XML Consulting

Our mission is to combine commercial products and open source software to create best-of-breed solutions that satisfy our clients' requirements. In order to provide world-class advice to clients, Explain staff are at the forefront of research and development of leading-edge Web technologies. This is evidenced by our involvement in World Wide Web Consortium working groups and our commitment to Open Source Software projects, such as DocBook, the XSLT Standard Library, Mozilla (Netscape 6/7) and TclXML.

Since we concentrate on cross-platform Web technologies, we maintain both a platform- and vendor-neutral position. This allows us to consider and employ a variety of products and solutions for any given application, and deploy them on Unix/Linux, Microsoft Windows or Apple Macintosh systems. We are able to combine products from commercial vendors with freely available, Open Source products to achieve the optimum solution for our clients.

Capabilities

Our consultants and engineers have many years experience in developing information systems, both XML- and Web-based. Specifically, we are able to provide the following services:

General

Consultation and advice on Internet, Web and E-Business architectures, technologies and development
Information analysis and design
Project management
Usability studies
Editorial services

XML Technologies

XML system design and implementation
XML markup and conversion of legacy data/documents, especially Microsoft Word format
XLink-based hypertext systems
Information systems based on RDF or Topic Maps
XHTML-based Web and wireless application development
Development of XML processing software
- SAX (1 and 2)
- DOM (Levels 1, 2 and 3)
- XML-RPC
- SOAP
Schema design and development:
- DTD
- XML Schemas
- RDF
- RELAX NG
- Topic Maps
Customisation and deployment of industry-standard schemas, for example:
- DocBook
- ebXML, UBL
- NewsML
- TEI

XSL Technologies

XSLT stylesheet design and development
XSLT-based system implementation and engineering
XSL-FO page layout design and implementation

Other Technologies

SVG design and development:
- Graphics
- Layout
- Animation
- Scripting
Wireless application development:
- XHTML Basic and Mobile profiles
- SVG Basic and Mobile profiles
- MMS
- WML

Document Repositories

Analysis and design of document repositories
Advice on Content Management Systems (CMS)
Implementation and management of CMS

Education

Instructor-led training courses
Technology transfer
Mentoring
Code review, analysis and reporting

Applications

Apache
ActiveState Komodo
Apple QuickTime streaming server

Software Development

XSLT
C/C++
Tcl/Tk

Platforms

Unix:
- Linux
- Apple Mac OS X
- Solaris
Apple Macintosh
Microsoft Windows 98/NT/2K/XP