iContent® To Transform Content Administration And Delivery
For Talent Management Applications
Plateau, Akamai, NETg and Leading Vertical Content Providers Join Forces to Enable Next-Generation Talent Management Paradigm
Arlington, Va. • October 4, 2006 – At the HR Technology show today in Chicago, Plateau Systems, a leading provider of software for developing, managing and optimizing organizational skills and talent, debuted iContent, the industry’s most comprehensive solution for discovering, procuring, deploying and managing talent management content. iContent provides a single place to locate, store and deliver thousands of third-party packaged content offerings from leading providers as well as industry and customer-specific content. With iContent , organizations can accelerate the availability and delivery of content to end users while also realizing substantial cost savings by reducing content infrastructure and administration overhead.
Initial iContent partners include Thomson NETg, a leading provider of enterprise business and IT content; Medcom Trainex, a global healthcare education provider; and PureSafety, a premier provider of online health and safety training.
“We’re pleased to partner with Plateau to enable our customers to access the most up-to-date Thomson NETg learning content through the iContent Portal,” said Clint Everton, President of Thomson NETg. “iContent will greatly simplify content management and will support our mission to provide professionals and organizations worldwide with learning solutions that drive business success."
According to a February 2006 report by analysts James Lundy, Waldir Arevolo, and Lou Latham at Gartner, a leading technology industry analyst research firm, “Many companies have been spending large amounts of money on tools, content courseware and resources to support and motivate stakeholders, such as employees, customers and partners.”* “Content management,” adds Jim Holincheck, VP of Research at Gartner, “is one of the most important, but often overlooked, parts of the talent management application suite.”
Leveraging best-of-breed technology and exposing course titles and content for on-demand access, iContent encompasses thousands of third party content offerings and custom content that includes simulations, assessments, online books, video, audio, podcasts, virtual labs, webinars, documents and more. Talent management content housed and managed through iContent can include:
- Learning content that can be integrated with employee performance plans and competencies.
- Legal information and regulatory HR and industry specific compliance content
- Company-specific job position information and process/procedure guidelines.
“iContent was conceived in response to industry demand for a cost-effective solution that would simplify and expedite content procurement, deployment and management,” said Paul Sparta, chairman and CEO of Plateau Systems. “Content integration and administration are two of the biggest challenges facing organizations today. iContent is a new paradigm that addresses these challenges by integrating packaged and custom content and hosting and deploying it to users globally over a secure and scalable content distribution network.”
iContent is comprised of three major elements: iContent Portal, iContent Service, and iContent Hosting.
iContent® Portal
The iContent Portal provides customers with a single point of access for performing detailed searches to find business relevant content. The portal also allows an organization to purchase and deploy titles and libraries from industry-leading packaged content providers including Thompson NETg. Once selected and purchased, the content is made available to Plateau Talent Management applications. Content procured through the iContent Portal can be automatically, seamlessly and immediately updated with changes, relieving administrators and IT staff of the labor-intensive revision management burden. For a tour of the iContent Portal, click or visit www.icontentportal.com/tour.html.
iContent® Service
The iContent® Service provides automation and expertise to reduce time and labor for testing, deploying and updating company-specific content. Organizations can securely upload, validate, and catalog custom content before it is deployed to the iContent® Hosting environment where it is made immediately available to Plateau talent management applications. iContent Services can also manage any previously purchased third party content packages, providing a single environment for all company-specific talent management content.
iContent® Hosting
iContent® Hosting service reduces infrastructure costs to manage and store content and accelerates global content delivery. As the foundation for the entire solution, the iContent® Hosting service is built on highly scalable technology to ensure security and availability and is supported by a world-class Service Level Agreement. iContent’s robust and scalable content distribution capabilities are powered by Akamai Technologies and the Akamai Web Application Accelerator solution to ensure optimal application performance for distributed end users across an organization.
“We’re pleased to have been selected as the enabling infrastructure for the new iContent solution,” said Robert Hughes, executive vice president of Akamai Global Sales, Services and Marketing. “ By utilizing Akamai’s highly scalable Web Application Accelerator to power this solution, iContent can ensure reliable distribution of its talent management assets on a global scale.”
About Plateau
Plateau is a leading provider of adaptable Web-based software for developing, managing and optimizing organizational skills and talent to increase workforce productivity and business operations performance. Plateau’s software is being used by some of the world’s largest, most successful enterprises, including the American Red Cross, General Electric, Internal Revenue Service, and Wendy’s International. Industry analysts, including Forrester Research and Bersin & Associates, have rated Plateau a leader in functionality, technology, and customer satisfaction. The company is headquartered in Arlington, Va. For more information, please visit www.plateau.com
* E-Learning Key Issues, 2006 by W. Arevolo, L. Latham and J. Lundy, February 22, 2006.
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