NetCentric Technologies - CommonLook

NetCentric Technologies offers a suite of products and services under the CommonLook brand which is garnering a lot of attention.  To date OPM, Census, SSA, and FAA amongst others in the US Federal government have purchased the solution to facilitate their work on accessible PDF.  CommonLook Version for State of Oklahoma   http://www.commonlook.com/products/cl_s508_adobe.aspx

An independent 3^rd party WebAim reviewed the tool.  You can see their thoughts at the link below.  http://www.webaim.org/resources/commonlook/

In summary CommonLook:

1)  Checks PDF documents against all the section 508 standards related to 1194.22 (Web-based intranet and internet information and applications), and highlights any compliance problems. Some of the checks are automated (e.g. are there any images that don't have alt-text? Are there any tables with cells that don't have a column header? etc). Others are user-assisted. For example, the software allows the user to view the "tags view" (used by screen readers) and the "contents view" (used by PDA's) and verify they correspond to the "physical view" (which is the view that gets displayed/ printed) in easy-to-read panels.

2)  helps authors and testers repair compliance problems by providing a simple drag-and-drop graphical interface that removes the complexity of having to deal with PDF structure issues, including the highly complex issues related to tables, forms and multi-column documents. Please note that PDF files present unique S508 compliance challenges, as the three PDF document views (tags, content and physical) can be (and in many cases are) out of synch with one another. Making the views consistent is a requirement of S508 1194.22 standard (d) "Readability" and is a pre-requisite to making a PDF document readable by screen readers. 

3)  helps authors and testers methodically go through the section 508 1194.22 (Web-based intranet and internet information and applications) standards and ensure they have fully addressed each one of them. A comprehensive report is generated showing the compliance status.

It's unique value proposition - it is the only product on the market that offers:

1.       A comprehensive Section 508 PDF testing facility
2.       An Intuitive PDF Repair facility
3.       $$ savings -> 5 - 10 times alternate methodology
4.       Support for PDAs and Screen Readers

You can get more information on our web site at the following link: http://www.commonlook.com/products/cl_s508_adobe.aspx

Our pricing follows:

License, Price, Discount Level

1 - $999
5 - 969, 3%
25-939, 6%
50-899, 10%
100-750, 25%

Training is priced separately at US$4,000 per course for up to 10 people plus Travel and Living depending on location.  For smaller numbers we may be able to reduce the price depending on location and timing. Payback for the investment is 2 weeks of use of the tool.  

In addition we provide services to make PDF and HTML documents accessible.  This is of considerable interest to our customers due to the large inventory of PDF's currently on the internet that are not S508 compliant.   Services are priced based on each PDF document.  We review your PDF¿s and run them through our pricing calculator in consideration of the efficiencies garnered by using our own CommonLook tool in the process.  You will receive a certified Section 508 compliant document at a very competitive price.

Given the urgency driven by the legislation we can bring numerous resources to bear to expedite delivery.  I am at your disposal to help move this along quickly.  We would be pleased to discuss these products and services and how NetCentric might be able to help the State of Oklahoma benefit from our offerings.  

Please contact:
Andrew Oestreich
Business Development
Tel: 613-270-9582 ext 204
Fax: 613-270-0574
email: aoestreich@net-centric.com
www.net-centric.com