Position Paper on Value of Technical Publications in the Storage and Backup Industry

1. Position Paper on
Value of Technical Publications in
the Storage and Backup Industry

3. Introduction
This paper presents the value and need for TWB - Leading Technical Documentation
qualitative Technical Publications in the storage
and backup industry; to market and support the Outsourcing Company
products with a superior value proposition.
TWB is a leading technical documentation company
Technical Publications created in the storage and
with an excellent record of providing unmatched
backup industry include a wide variety of material
technical documentation to many major multinational
such as user guides, white papers, case studies,
companies.
datasheets, cheat sheets, reference guides, quick
installation guides and configuration guides.
TWB is the ideal choice for leading storage and
backup solution providers. TWB helps customers with
These documents transfer processes and
all their technical and marketing documentation
procedures involved in using the latest solutions,
needs.
upgrading of the products and installing related
software.
TWB works closely with client teams located globally,
and assists them in meeting their worldwide product
Market research shows that the storage and
announcements and launch deadlines. TWB works
backup industry has tremendous growth due to the
round-the-clock with client teams and help them with
rapid increase in data capacity. Storage and
quick responses that facilitate timely distribution of
backup solutions vary with customer needs.
documents around the globe.
Storage and backup solution providers need good
documentation to support their products and “Knowledge is people, money, learning, flexibility
services. These support documents must be and competitive advantage. Knowledge is more
presented in a professional and easily relevant to sustained business than capital or
comprehensible format to achieve user labor. And yet knowledge remains the most
acceptance. neglected asset of a business. TWB helps you
unlock and share your technical knowledge with
the world.”
The rapid growth and the emergence of new
entrants each year has resulted in severe
competition among storage and backup
companies. These storage and backup companies
rely on quality documentation to support their
superior solutions and to gain a competitive edge
over their competitors.
Most of the companies outsource their
documentation requirements to reduce support
costs, and deliver their solutions with quality
support documents.
“TWB believes that technology cannot exist
without being communicated effectively.”
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4. Storage and Backup Industry – Technical Publications
The storage and backup industry is rapidly growing
and gaining enormous traction with the constantly
Challenges and Solutions
growing need for data storage and backup solutions.
According to several market surveys, the growth of Some of the greatest documentation challenges
storage and backup industries is exponentially that most companies in the storage and backup
increasing. industry face today include:
Storage and backup solutions are deployed in most  Releasing new storage and backup solutions,
enterprises, ranging from small businesses to large with quality support documents, on time
enterprises. Companies seek storage and backup
 Using optimum resources and time for creating
solutions mainly to reduce capital expenses,
operational costs, and downtime costs, which are high quality documents for newly launched
related to data storage and backup. storage and backup solutions
 Reducing support costs in a multi-vendor
business environment
A leading market research company estimated that
the market for storage and backup services is
currently worth USD 2.3 billion in annual revenue, To overcome these challenges TWB offers a wide
and is growing at around 32% per annum. range of services for:
“Between 2005 and 2010, storage demand, as  Preparing quality white papers, case studies,
measured by terabyte capacity, has increase by online help, illustrations and training materials to
69 percent annually.” market products across the globe
─ The Gartner Report
 Providing knowledge and content management,
single sourcing, and data migration to easily
manage constant changes in the solutions
 Protecting technical and commercial data of
newly developed solutions and services
 Creating, editing, and maintaining content
Benefits
TWB supported a leading provider of Unified
Storage, for their product’s marketing
documentation requirements.
Key benefits that the company drew from TWB’s
delivery were:
 Delivery of documentation in time, enabled the
company to release its storage solutions and
services, on time
 Quality documentation enabled the company to
“Most companies say that their data growth is 40-
reduce support costs significantly
60%. Some new Web 2.0 companies say that their
 Quality documentation ensured minimal
data growth is 200%”
─ Dennis Vilfort, Sun Microsystems interaction between the company and TWB,
enabling the company’s process owners to
focus on their core functions.
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5. Value of Technical Publications
Technical Communication for Communication for Different Levels of
Transferring Product Knowledge Technical and Product Knowledge
The purpose of technical communication is to transfer In technical publications, audience is the focal
product knowledge to end users in a comprehensible point. Hence, the style, language, and content must
manner. The strategies of communication and levels vary depending on the type of audience being
of information vary depending on the type of product addressed. It is because every user has a specific
and audience. role in the implementation and usage of the
technology. Therefore, it is important that
documents be created keeping in mind the role of
Providing end users with information about a
the person who will use the document.
product’s operation and maintenance is critical to the
market performance of the product. Hence, the need
for quality documentation is imperative. For example, when you document a software
application designed for highly technical users, it is
sufficient to provide the users with quick reference
In today’s business scenario, technical publications
information to use the application.
are often developed as an afterthought. This usually
results in inaccurate and incomprehensible
documentation, which, in turn, renders the users For users who start without technical or product
incapable of using the products. knowledge, it is important to provide detailed
product information along with instructions on how
to use the product.
Accurate, readily understandable, and quality
documents determine how a product sells in the
market and result in increased customer satisfaction. Attractive Publications as Useful
Marketing Tools
Faulty Assumptions that Result in
Problems in Documentation Besides transferring knowledge, technical
publications are also used for marketing a product.
Before a product is released in the market,
The faulty assumptions listed below result in information about the product needs to be
incomprehensible document: effectively communicated to the customers.
 Developers know their products better than Well-designed, accurately presented, and attractive
anyone else – due to time constraints and limited marketing collaterals increase the market prospects
resources, many companies assign their of a product and reduce support costs.
documentation tasks to the programmers. This
more often results in the creation of technology-
centered information, while end users require
task-oriented information.
 Documentation of complex applications requires a
longer learning curve for the writer - learning the
product will not be a major obstacle for writers
with the right technical background.
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6. Conclusion
 Price Competitive Growth in Storage and Backup Industry: Constant data growth has resulted in a
constant need for storage and backup solutions. Competition will follow from both new companies as well as
established companies. However, the competition for providing the best solutions will be derived from
innovation and customization.
 Value of Technical Publications: Technical Publications are very essential for transferring product
knowledge to the end users. Provisioning of proper material to use the technology and products enables the
user to accept and efficiently use the product. Faulty assumptions about documentation lead to inaccurate
and hard-to-understand material. This also decreases the changes of marketing the products in the global
markets.
 Role of Documentation Outsourcing: It is vital for the storage and backup companies to outsource their
documentation requirements, in order to reduce support costs. Hence the storage and backup companies
outsource their documentation requirements to companies that provide quality technical publication solutions.
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7. TWB Services
TWB is India’s leader in technical communication outsourcing and education. TWB offers a complete suite of services that
allows our customers to effectively publish their technical knowledge with their people and processes. TWB’s customers range
from Global 500 – including Cisco, Accenture, McAfee, LG, Samsung, Citrix, SAP, Siemens, AOL, Intel; Indian technology
majors – including Infosys, Wipro; Global defense majors - Pratt & Whitney, Honeywell, DRDO, HAL; and exciting technology
startups. TWB's expertise in technical communication ranges from IT Products and Outsourcing, ITES, Banking, Financial,
Aerospace, Defense, Ship Building to Hi-tech Manufacturing, and Discrete and Process Manufacturing.
TWB’s services include:
Technical Marketing Technical Product Documentation Quality
Solutions Documentation Management
 Datasheets
 Administrator’s Guide
 Datasheets  Copy Editing and Proof Reading
 API Document
 Cheat sheets  Managing Writing
 Configuration Guide
 Solution Briefs/Solution Brochures  Editing Services
 Functional Specifications Document
 Presentations –  Layout and Design
Products/Corporate Profile  Installation Manual
 Creating SLAs
 Brochures and marketing collateral  Interface Document
 Web content  Interactive Electronic Technical Business Documentation
Manual (IETM)
 Audio and video scripts
 Maintenance Manual  Business Proposals
 Press releases
 Online Help  Legal Disclaimers
 Direct mail
 Operation Manual  Policy Manuals
 Newsletter design copy
 Product Demo  Style Guide Design
 Sales catalogues
 Product Specifications Document  Template Design
 Sales sheets
 Product Overview Document
 Quick Reference Guide
Business Communication Content Management
 Release Notes
 Short Reports  Requirement Analysis Document
 Single Sourcing
 Proposals  SDK Document
 File Version Control
 Case Studies  Troubleshooting Manual
 Document Naming Conventions
 Lab Reports  User Manual
 Consistent Document Formatting
 Memos  Open Source Documentation
 Data Transformation
 Progress/Interim Reports  Programmers Guides
 Writing for Electronic Media  Functional Specifications Document
 Use Cases Web site Development
Illustrations  Online Help /Context Sensitive Help
 Web 2.0 development
 Troubleshooting Guides
 Graphic Designing  Web content

 Info graphics  Web applications
Qualitative Analytics for
 2D & 3D animation
Decision Support Translation and Localization
 Line drawings and illustrations
Services
 Economic Business Research
Process Documentation
 Industry Analysis  Software Translation Services
 Workflows  Market Opportunity Analysis  Document Translation Services
 Standard Operating Procedures  Competitive Business Analysis  Localization (L10N) Testing
 ISO Documentation  Company & Prospect Profiling  Internationalization (I18N) Testing
 CMM Documentation  Reporting Solutions
 Assessment of Unmet Market Needs Records Management
Deployment and Support  Status and Potential of Technologies
 Document Management Solutions
 Benchmarking of Strategies Vs
 Record Management Storage and
 Installation and Configuration Competition
Retrieval
Guides  Forecasting
 Operations Manual  Sales Force Effectiveness
 Market Assessments
 Competitive Intelligence
 Opinion Leadership
 Emerging Markets - evaluation and
research
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8. TWB Software Tools Expertise
Our technical proficiency inin software and authoring tools includes:
Our technical proficiency software and authoring tools includes:
Unstructured Content XML Structured Editors Multimedia/Authoring
Development
 Epic  Adobe Flash®
 Microsoft Word®  FrameMaker+SGML  Adobe Dreamweaver®
 Adobe FrameMaker®  X-Metal®  Microsoft FrontPage®
 Adobe InDesign®  Adobe Captivate®
 QuarkXPress® Macromedia Captivate
 Adobe PageMaker® Graphics/Animations Multimedia/Authoring/
 Supporting tools
Illustrations  Adobe Flash®
 Adobe Photoshop®  Adobe Flash®
 Adobe Flash CS4 Professional  Adobe Fireworks®  Adobe Flex®
 Adobe Illustrator CS3  Adobe AIR®
 CorelDRAW Online Help  Adobe Dreamweaver®
 Microsoft-Expression Graphic  Adobe Acrobat®
Designer
 Microsoft Silverlight®
 Xara Xtreme (Windows & Linux)  JavaHelp
 Adobe Authorware®
 CuteDraw  Adobe RoboHelp 7.0
 Adobe Director®
 Publisher3D(for animation)  HelpScribble
 Adobe Captivate®
 Sketsa SVG Editor (for vector  WebWorks Publisher
 Trivantis Lectora®
graphics)  PowerCHM
 ASP.NET
 Techsmith Camtasia  Doc-To-Help
 JSP
 Arbortext IsoDraw (technical  WinCHM
illustrations for 2D and 3D)  JAVA
 HelpSmith 2.1.1(Windows)
 Fast-Help Standards
Graphics/Animation  MadCap Flare
 Help-Server
 NVU Help  SCORM 1.2 / 2004
 Adobe Flash®  AICC
 Adobe Photoshop® XML  W3C
 Adobe Illustrator®  Section 508
 Adobe Fireworks®  QTI XML
 Microsoft Silverlight®  XMetal®
 Microsoft Word 2003®,
Databases  Microsoft Word 2007® Development and Publishing
tools
 Microsoft Access CMS/ LMS  XSLT/XSL
 Microsoft SQL Server
 EDD
 Sharepoint®
Flowcharting  Moodle
 Joomla,
 WordPress
 Microsoft Visio
 Media Wiki
 iGrafx
 CMS Builder
 EDraw
 Author-it (formerly AuthorIT)
 RFFlow
 Alfresco
 Flowbreeze
 Smart Draw
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9. Industries Served
TWB services a wide range of technology and knowledge-driven industries, helping them meet their markets better. These
TWB services a wide range of technology and knowledge driven industries, helping them meet their markets better, these
include:
include:
 Banking, Insurance and Financial Services  ITES/ KPO/ BPO
 Consulting and Business Services  Pharmaceuticals and Biotechnology
 Defense, Aerospace and Hi-Tech Manufacturing  Process Manufacturing and Allied Industries
 Education and Learning  Steel, Ship Building, Construction and Aviation
 IT, ITES  Telecom and Digital Communications
TWB has been the preferred technical documentation outsourcing company for:
TWB has been the preferred technical documentation outsourcing company for:
The TWB Building US Office:
No: 4062, 19th Main Road, TWB
HAL 2nd Stage, 11701 Norwegian Wood Drive
Bangalore – 560008 Austin, TX 78758
India.
Landmark: Behind Carlton Towers
Telephone: Telephone:
+91.80.40741400 / +1.512.586.8357
+91.80.41256367
Corporate Enquiries:
corp@twb.in
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