Canberra firm DPM took this small idea along with their big idea - their enterprise-wide template creation software known as Intelledox - and parlayed it into one of the hits of Demo, the demonstrative US show-and-tell conference that launched innovations such as Java, TiVo and the original Palm Pilot.

Intelledox is an example of the simple application that you thought always assumed existed , but did not.  The software standardises document creation in Microsoft Word from the back end, rather than on individual workstations.

"The way most people create a document is to open an existing letter they have on their system," DPM chief exectuive Phillip Williamson says.  "And that can lead to problems: you forget the customer's name, or put the wrong dollar number."

By centralising content and layout on a server, complex documents can be produced quickly through a system of wizards.

Williamson says the ACT Planning and Land Authority, and Intelledox user, can put together in two minutes a contract that once took seven hours.

The system's newest, and perhaps most atrractive feature is the web interface, which allows users to access a web site and create standard company documents without having to be on their work computer or on a station with the necessary software (save a web browser).

The site generates the documents as XML files, which can be sent by e-mail or turned into PDF files.  "You can generate Word documents without Word."  Williamson says.  Simple as the idea is, the execution takes work.  "You can't put Word on a server.  It likes to have a person to talk to.  We had to build an engine."

DPM really only needed to whisper two words at Demo to get the attention of American companies, according to Williamson: Sarbanes-Oxley, the name of the new US financial disclosure act.  The tough legislation, brought in after Enron and other corporate scandals, has US businesses particularly focused on documentation software.  Particularly now, considering that an unclear audit trail may land an executive in jail.  Williamson says the Fyshwick-based SME could eventually turn Intelledox to other types of documents, such as spreadsheets or PowerPoint presentations, and enhance it as an on-demand system.

Original article from a Canberra Times clipping.