes of work being produced with much
greater automation and consistency. The company also can point to cost savings, though the
details of arriving at a specific metric for cost savings remain illusive, as discussed below.
Finally, Autodesk is now managing an enormous base of source content in a centralized
system and using a common data model. They are very well positioned for future initiatives
such as finding ways to reuse the content in support of broad product development efforts.

This case study profiles one organization. While Autodesks approach may not be universal,
its success in solving critical problems is indisputable. It is not possible to generalize the
Autodesk approach into a universal formula, but there is much here that will be useful to other
organizations with similar corporate goals.

In Their Own Words: The Autodesk Perspective

Recognizing the Opportunity

What were the symptoms in the market that brought this need to your attention?

Globalization is incredibly important to Autodesk. We operate in over a hundred countries

around the world and about sixty percent of our revenue comes from outside the United
Statesand forty percent of that revenue is from fully localized products. So, we could not be
as successful as we are today if we werent a very global company. Minette Norman, Senior
Software Systems Manager, Worldwide Localization

Autodesk recognizes the importance of high-quality documentation, and we have a

documentation base of over eight million words that we translate into up to 18 languages. We
had a tremendous opportunity to standardize and improve upon how this localization is done.
Mirko Plitt, Program Manager, Worldwide Localization

How did you identify what specific content technologies were appropriate for Autodesk?

Autodesks interest in better content management and localization technology goes back
several years. The localization and authoring teams collaborated on a project where authoring,
content management, and globalization management technologies were considered and
evaluated. Minette Norman, Senior Software Systems Manager, Worldwide Localization

We were interested in a system that would allow us to streamline the documentation and
localization lifecycle through the use of a unified yet modular process built upon mature
industry standards. Mirko Plitt, Program Manager, Worldwide Localization

The Vision

What did you want to be able to do by using content and globalization technologies for Autodesk?

The old processes had a number of manual and time-consuming steps, making schedules
even more challenging and potentially error prone. We wanted the new system to bring much
more automation to the steps, and improve on the existing workflow and processes. Mirko
Plitt, Program Manager, Worldwide Localization

Product Selection

Which vendor(s) did you select and what were the overriding considerations?

Autodesk chose Idiom because it had an integrated solution for the authoring side of
documentation as well as the globalization and localization side. And we really wanted to buy
one piece of software that could be used for both of those functions. We didn'tt find anything
else that met those needs. Minette Norman, Senior Software Systems Manager, Worldwide
Localization

Measuring Success

What do the users think of the system?

In spite of all the challenges we faced and lessons learned the hard way, weve been
incredibly successful in getting millions of words into and out of this relatively new system.
The Localization team members think the system is remarkable, enabling them to produce
more localized documentation in a shorter time frame than ever before. The authors using the
system find it more restrictive than theyd like, but that is more because of the need to follow
new standards than the system itself. Minette Norman, Senior Software Systems Manager,
Worldwide Localization

Autodesk Company Background

Software giant Autodesk, Inc., founded in 1982, totaled $1.6B revenue in its most recent
fiscal year. Autodesk products, which include its flagship AutoCAD, Autodesk Inventor,
Revit, 3ds Max and Maya software applications and a broad portfolio of 2D and 3D design
software tools, are used by 100% of the Fortune 100 companies. With more than seven
million users and over 2,800 third-party developers, Autodesks software is a major presence
in industries such as manufacturing, building and construction, and media and entertainment.

Autodesk is a global company, with more than 5,000 employees worldwide, operations in 106
countries, and over 60 percent of its revenue derived outside the United States. As a result,
document localization is critical. A document base of over 8.3 million source words is
localized into as many as 18 different languages, resulting in over 74 million localized words.

Major company milestones:

1982Autodesk is founded and releases first version of AutoCAD

1985Autodesk goes public
1994Autodesk ships 1,000,000th copy of AutoCAD
1997Autodesk acquires SoftDesk, the first of more than a dozen companies it will acquire in the next several
years
1999Autodesk launches Autodesk Inventor for 3D modeling
2005Autodesk exceeds $1B in revenue

The Problem: Simultaneous Delivery in Multiple Languages

As a global software provider, Autodesk recognizes that the value of its products is
intrinsically linked to its information sources. Software products have little value without
supporting information that is accurate, timely, and readily available. When software users
cannot find, understand, or apply product documentation, they simply do not use or worse yet,
evangelize the productregardless of its potential value to the organization. Certainly,
software usability has improved tremendously over the past decades. Still, users consistently
expect accessible product support from multiple sources, including printed documentation,
online help, and training materials.

The Autodesk commitment to product documentation as an integral part of the companys

product line is historic. Regarded as a strategic and essential company asset, product
documentation is a significant component of the companys customer-centric information
supply chain. With over 60 percent of revenue derived from outside the United States,
Autodesks vision for content globalization is paramount to continued market leadership.

The existence of a Worldwide Localization (WWL) department speaks volumes about the
companys commitment to globalization as a business practice. However, organizational
structure was just one piece of Autodesks strategy to achieve simultaneous delivery of
products and documentation in multiple languages.

With support from an executive steering committee, a multi-departmental extended team, and
a core project management team, WWL approached the tactical challenges within the vision
from a decidedly lifecycle perspective. The end goal required Autodesk to unify and align
content creation, localization, management, and publishing processes in order to:

Integrate and streamline authoring and translation processes

Automate manual and redundant tasks such as file transfer and publishing
 Enable collaboration within review and approval processes, providing flexibility for last-minute changes and
resource sharing
Increase localized content volume
Improve product quality through enhanced consistency

A strong focus on enabling efficient and cost-effective workflow would play a large part in
overcoming these challenges, allowing the organization to eliminate lifecycle content
processes that were inconsistent, incomplete, sometimes incompatible, often manual, and only
partially documented. Without this focal point, providing the organization with the speed and
coordination required for simultaneous, multilingual delivery was clearly impossible. WWL
was also well aware that scaling inefficient processes equates to increasing cost rather than
reducing it. Hence, cost reduction was an overriding deliverable for each project goal.

The Need: Design New Processes and Workflow for Improved Localization

Although Autodesk boasts a centralized WWL department, the company also includes highly
independent divisions with product-driven organizations. As part of product development
departments, content creation groups were intrinsically linked to software engineering
counterparts, and they did not often collaborate with groups in separate divisions. Hence,
authoring teams were using a variety of content creation programs including:

HTML editors such as Dreamweaver and HomeSite

FrameMaker (structured and unstructured)
RoboHELP
WebWorks

More significantly in terms of process cost and redundancy, the groups used various
approaches and methods to manage ad-hoc and inconsistent workflow. For example, each
group:

Ingested HTML source separately into multiple content creation tools

Invoked various Perl scripts or WebWorks to enable single-sourcing
Maintained individual translation memories per project or component and language
Maintained individual conversion processes to transfer content to translation management systems
Manually transferred files between various process contributors at inconsistent intervals resulting in illogical
work sequences
Performed independent weekly compilations of documentation products such as online help

Although charged with meeting the localization requirements of all divisions, WWL was far
downstream in this scenario. Multiple, divergent processes virtually guaranteed the failure of
the initiative to provide simultaneous product delivery.

Criteria for Success: Higher Throughput, Fewer Manual Steps, More Automation

With millions of words being managed in the system, Autodesk is experiencing better
throughput and a greater degree of automation. They are already shipping more languages
simultaneously in many of their product releases. Minette Norman reports, With Idiom
WorldServer, we have seen more throughputmore languages and more contentand we are
able to do this in shorter time frames. There are far fewer manual steps and much more
automation.

Key to the automation is the ability to use the workflow engine in WorldServer. A Graphical
User Interface enables users to establish workflows that combine a variety of user steps
(shown in purple in Figure 1), such as translate and review, with automated steps (shown in
blue), such as automatic notification or having the system take a certain action when an error
is encountered.

Another example is the management of segment assets. When text is ready to be translated,
WorldServer performs a function to segment the XML into individual sentences prior to being
compared to the translation memory database. This is an automatic step in WorldServer, while
the earlier process had the Autodesk teams handling the files manually and running scripts to
process the files.

Figure 1. Idiom WorldServer Workflow. The illustration above shows a typical

WorldServer workflow, and not one of Autodesks workflows, which are lengthier and more
complex. The light purple boxes are steps performed by users, such as Translate and Review,
while the blue steps are automated ones such as Segment Assets, where the XML content is
segmented into individual sentences prior to being compared to the relevant translation
memory.

The Need: Greater Visibility into Localization Efforts

Localization is a complex process, even with the best technology. Translating a large
document into 18 languages involves the efforts of the original author, the translators, and
typically a localization manager or project leader who oversees the work. Ideally, a system
will give the localization manager, documentation manager, and all other stakeholders good
visibility into the status of the work.

As noted elsewhere, prior to the automation, Autodesk was challenged to have this kind of
visibility into the work, and was often hampered by complex, human-intensive processes that
created awkward break points in the processes. A goal for the new system was to have greater
visibility into the processes. Ideally this visibility would help reveal improvements resulting
from the automationand point to additional process changes and enhancements that could
be undertaken using the new system.
To begin with, the additional visibility comes from having an automated workflow with a
graphical user interface and a useful reporting capability. The GUI allows the Autodesk users
to see the status of work at any time, and to answer basic questions such as where files are in
the translation process, what files are due in or late, and who is currently working on or
responsible for a file. The project history has also proven very useful for Autodesk; if there
are problems with a file, the Autodesk users know who worked on the file and can then follow
up appropriately. While in some ways basic, these features have led to important efficiencies
for Autodesk, especially on the localization side of the work.

Criteria for Success: Improved Efficiency for Localization

Autodesk can point to a number of efficiencies from its use of Idiom WorldServer. As noted
above, many of these efficiencies come from the use of a central repository and centralized
workflow system that give users continuous visibility into project status.

Another set of efficiencies comes from the capabilities of the WorldServer system itself.
Autodesk gains efficiency from production tools such as the one that segments the XML
assets into individual sentences for the translation memory (a step they used to perform by
running a script). A system such as WorldServer has a number of features like this that
automate common tasks and provide a large group of users (as at Autodesk) with significant
efficiencies.

The Need: Improved Quality and Consistency

Improved quality was not an explicit goal of the new system. In fact, Autodesk had a record
of excellent documentation quality. So while quality was not necessarily a goal, what has
been achieved is great consistency. The consistency results from the single data model,
unified output formats, and the highly automated tools that are used to create the various
outputs and to create the materials that are delivered to translators. Authors can better track
what they are doing. They can do a better job of keeping things up to date, and they have a
higher confidence that they have the right information, the right content, and are not using the
wrong versions of files.

But the automated publishing has created some tradeoffs. Technical publications managers, if
asked, would likely cite less flexibility and creativity available to the authors because of the
standardized content structures (DTDs) and outputs. While these tradeoffs might be notable
from the authoring side, the standardized data structures and outputs are much better for
localization needs.

Criteria for Success: Up to Date, Consistent Information

The criteria for success spring more from the growing confidence users have in the system
and in the highly automated internal processes. Users now have push-button tools for creating
outputs such as HTML and Help. The users also have a secure system from which they are
checking out the content. In the past, they faced a higher risk of having the wrong content
localized or missing content. The new centralized system and the improvement in processes
yield important quality changes for the Autodesk users.

Another important outcome with the new system is the consistency in look and feel for the
various outputs, including the core documents and the Help systems. Because Autodesk now
has in place a common data model and common style sheets and processing scripts, the
content products are uniform. In the past, every divisions content products (and even
different products within a division) looked radically different. Now, with the consistent
content tagging and stylesheets, the content products have a consistent look and feel,
providing Autodesks customers with a much more uniform experience of the products.

Solution Components

Introducing the Autodesk System

Autodesk is using Idiom WorldServer, together with Adobe FrameMaker for authoring. The
FrameMaker authoring is done using FrameMakers structured mode, so the authored files are
stored in XML. Because the content is stored in XML, WorldServer is able to use XML-based
technologies for publishing the various outputs. The PDFs are created using XSL-FO
(Extensible Stylesheet LanguageFormatting Objects) using the RenderX XEP Engine. The
compiled and uncompiled HTML Help outputs are created with XSLT (XSL
Transformations).

All together, the various outputs are created under the control of WorldServer and processed
with a small cluster of servers. The servers ensure that the users have sufficient processing
power to produce the various outputs quickly.

The Role of Idiom WorldServer

Idiom WorldServer is the hub of all of the work and processes described herein. It manages
the authoring of the content, and provides automated workflows to link the authors to the
localization vendors and translators, and vice versa. WorldServer manages all details of the
localization, from the terminology management, control of the translation memory, and
scoping and management of the projects. WorldServer then integrates with the publishing
tools described above to create the various documentation and Help outputs that ship with the
products.

Best Practices and Organizational Changes

Autodesks focus has not been on organizational changes. The system deployed by Autodesk
serves several independent groups and divisions, so the group responsible for the system has
instead focused on enabling rapid adoption and converting the content and users from the
existing processes to the new system. As a result, the organization focus has been on
successful adoption and best practices.

Three years into using the system, Autodesk now has impressive automated workflow and
automated generation of content into different formats. However, the first year of using the
system was marked by some challenges.

Major bottlenecks generating output; the production server could not handle Autodesks output generation
throughput requirements
Three widely divergent data models (this meant content sharing was impossible without data migration)
Innumerable XSLs, each developed by separate divisions
Even more scripts, each developed by separate divisions
Additional divisions to bring into the system
Major challenges supporting users because processes and implementations werent standardized
In short, while they were producing significant amounts of work out of the new system, the
complexities of adoption had created an unsustainable situation. As a result, the
implementation team made a number of changes in the second year of the project. These
included hiring a Data Model Architect to consolidate DTDs and having the implementation
group take central control over the DTDs, FrameMaker Element Definition Documents
(EDDs), XSLs, and supporting scripts. The implementation team then reworked the DTDs to
minimize specializations for divisions and developed a single set of XSLs and scripts used by
all divisions.

Finally, because the system supports hundreds of users, the Autodesk implementation team
identified a need to provide them with greater throughput for running the various publishing
processes. Autodesk designed a remote build machine architecture to run publishing
processes on a separate suite of servers from the WorldServer system. The resulting
processing power gives the large group of Autodesk users high-performance tools for
publishing their required outputs.

Along with the implementation of a change control process, these improvements enabled the
team to bring additional content from the first three divisions into the system and bring
content from two new groups into the system.

Results

Higher Throughput and More Simultaneous Shipping

Following an initial pilot of the system, we converted three groups to the new system in the
first year, and they delivered their English and localized documentation using WorldServer.
This was more than we anticipated putting through the system in the first year. Minette
Norman, Senior Software Systems Manager, Worldwide Localization

Clearly, the Autodesk story has a successful outcome. One of the worlds leading design
software companies has taken millions of words, ported the content into a new system, and
has hundreds of users producing final, localized content with highly automated tools. Costs
have improved, though specific measurement of the improvement has been hard to quantify.
Some recent analysis within Autodesk shows markedly improved throughput and greatly
improved turnaround times with the new system. And quality has improved, giving internal
users a higher level of assurance over the content they are working with and producing. The
unified data model and output formats have also ensured consistency across the companys
documentation sets.

Our interviews with Autodesk and our review of internal documents and presentations
revealed a number of interesting additional issues and observations.

Autodesk is seeing costs go down on projects that have been in the new system for more than one release.
While Autodesk was somewhat apprehensive of how their localization vendors would accept the change and
business impact, they have found that the vendors cooperated very well
Autodesk recommends standardizing on a common data model for the whole company at the beginning of the
process, and not doing it later, when the content would need to be converted a second time.

Assessing Financial Impact

There is no doubt that Autodesk is realizing business benefit as a result of the efficiencies that
it introduced to its globalization processes. Proof points are explored extensively in this case
study: more languages, more content, shorter timeframes, high levels of internal user
satisfaction.

Cost savings are obviously an important measure of success for Autodesk. Today it is possible
to estimate translation costs for individual projects and as an aggregated corporate expense.
Autodesk believes that it will be able to do an even better job in the future with enhanced
reporting tools and integration with other systems supporting Autodesk product development.

Beyond cost savings, however, the overall financial impact of its investment will always be
less quantifiable. Autodesk correctly recognizes that comparing its previous environment with
the new automated workflow is largely a hypothetical exercise. Two factors make it very
difficult to do a reliable, meaningful analysis:

Autodesk would have to calculate how much it would be spending today to achieve current results under its old
processesmuch effort for what is likely to produce a relatively crude guess.
The nature of translation projects makes it difficult to establish baseline costs that can be established and
tracked. Metrics for comparing costs are highly fluid. For example, size and complexity of products that need to
be localized, translation vendor pricing, number of target languages, and evolving delivery format requirements
rarely stabilize over time.

While noting the importance of understanding financial return, then, Autodesk knows that
reasonable estimates can be achieved, but precise results are virtually impossible. In
presentations on its globalization initiatives, Mirko Plitt is conscientious about cautioning
other adopters to set the right expectations when promising ROI analysis as part of making a
business case to management. Know what can be measured and tracked reliably over time,
and be sure to constrain promises of financial analysis within those parameters.

A Suppliers Voice: Idiom Technologies

As a globalization software solutions provider, Idiom Technologies is intimately aware of the

challenges facing large companies that earn the better share of their revenue in offshore
markets. In addition to Autodesk, Idiom serves a full roster of global companies that
implement lifecycle content processes across widely-dispersed divisions and vendors.

Like Autodesk, Idiom customers view the delivery of timely, relevant and language-specific
content as strategic asset that grows in value with the continuous expansion of their global
reach. And when delays between the availability of content in the original language and
required translations do occur; the revenue losses can stretch into the tens of millions of
dollars.

Though essential, maintaining the high asset value of global content management is
undeniably complex. So me of the most challenging requirements relate to:

Creating unified, repeatable processes to link internal and external contributors in a variety of roles with varying
degrees of autonomy
Optimizing the productivity benefits of familiar business processes, technologies and toolssuch as enterprise
content management systems, authoring tools and translation products
Providing controlled access to content stored in disparate systems, file formats and translation memories
Gaining the control and process visibility provided by centralization without sacrificing local autonomy
Synchronizing global content delivery cycles

With Idiom, global companies overcome these challenges with an approach that optimizes
familiar resources, processes and preferenceswhile providing the efficiency and
collaboration needed for simultaneous, multilingual delivery. That is why the Autodesk
experience with Idiom is so effective.

Designed on the premise that transparent integration is essential for productivity optimization,
WorldServer is the engine that enables Autodesk to reinforce the strengths of its single-source
publishing and content localization capabilities. And it is able to do so with greater speed,
consistency and cost-effectiveness, thanks to the centralized process automation and
translation reuse functions of WorldServer.

Tailoring globalization solutions to address the unique technology environment requirements

of global companies of all sizes is an Idiom hallmark. Companies with a variety of content
globalization needs and resource commitments would benefit from leveraging WorldServer to
achieve the kinds of gains realized by Autodesk.

About Idiom Technologies

Idiom Technologies optimizes the globalization supply chain by aligning global enterprises,
language service providers and translators. Award-winning WorldServer software expands
market reach and accelerates multilingual communication with a proven platform for
automating translation and localization. Idiom enables organizations including Adobe,
Autodesk, Continental Airlines, eBay, Mattel and Travelocity to cost-effectively globalize and
deliver content for global websites and applications, software and print. Idiom also partners
with systems integrators, consulting and technology firms to help customers achieve
measurable results and leverage enterprise infrastructure for maximum business benefit.
Headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, Idiom operates offices throughout North America
and Europe.

Contact www.idiominc.com or +1 781-464-6000.

Conclusions: The Gilbane Report Perspective

At Gilbane, we continue to see some of the most interesting and high-impact content
management initiatives come out of the nexus of structured content creation in XML, single
source publishing, and content globalization. Including this publication, three of our last four
case studies have dealt with globalization challenges at major companiesSun Microsystems,
Siemens Medical Solutions, and, with this paper, Autodesk, Inc.

This focus on content globalization is not mere happenstance. Unless you have been stranded
on a desert island for the past ten years, you know that we live in an increasingly global
economy. Major companies are eager to reach global markets, and the Internet has put global
buyers in a comfortable drivers seat where they can literally shop the world without leaving
the comfort of their home or office.

Simultaneous with this surge in global marketing, large companies have mastered the details
of single-source publishing. With complex products come large documents and the need to
produce variant formats such as PDF for online or print distribution, Help, and HTML for
Web sites and CD-ROM distribution. When a large company like Autodesk looked at its
impressive capacity for single-source publishingand its equally impressive capacity for
localizing its content into many languageswhat they found lacking was a unified system to
ensure that all of this activity was happening efficiently, cost-effectively, and with an eye
toward standardization and uniform quality.

Autodesk has clearly found such a system in Idioms WorldServer. Indeed, in the last year
alone, Autodesk has produced more than 74 million localized words from the system74
million and counting, as they like to say, because the documentation volume increases each
year. The system now manages the work of several hundred documentation and localization
professionals. And while the implementation was not without its challenges, each challenge
has since been met with a very well thought-out and executed response from Autodesk.
Lacking a standard data model, they created one. Lacking standard tools and scripts, they
created them. Autodesk had the benefit of an experienced and dedicated implementation team,
andsignificantlywhen the team identified a need for additional resources and effort,
management backed them on this.

We are also compelled to point out that Autodesks experience illustrates a valuable and
sometimes overlooked lesson in making a business case. The payoff for investment in
technology, people, and process should be measured in terms of strategic business goals rather
than solely in monetary terms. Cost savings are important, yes, but maintaining competitive
advantage as a major software provider in global markets is among the significant benefits
that Autodesk is poised to realize as a result of its relationship with Idiom.

Companies with a requirement for content globalization would be well served by digesting
and reflecting on the experience of Autodesk and how it made an ambitious, multi-division,
and cross-functional technology adoption project work so well.