Ingenta expands presence in China
The importance of the newly-emerging Chinese market to scholarly publishers is evidenced by the proliferation of services on offer to publishers trying to increase their reach in this area; all good technology partners now offer technical and customer service support for activities in China. At Ingenta, we've had a server there since 2000, and we're pleased to now announce several strategic developments which mean we can provide you with state-of-the-art facilities to enable you to have confidence in your Chinese service delivery.
Servers and bandwidth
The most recognised problem with service delivery in China is the Chinese government's charges for accessing high-bandwidth content hosted outside the country. It was this problem that we resolved with the server we installed in 2000, as it enabled our publishers' full text content to be hosted within China, thus rendering it exempt from the bandwidth charges. We have recently upgraded this server and moved it onto the CERNET network which will offer us improved performance, security and resilience.
Customer support
Naturally, the next biggest issue is that of supporting those Chinese customers for whom English language websites are difficult to navigate. To that end, we are in the process of recruiting a Chinese customer service representative who will be based locally (in the Charlesworth China office in Beijing). We are also translating key support documents into simple Chinese, and amending these where necessary, to provide specialised advice appropriate to the different requirements of the Chinese market. Longer term, we plan to introduce a Chinese interface to IngentaConnect which will further facilitate navigation of the site for Chinese users.
We are carrying out these activities in conjunction with our partner The Charlesworth Group, whose Managing Director Graham Lawley notes, "We are pleased to see Ingenta committing significant resource to supporting this burgeoning market. These developments will make a real difference to the Chinese institutions we work with; therefore, our mutual publisher customers will also benefit from maximised usage.”
For more information, or to take advantage of our China services, please contact your client manager.