SoftQuad Software

Last updated
SoftQuad Software, Ltd.
Company type Public
IndustrySoftware
Founded1984;40 years ago (1984) in Toronto
Founders
Defunct2001 (2001)
FateAcquired by Just Systems
Products HoTMetaL

SoftQuad Software, Ltd., was a Canadian software company best known for HoTMetaL, [1] the first commercial HTML editor. [2] [3] [4] It is also known for Author/Editor, the first specialized SGML editor, [5] and Panorama, the first browser plugin for SGML. [6] Panorama demonstrated the need for standardization of SGML on the web, [2] which eventually resulted in the development of the XML specification. [7]

Contents

HoTMetaL was one of a series of applications created by SoftQuad for editing, viewing and publishing structured (SGML and XML) content. It was based upon a popular SGML Editor called Author/Editor and has since evolved into XMetaL.

Early history

SoftQuad started its life in 1984 as a technology-oriented spin-off of Toronto's Coach House Press. [1] [8] Its founders were Yuri Rubinsky, David Slocombe and Stan Bevington. [5] [9] [10]

SoftQuad was started in order to improve automated typesetting at Toronto's Coach House Press, and for many years developed an enhanced commercial version of the text formatting program troff, developed under license from AT&T, called sqtroff. [5] It was sold with a suite of associated programs, corresponding to AT&T's Documenter's Workbench, under the name SoftQuad Publishing Software (SQPS). [11]

SoftQuad's business headquarters was in Toronto. After SQPS was largely supplanted by Author/Editor as SoftQuad's main product, product development was transitioned to the Vancouver area, retaining the Toronto team as combined professional services and customization development for Author/Editor and its associated software development kit, called "Sculptor". This arrangement arose out of a highly coincidental reunion of Yuri Rubinsky (in Toronto) and his high school friend Peter Sharpe. [12] Peter Sharpe led the development of Author/Editor. [5] [13]

By virtue of its early lead and its charismatic leader, Yuri Rubinsky, SoftQuad provided considerable leadership to the nascent SGML community. For example, Yuri Rubinsky was the first president of SGML Open. [14]

Author/Editor

Author/Editor appeared on the market in 1988 as the world's first specialized SGML editing application. [5] The first version ran on the Macintosh. Windows and Unix versions followed in 1991. Author/Editor 3.0 was summarized as "a very pure structure editor which validates the document all the time. Documents which have a structure that doesn't comply with their document type definition can be edited by turning rules checking off, which can be helpful when re-arranging documents. The main window is a QUASIWYG representation of text, a structure view and a context view are also available. The structure view shows tags indented, the context view shows paths in the same way. An element list is used to pick up an element to insert. The representation on screen is done with a style editor, which generates style files. The program has many DTD with it, but new DTD's are imported by the RulesBuilder, which converts a DTD to a structure definition required by Author/Editor. There is an English thesaurus and a dictionary for spell checking." [15]

After several versions, Author/Editor was sold with the Panorama suite to Interleaf in September, 1998. At the same time, the Toronto development team, led by David A. Keldsen, joined Interleaf to help focus the company on content management and create new products. By that point, SoftQuad's focus had shifted to its descendants, HoTMetaL and XMetaL. Interleaf did not produce new versions of Author/Editor. Sales were discontinued in 2000. [16]

Author/Editor had sibling products RulesBuilder and Sculptor, the Application Builder. RulesBuilder was used for compiling SGML DTDs to a fully resolved and validated binary form that Author/Editor could consume. Sculptor was used to build customized user interfaces for Author/Editor. [17] ApplicationBuilder used Scheme for its customization language. [18] [19] Sculptor is conceptually the ancestor of today's XMetaL Developer.

Panorama

Panorama was a multi-platform web browser plugin for SGML content. There was a style editor and support for linking using a mixture of SGML HyTime and TEI Pointers. There was also support for distributed annotations.

Panorama was described as "A browser for SGML texts. The NCSA (National Center for Supercomputer Applications) includes the [free] version of Panorama into its Mosaic delivery. The Mosaic [browser] will launch Panorama when it encounters any other SGML file than an HTML file. Panorama will have a style editor to define the outlook of documents. The commercial version has additional features like the ability to create annotations and customized bookmarks." [20]

SoftQuad goes public

In 1992, SoftQuad went public on the Vancouver Stock Exchange through a reverse takeover of BC's "Hatco". [21] In January 1994, SoftQuad was listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. [22]

HoTMetaL

Released in 1994, [23] HoTMetaL was the first commercial HTML authoring product. [2] [3] [4] SoftQuad was able to beat other products to the market by virtue of the fact that HTML was defined as an application (Document Type Definition) of SGML. By virtue of this strong base and early lead, HoTMetaL became very popular as a tool for creating HTML web sites. [24]

HoTMetaL was initially free, but a commercial version HoTMetaL Pro was soon released. Early versions of HoTMetaL ran on Windows and Unix. [24] HoTMetaL Pro also ran on Macintosh, [25] but by version 5, it was restricted to Windows. [26]

On the basis of HoTMetaL's early success, SoftQuad was able to go public on the NASDAQ stock exchange as SWEBF. [27]

Over time, however, companies like Microsoft and Netscape increasingly saw HTML authoring tools as loss leaders to tempt web developers into their product suites.

In addition, HoTMetaL adhered to the SGML philosophies that dictated that content should adhere to standards and that the structure and presentation of content should be separate. HoTMetaL was excellent at visualizing the structure of the content, and of enforcing the standards. But neither of these were as important to Web designers as "What You See Is What You Get" presentation of the content, which was better provided by products like DreamWeaver and FrontPage.

In September, 1996, SoftQuad released HoTMetaL Intranet Publisher (HiP). [28] HiP was essentially an Intranet Content Management System.

Corporate transitions

After Yuri Rubinsky's death in January 1996, SoftQuad went through a variety of transitions.

In November 1996, SoftQuad reported substantial revenue growth but also substantial losses.

In December 1996, SoftQuad acquired Alpha Software, creator of popular desktop database publishing software. Alpha's software was intended to be integrated with SoftQuad's to enable Web-based publishing of database-stored information.

Alpha Software's Richard Rabins was made an Executive Vice President of SoftQuad International Inc. In September, 1997, he became CEO [29] after SoftQuad's losses mounted. The positions of President and Chief Financial Officer were also changed at the same time. Essentially, the Alpha Software team was asked to use its experience in commercial software to turn the struggling company around. [30]

In June 1998, Rabins decided to change the company's direction from markup technologies to a children's game subsidiary (NewKidCo) of SoftQuad International's Alpha software subsidiary. [31]

On October 9, 1998, SoftQuad was delisted from NASDAQ (but not the Toronto Stock Exchange) after falling under the minimum share price guidelines. [32]

On November 10, 1998, SoftQuad International Inc. sold the assets (including trademarks) of SoftQuad Inc. (the structured authoring tools business) to private investors and management. This meant that after the purchase, SoftQuad was a private company again, this time named "SoftQuad Software Ltd." The parent company, SoftQuad International Ltd. was later renamed "NewKidCo" to reflect the fact that they did intended to pursue a different business than the historical SoftQuad and the new SoftQuad Software. [33]

In December 2000, SoftQuad bought Advanced Data Engineering (ADEI), a conversion tools company from Petaluma, California. [34] ADEI employees became the core of SoftQuad's XML consulting business.

In September 2000, SoftQuad released a short-lived product called MarketAgility. [35] [36] From a press release of the time: "MarketAgility Enterprise is a server-based solution built on Microsoft SQL Server and is administered through a simple browser interface. It automates the collection, normalization and incremental updating of product information from wherever it resides in an enterprise into an XML-based master catalog." [37]

In January 2001, a former employee of SoftQuad formed a company called Enfolding Systems Corp. That company was acquired by Blast Radius in August 2002 [38] and later, as a subsidiary of Blast Radius, acquired the SoftQuad assets from Corel Corp. [39]

In August 2001, SoftQuad Software Ltd. was bought by desktop software vendor Corel [40] for about US$37 million in stock. After the Corel Acquisition, SoftQuad ceased to exist as a company, though many employees remained with the company as part of Corel's XMetaL division in Vancouver.

Subsequently, SoftQuad and most assets of the company were sold to Blast Radius in 2002.

In 2004, Just Systems acquired SoftQuad's remaining assets, including its flagship XMetaL product, from Blast Radius. Today, XMetaL and most other Softquad assets are owned by JustSystems and the core code of XMetaL is maintained by some of the same programmers who worked at various incarnations of SoftQuad.

Controversy

In March 2000, SoftQuad merged with American Sports Machine, effectively becoming an OTCBB public company. The new company was quickly renamed SoftQuad Software Ltd. and given the stock symbol SXML.

In late 2000, SoftQuad stock was involved in the Bermuda Short sting. 58 stock brokers and executives were indicted in the case which involved "defrauding the shareholders of C-Me-Run, SoftQuad and JagNotes by artificially inflating the market price of these stocks through illegal means."

In 2004, two men caught in the Bermuda Short sting pleaded guilty to stock fraud involving SoftQuad and other penny stocks. Court records state that Paul D. Lemmon and Mark Valentine "conspired to unjustly enrich themselves by defrauding a fictitious foreign mutual fund (the “Fund”) through paying undisclosed payoffs and kickbacks to brokers in exchange for causing the Fund to purchase large amounts of overpriced C-Me-Run, SoftQuad and JagNotes stocks."

XMetaL

XMetaL was one of the first XML authoring products and has remained popular for almost a decade. Unlike tools like the popular XML Spy, XMetaL used a word processor metaphor and was designed to be used by writers and not programmers.

Along with Cisco [41] and Hewlett-Packard, [42] Microsoft was an early site-license customer for XMetaL [43] and according to public reports, still uses XMetaL widely.

Notable SoftQuad employees

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HTML</span> HyperText Markup Language

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScript.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Markup language</span> Modern system for annotating a document

A markuplanguage is a text-encoding system which specifies the structure and formatting of a document and potentially the relationships among its parts. Markup can control the display of a document or enrich its content to facilitate automated processing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Standard Generalized Markup Language</span> Markup language

The Standard Generalized Markup Language is a standard for defining generalized markup languages for documents. ISO 8879 Annex A.1 states that generalized markup is "based on two postulates":

The Document Style Semantics and Specification Language (DSSSL) is an international standard developed to provide stylesheets for SGML documents.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adobe FrameMaker</span> Document processor for the production and manipulation of large structured documents

Adobe FrameMaker is a document processor designed for writing and editing large or complex documents, including structured documents. It was originally developed by Frame Technology Corporation, which was bought by Adobe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alludo</span> Software company headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario

Cascade Parent Limited, doing business as Alludo, is a Canadian software company headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, specializing in graphics processing. Formerly called the Corel Corporation, the company is known for producing software titles such as CorelDRAW, and for acquiring AfterShot Pro, PaintShop Pro, Painter, Video Studio and WordPerfect.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amaya (web editor)</span> Web browser and web editor

Amaya is a discontinued free and open source WYSIWYG web authoring tool with browsing abilities.

Coach House Books is an independent book publishing company located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Coach House publishes experimental poetry, fiction, drama and non-fiction. The press is particularly interested in writing that pushes at the boundaries of convention.

Single-source publishing, also known as single-sourcing publishing, is a content management method which allows the same source content to be used across different forms of media and more than one time. The labor-intensive and expensive work of editing need only be carried out once, on only one document; that source document can then be stored in one place and reused. This reduces the potential for error, as corrections are only made one time in the source document.

In the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), an entity is a primitive data type, which associates a string with either a unique alias or an SGML reserved word. Entities are foundational to the organizational structure and definition of SGML documents. The SGML specification defines numerous entity types, which are distinguished by keyword qualifiers and context. An entity string value may variously consist of plain text, SGML tags, and/or references to previously defined entities. Certain entity types may also invoke external documents. Entities are called by reference.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SciELO</span> Bibliographic database of open access journals

SciELO is a bibliographic database, digital library, and cooperative electronic publishing model of open access journals. SciELO was created to meet the scientific communication needs of developing countries and provides an efficient way to increase visibility and access to scientific literature. Originally established in Brazil in 1997, today there are 16 countries in the SciELO network and its journal collections: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

Yuri Ivan Rubinsky was a Lebanese-born writer, software executive, and promoter of the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), which was the basis for the now-ubiquitous XML. In Canada, he is probably best known as founding co-director of the Banff Publishing Workshop and for his work in applying technology to help visually impaired people. The Yuri Rubinsky Memorial Award was created posthumously in his memory.

HoTMetaL is an early commercial HTML-authoring software program, released in 1994 by SoftQuad Software of Toronto, Canada.

HotDog is an HTML editor developed by Sausage Software in the mid-1990s. At the time of its development, there were only a small number of HTML editors available on the market and HotDog gathered significant interest due to its ease of use.

Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML) is part of the family of XML markup languages which mirrors or extends versions of the widely used HyperText Markup Language (HTML), the language in which Web pages are formulated.

.sgm may refer to the following file formats:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">JustSystems</span>

JustSystems Corporation is a Japanese software development house. The company's main products were a word processor, Ichitaro ("JohnnyOne"), a Japanese input method, ATOK. In 2010s, they focus on correspondence education and enterprise software.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">XMetaL</span>

XMetaL, or XMetaL Author, is a software application people use to create and edit documents in XML and SGML. It has some features common to word processors, but is a native XML editor that can be configured to work with various standard and custom DTDs and XML Schemas. XMetaL was first released by SoftQuad Software in 1999 and is currently developed by JustSystems.

Datalogics is a computer software company formed in 1967 and based in Chicago, IL. The company licenses software development kits for working with PDF and other document file types. They have previously developed their own typesetting and database publishing software. Since 1996, Datalogics has also acted as a channel for several SDKs from Adobe Systems. These include the Adobe PDF Library, Adobe Experience Reader Extensions, Adobe Content Server, Adobe InDesign Server, Adobe PDF Converter, Adobe PDF Print Engine and Adobe Reader Mobile SDK. In 2022, Datalogics launched a new business unit called pdfRest, an API toolkit for PDF processing.

References

  1. 1 2 Canadian Dealer News (November 21, 2012). "10 Canadian technology brands that are no more". p. 11. Archived from the original on August 15, 2013. Retrieved June 16, 2014.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  2. 1 2 3 "People of the W3C". Liam Quin. Retrieved June 15, 2014.
  3. 1 2 Dyer, Russell (April 9, 2003). "The XML.com Interview: Liam Quin". XML.com. O'Reilly Media. Archived from the original on July 14, 2014. Retrieved June 15, 2014.
  4. 1 2 Karat, John; Vanderdonckt, Jean; Abowd, Gregory (January 2008). Web Accessibility : A Foundation for Research. London, UK: Springer. p. 129. OCLC   288468438.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Maxwell, John W. "Coach House Press: Crucible of Electronic Publishing Technology". Historical Perspectives on Canadian Publishing. Archived from the original on October 4, 2013.
  6. ↑ Green, Karen (May 18, 1995). "NCSA/SOFTQUAD" (Press release). NCSA . Retrieved June 15, 2014.
  7. ↑ DeRose, Steven J. (1997). SGML FAQ Book : Understanding the Foundation of HTML and XML. Boston, MA: Springer. pp. 185–186.
  8. ↑ Maxwell, John (September 9, 2013). "Coach House #retrotech – An Update for Sept 2013". Publishing @ SFU. Simon Fraser University. Archived from the original on July 14, 2014. Retrieved June 16, 2014.
  9. ↑ Seybold, Jonathan. "Yuri Rubinsky (1952–1996)". University of Toronto. Archived from the original on February 10, 2002. Retrieved 2013-09-21.
  10. ↑ "Highlights of 2008 Donations" (PDF). The Halcyon: The Newsletter of the Friends of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library (44). University of Toronto: 11. December 2009. ISSN   0840-5565. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-07-14.
  11. ↑ Darwin, Ian (28 July 1988). "SoftQuad Publishing Software Release 2.9". Newsgroup:  comp.text. Usenet:   11024@mcdchg.UUCP. Archived from the original on 17 June 2014. Retrieved June 16, 2014.
  12. ↑ Sharpe, Peter (29–31 January 1996). "SGML: Memory of Yuri Rubinsky (1952–1996)" . Retrieved 2013-09-21.
  13. ↑ Darwin, Ian F. (1996-01-23). "Tribute to Yuri Rubinsky: SGML and the man". Ian F. Darwin, M.Sc. Retrieved 2013-09-21.
  14. ↑ Gennusa, Pamela L. (29 January 1996). "In memory of Yuri Rubinsky". SGML: Memory of Yuri Rubinsky (1952–1996). Newsgroup:  comp.text.sgml. Usenet:   310D30BE@gateway.dpsl.co.uk . Retrieved June 16, 2014.
  15. ↑ "Kuopio Technical Report on SGML - A-E". Oasis-open.org. Retrieved 2013-09-21.
  16. ↑ Cooper, Amy (2000-05-30). "EAD Software?". Archives & Archivists (Mailing list). Retrieved 2013-09-21.
  17. ↑ González, Sean (February 7, 1995). "HTML: Nothing but Net". PC Magazine . 14 (3): 158. ISSN   0888-8507 . Retrieved June 16, 2014.
  18. ↑ Hedman, Pontus (1996-04-17). "Re: The six-line Internet flaming-death server". scsh (Mailing list). Archived from the original on September 25, 2013. Retrieved 2013-09-21.
  19. ↑ Quin, Liam (15 October 1997). "Re: Prototype OO was Re: Inheritance/defaulting of attributes". xml-dev (Mailing list). Retrieved 2013-09-21.
  20. ↑ "Kuopio Technical Report on SGML - N-Z". Oasis-open.org. Retrieved 2013-09-21.
  21. ↑ [ dead link ]
  22. ↑ "SGML". Xml.coverpages.org. Retrieved 2013-09-21.
  23. ↑ Darwin, Ian (June 3, 1994). "SoftQuad announces WYSIWYG HTML Editor available for FTP". Newsgroup:  comp.text.sgml. Usenet:   1994Jun2.020714.1460@sq.sq.com . Retrieved 2013-09-21.
  24. 1 2 "SoftQuad HoTMetaL: Frequently Asked Questions". Archived from the original on September 28, 2007. Retrieved June 14, 2014.
  25. ↑ "The First WYSIWYG Editor Shoot-out". Webmonkey. March 30, 1998. Archived from the original on September 28, 2007. Retrieved June 14, 2014.
  26. ↑ "SoftQuad Introduces HoTMetaL PRO 5.0". Xml.coverpages.org. 1998-09-14. Retrieved 2013-09-21.
  27. ↑ "Archived copy". www.findarticles.com. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 13 January 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  28. ↑ "Archived copy". www.findarticles.com. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 13 January 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  29. ↑ "Archived copy". www.findarticles.com. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 13 January 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  30. ↑ "Archived copy". www.findarticles.com. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 13 January 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  31. ↑ "SoftQuad International Explores Strategic Alternatives for Web Tools Unit - Press Centre". Xml.coverpages.org. 1998-06-10. Retrieved 2013-09-21.
  32. ↑ "SoftQuad International Inc. NASDAQ Listing Status". Silicon Investor. October 9, 1998. Retrieved June 15, 2014.
  33. ↑ "Business Wire: SoftQuad International Inc. Announces Special Meeting of Shareholders". 15 May 2005. Archived from the original on 15 May 2005. Retrieved 19 December 2018.
  34. ↑ "ENT: So Many Formats, So Utile Time: SoftQuad Buys Converter - Company Business and Marketing". 20 September 2004. Archived from the original on 20 September 2004. Retrieved 19 December 2018.
  35. ↑ Grant, Heather (25 September 2000). "SoftQuad Announces the Availability of MarketAgility, A Supply-Side Solution for B2B E-commerce An end-to-end XML solution thatgives suppliers total control over their e-market presence". announce@lists.oasis-open.org (Press release). Retrieved June 15, 2014.
  36. ↑ "Products". Corel. Archived from the original on October 3, 2003. Retrieved June 15, 2014.
  37. ↑ "AC Industrial Chooses SoftQuad MarketAgility Enterprise To Create Customized e-Catalogs From Over 2.3 Million Products" (Press release). Canada IT. Archived from the original on 2007-09-27. Retrieved 2013-09-21.
  38. ↑ Gravelle, Christine (September 17, 2002). "Blast Radius acquires Enfolding Systems Corp" (Press release). Blast Radius Inc. Archived from the original on September 28, 2007. Retrieved June 14, 2014.
  39. ↑ Drexhage, Glenn (March 2, 2004). "Blast Radius scoops up division of Corel Corp" (Press Release). Archived from the original on September 28, 2007. Retrieved June 14, 2014.
  40. ↑ James Clark. "James Clark". I was a major investor in and a director of SoftQuad Software before it was acquired by Corel.
  41. ↑ "SoftQuad Simplifies Enterprise Adoption of XML With XMetaL 3". Prnewswire.com. December 11, 2001. Retrieved 2013-09-21.
  42. ↑ Doug Henschen (2005-07-12). "In Focus: Up Close With HP's Content Management Guru - Software". Intelligententerprise.com. Retrieved 2013-09-21.
  43. ↑ "SoftQuad reports fiscal 2001 first quarter financial results" (Press release). Canada IT. February 15, 2001. Archived from the original on November 11, 2004. Retrieved 2013-09-21.

Notes

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.