xmlhack: Altova ship their end user XML editor Authentic free of charge

Allowing the no-cost deployment of editing applications authored with their XSLT Designer, Altova appears to be positioning themselves as a cost-effective alternative to the XML abilities of the forthcoming Microsoft Office 11.

This announcement [download as PDF] is a continuation of the strategy of Altova to extend the original niche of XML Spy as an XML editor for XML developers to embrace the wider market of XML editing by end users -- recently qualified as "XML for the masses" by Microsoft and OpenOffice.

This strategy was first visible with the announcement of "XML Spy 4.0 XSLT Designer" (for development) and "XML Spy 4.0 Document Editor" (for deployment) in September 2001, two products packaged separately as "Stylevision" and "Authentic" with the announcement of XML Spy 5.0 in September 2002. This positioned Altova as a competitor of Epic ( Arbortext) and XMetal (Corel).

Derived from XML Spy, Authentic allows the editing of arbitrary XML documents as "Authentic views" based on XSLT transformations and developed with XSLT Designer (a component available in the packages Stylevision and XML Spy versions "Pro" and "Enterprise").

Authentic is available as a standalone editor, and shipping it free of charges in this form will keep it as a competitive means of editing XML documents -- Microsoft Office 11 will give the same possibility at no additional cost to Microsoft Word 11 users.

Authentic is also available as a plugin for Internet Explorer, and this version can be seen as an alternative to XForms, a W3C specification for editing XML documents on the web through input forms. Unlike XForms, Authentic is available only for Windows platforms.

Other stories:

Re: Altova ship their end user XML editor Authentic free of charge (Other Eric - 18:10, 7 Mar 2003)

OK, I've never bothered to open up and spp file in a text editor. I will. Thanks for that.

I'd guess I would have to learn about Authentic's schema etc. (Could be wrong - I have practice - might turn out to be straightforward.) Arbortext uses xml syntax in Epic's 'xsl'. But try using a text editor and epic spits out even fairly minor edits to its stylesheets.

All this stuff just seems to defeat the object of the whole xml project (interoperability?). You can probably guess I'm looking forward to a good whinge when people start sending me office 11 stuff.

Still grumpy about Altova building their rep on free(ish) xml tools and then getting all proprietary. But my instincts tell that they will look like the good guys in a few months.

E

Re: Altova ship their end user XML editor Authentic free of charge (Eric van der Vlist - 07:46, 7 Mar 2003)

Re: Another product that forces you to use proprietary tools to create non-portable document schemata and stylesheets. (cf arbortext, adobe, xmetal) Is there really any xml in there at all? If xml isn't open and portable, what's the point?

Altova's "SPP" format is actually XML which means that if you wanted to create an "Authentic view" using your favorite non Altova XML editor I don't see how they could block you (at least technically).

Re: Altova ship their end user XML editor Authentic free of charge (Eric - 21:42, 6 Mar 2003)

Another product that forces you to use proprietary tools to create non-portable document schemata and stylesheets. (cf arbortext, adobe, xmetal) Is there really any xml in there at all? If xml isn't open and portable, what's the point?

If Altova want to give something away, how about a free minor point upgrade from 5.0 to 5.3 for the folks who paid $1000ish for their enterprise product. The upgrade is full of new menu items that tell you to send more money to Altova if you want to use (or even see) them. On such an expensive product, I'd usually expect a years free updates. On this evidence, I'd regard anything free from Altova as a trojan horse.

Arbortext seems more attractive with each new competitor that emerges.

Re: Altova ship their end user XML editor Authentic free of charge (Tom - 21:23, 2 Mar 2003)

Free? I guess they are expecting a free offering to increase sales their other products. It looks like an act of desperation tho. Nobody can compete against Office.

Re: Altova ship their end user XML editor Authentic free of charge (Dave Saunders - 15:28, 22 Feb 2003)

I've had a look and free is about the right price. I doubt if Microsoft are worried.

Its human interface is generally poor: if you click around the page it's almost impossible to see what you've done. Navigation by tabbing gives some highly unexpected results.

It might have been tolerable if it ran from standard xml files instead of Altova's in-house sps format.