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Pin Digital on track to deliver international rail provider's web presence
1 November 2003
Birmingham based New Media agency Pin Digital Ltd has recently won a prestigious world-wide website development project for Balfour Beatty Rail.
Balfour Beatty Rail is the UK's largest rail engineering and services provider and is an international leader in rail engineering projects. The business was already long established in the UK and around the world before it added a major maintenance and renewals capability with the acquisition of three former British Rail units in 1996. Since then the acquisition of further businesses overseas in the United States, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Spain, Malaysia and Brazil, means they are now truly regarded as a global player in the rail business.
To reflect this global presence Balfour Beatty Rail could no longer rely on one website to serve the needs of all these countries. Not only is there the obvious language barrier but each country also has differing railway infrastructures, as well as their own customs and localisation issues, which cannot be addressed with one international website.
The new websites will incorporate a complete multilingual Content Management System based on an advanced administration system designed and developed in-house by Pin Digital’s .NET development team. The system will enable staff within Balfour Beatty Rail’s international offices to ensure content on their individual websites is kept up-to-date. The system allows Balfour Beatty to assign permissions to users allowing them to edit specific pages and areas within the site. The websites will also be redesigned to adhere to Balfour Beatty Rail’s new visual identity guidelines.
“We have chosen to develop the sites using Microsoft’s .NET framework,” said Colin Jaggs, Pin Digital’s lead developer on the project. “Balfour Beatty specified their websites needed to be multilingual with the ability to administer and update them in-house. We have developed a multilingual Content Management System that makes updating pages as easy as using a simple word processor, and in any pre-specified language. Microsoft’s .NET is enabling us to develop these solutions with improved reliability, scalability, performance, and security.”
The initial project is to develop local sites for the UK (www.bbrail.com/), Germany (www.bbrail.de/), Sweden (www.bbrail.se/), and Italy (www.bbrail.it/), with more countries to come online later in the year. The first phase of the project is due to be completed and online in Spring 2004.
“We have enjoyed a long working relationship with Balfour Beatty Rail,” said Steve Noctor, Managing Director of Pin Digital, “and by understanding the needs of their business we are able to deliver leading edge solutions befitting such an international leader in the rail marketplace.”
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