Topic Maps - White Paper

Executive Summary

For years, organizations have sought to improve the way they share information and knowledge with employees, partners and customers. But the platforms that exist to deliver such content – Web sites and corporate databases – are not designed to support or facilitate an integrated knowledge management strategy. As a result, this goal has remained somewhat elusive for many organizations.

Moreover, many companies have yet to fully resolve the challenge of integrating data and knowledge from disparate software systems, although the adoption of standards has made it easier to combine content from different platforms and software applications. For example:

• Network standards have solved the physical issues of connecting different computing systems.
• Internet protocol standards have made the integration of disparate platforms transparent and seamless.
• Web standards have allowed information to be shared among people using a wide variety of tools. XML, for example, has made large amounts of data accessible to a variety of systems...