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JustSystems Helps Service Bulletins at Eurocopter Take Flight

NEW YORK-(Business Wire)-July 1, 2008 - JustSystems, the largest independent software vendor in Japan and a worldwide leader in XML and information management technologies, today announced that XMetaL, its market-leading structured authoring application, is implemented by Eurocopter, the world's leading helicopter manufacturer in the civil and public services markets. Using XMetaL, Eurocopter has improved the production and quality of the more than 600 Service Bulletins it publishes each year.

"Eurocopter's Service Bulletin teams face the daunting task of creating and maintaining hundreds of impeccably accurate maintenance documents in multiple languages for thousands of customers," said Jake Sorofman, senior vice president of marketing and business development for JustSystems. "Their XMetaL solution simplifies the process, replacing complex structural display with an intuitive user interface that hides the complexity of the underlying markup from non-technical users."

Emily Poisson and Yves Roques of Eurocopter said, "The challenge we faced was that authoring our Service Bulletins required technical writing skills we had lost to subcontractors. We turned to JustSystems' partner Sollan and XMetaL for a solution that embedded the technical writing knowledge into the tool itself. Now, our helicopter specialists can focus on writing helicopter content, while XMetaL handles the structured content details and Sollan development helps the user with contextual assistance."

XMetaL at Eurocopter

Eurocopter provides Service Bulletins for its over 100 helicopter models as part of its ongoing, post-sales customer service and support. Available in English, French, German, and Spanish, the Service Bulletins describe any inspection and/or modifications that must be made to helicopters in the field. Service Bulletin content is based on ATA 100 standard augmented by Eurocopter requirements, which defines both document appearance and content including pictorial design, images, tables, and more.

Prior to XMetaL, the customized version of Microsoft Word that the company was using as its authoring tool lacked appropriate authoring controls, leading to quality and consistency problems. With XMetaL, documentary rules are embedded in the tool itself, helping Eurocopter to maintain its Service Bulletin writing know-how.

To achieve this goal, Eurocopter worked with Sollan, a key JustSystems partner, to define requirements, develop business processes, and ultimately deliver the "YES" solution, which is built on XMetaL and XMetaL extensions. The YES solution simplifies the entire Service Bulletin authoring process. The author can focus on improving the quality of Service Bulletins while XMetaL ensures a consistent Eurocopter style by enforcing the appropriate terminology or paragraph.

The YES solution lets Eurocopter produce several documents from one master file, which facilitates content reuse and ensures information accuracy and consistency. Any changes to the master file are automatically integrated into final documents impacted by these changes. The YES solution also expedites translation by automatically translating chapter titles, standard sentences, and other document components. Other benefits include Service Bulletin management improvements and reduction in the number of master files.

Paul Terray, project leader at Sollan, said, "Eurocopter's overall objective is to provide up-to-date maintenance information for high-cost capital equipment where safety is critical. They can't afford to make a mistake in their documentation. To deliver the YES solution, we had to deal with information management and structure issues, and develop a system that reflected Eurocopter's business processes. XMetaL is the perfect technology for this solution — it uses standard technologies, provides a friendly interface to the writer, and offers a base for our development to support Eurocopter processes."

For more information about Eurocopter, please visit http://www.eurocopter.com. For more information about Sollan, please visit http://www.sollan.com. For more information on JustSystems, please visit http://www.justsystems.com/ and the JustSystems Knowledge Center at http://na.justsystems.com/KnowledgeCenter.

Recent News and Resources

Artwork: http://www.eurocopter.com/site/FO/scripts/ siteFO_contenu.php?mode=&noeu_id=54&=EN

News release: JustSystems Announces XMetaL Integrated Authoring Solution with Support for 20+ Commercial Repositories;

http://na.justsystems.com/releases.php?id=187

News release: JustSystems Expands Partner Program in North America and Europe;

http://na.justsystems.com/releases.php?id=183

Document as the Application. JustSystems' overarching vision of dynamic documents that give users real-time, interactive, fully contextual views of their business is detailed in a white paper, commentary, and press release.

The DITA Maturity Model. The graduated, step-wise approach to implementing DITA that JustSystems co-authored with IBM was highlighted in a recent webinar, as well as in the commentary, press release, and, of course, the DITA Maturity Model paper itself.

About Eurocopter

The Eurocopter group was born in 1992 from the merger between the helicopter divisions of Aerospatiale-matra (France) and DaimlerChrysler Aerospace (Germany). The group is now a subsidiary owned 100% by EADS (European Aeronautic, Defense and Space Company), one of the three largest aerospace groups in the world. By a process of successive integrations, Eurocopter has become Europe's leading fully integrated aeronautical group, there being at present only three entities: the parent company, Eurocopter, the German subsidiary, Eurocopter Deutschland and the third pillar, Eurocopter Espana. This ultimate configuration has enabled the group to have unified command structures, while at the same time respecting the national identities of the partner nations.

About Sollan

Sollan is a Franco-English company specializing in ECM (Enterprise Content Management). Its wide field of action includes auditing and consulting, integrating full solutions, developing specific applications and training. Sollan's expertise is particularly focused on documentary modeling, deploying XML structured editing tools, managing complex content (multimedia and remote formats) and associated workflows, and publishing on third party portals or applications. Sollan has considerable experience in corporate documentary problems and excellent expertise in integrating complex medias (video, audio) in documentary chains. Sollan has worked with more than 70 European customers, mainly in industry, including EADS, Airbus, Eurocopter, Thales, Alcatel, Air Liquide and Alstom.

About JustSystems

JustSystems is a leading global software provider with three decades of successful innovation in office productivity, information management, and consumer and enterprise software. With over 2,500 customers worldwide and annual revenues over $110M, the company is continuing a global expansion strategy that includes the launch of its new enterprise software offering called xfy (pronounced 'x-fye'), and XMetaL content lifecycle solutions. A Gartner "Cool Vendor" selection in 2008, JustSystems has worldwide office locations including global headquarters in Tokyo, and regional offices in New York, Palo Alto, Vancouver, and London. The company currently employs over 1,000 people. Major strategic partnerships include IBM, Oracle and EMC. For more information, please visit http://www.justsystems.com/.

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