HiSoftware Selected by Microsoft to Develop Accessibility Kit for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server

July 31, 2007; 09:35 AM
HiSoftware (www.hisoftware.com), a leading provider of software, services and managed operation solutions that monitor and optimize Web content governance, quality and regulatory compliance, today announced an agreement with Microsoft to develop the Accessibility Kit for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007. The kit will provide templates, master pages, controls and Web parts along with technical documentation to advance MOSS accessibility for people with disabilities. All of the source code will be provided via the Microsoft Permissive License and will be available on CodePlex (www.codeplex.com) later this year for customers and other Microsoft partners to download, reuse and extend. This announcement follows the 17^th anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA.)

Microsoft Corp.'s Office SharePoint Server, a program that lets companies set up Web sites, search for data and organize corporate documents, topped $800 million in sales in the year that ended June 30. Sales of SharePoint, introduced in 2001, have grown faster than any other piece of software in company history, indicating it has sold more than 85 million licenses to 17,000 customers.

The Accessibility Kit for SharePoint Server is the latest project through a long history of HiSoftware’s collaborative efforts with Microsoft and supports Microsoft’s ongoing commitment to accessible technology. With approximately one-fifth of the U.S. population, as well as the populations of developed nations around the world, having one or more forms of disability, Microsoft and HiSoftware recognize the importance of providing solutions that are accessible to everyone, including those individuals with disabilities. This is further supported by a Forrester Research Study, commissioned by Microsoft that found 57 percent of working aged adult computer users could benefit from accessible technology (http://www.microsoft.com/enable/research/).

According to Tom Rizzo, Director of SharePoint at Microsoft, “Microsoft has a long standing commitment to enhance the accessibility of its solutions. Given the tremendous growth and market expansion of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server in both the Web content management and collaborative space, we are very pleased to be working with HiSoftware, a leading software provider in the compliance industry, to extend the “out of the box” accessibility for Office SharePoint Server with the additional functionality and ease-of-use that will be provided in the kit. HiSoftware shares Microsoft’s vision of providing technology that helps people and businesses throughout the world realize their full potential.”

The Accessibility Kit for Office SharePoint Server will include site templates, Web parts, documentation, instruction and tutorials enabling partners and customers to develop Web sites that conform to the guidelines set out in Section 508 of the U.S. Rehabilitation Act and the W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). The solution will also provide accessibility updates for Office SharePoint Server templates and Web parts for Web publishing, corporate intranet, team and project collaboration sites and more. This allows users to create a site and replace “out-of-the-box” MOSS components with accessibility kit templates, reusable Web content and Web parts.

As part of the testing for the kit, HiSoftware will work with Microsoft, key stakeholders and early adopters to maximize value and functionality, including organizations in the UK and worldwide. HiSoftware will also work with a number of U.S. Federal agencies and partners to ensure the kit will address the broad and diverse needs of the worldwide community of MOSS users.

Accessibility Community for Office SharePoint Server

As part of this initiative HiSoftware will provide an extensible platform with an open API and SDK, on which other Microsoft partners can build, collaborate and extend. HiSoftware will lead a partner and customer community to share thoughts, solutions and strategies for enhancing usability and accessibility across MOSS deployments.

HiSoftware President and CEO, Kurt A. Mueffelmann, said, “With more and more of the population requiring assistive technology to access Web sites, ensuring that Internets and intranets are accessible to everyone is an important issue and a growing concern for many organizations. We are pleased to partner with Microsoft for creating the MOSS add-on kit to ensure that all users are able to take full advantage of Office SharePoint Server’s features to easily create accessible Web sites.”

Commercial Solutions for MOSS

HiSoftware has worked closely with Microsoft as an ISV partner since 1998, providing solutions that integrate with and operate on the Microsoft platform, to compliment, extend and provide a complete trustworthy customer experience. In May, HiSoftware introduced the first of a series of commercially available solutions to provide end-to-end compliance for MOSS users (with integrations into Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer, Microsoft Expression and MOSS). HiSoftware’s compliance solutions for MOSS will enable mutual customers to address ongoing Web Governance standards through a collaborative workflow solution between development, content providers, compliance officers and executive management. Office SharePoint users will not only begin with a Web site that meets common accessibility requirements, but also will continue to create and maintain an accessible Web site through on-going monitoring and reporting. This will allow organizations to adhere to the various accessibility conformance guidelines (Section 508 / WCAG), broaden social awareness and most importantly expand market opportunity through a broader audience and more functional Web presence.

About HiSoftware

Founded in 1998, HiSoftware is a leading provider of software, services and On-Demand solutions that test, repair, monitor and enforce Web content, quality and regulatory compliance. The company’s solutions empower content developers, Web site architects and executives to work collaboratively to create and manage corporate Web standards for accessibility, privacy, security, search engine optimization (SEO), site quality and performance, branding, competitive intelligence and application transaction testing. HiSoftware’s customers boast many of the world’s largest public and private sites including U.S. and international government agencies and Global 2000 companies such as Gateway, HP, California State University, U.S. Department of Transportation and Microsoft. For more information about HiSoftware visit www.hisoftware.com.

HiSoftware is a trademark of HiSoftware Inc. which may be registered in certain jurisdictions. All other brand/product names are trademarks of their respective holders.