The Seybold Report on Publishing Systems articles from April 1999

The Seybold Report on Publishing Systems archives from April 1999

CCI: How to Prosper as a Big-System Developer in an Off-the-Shelf World.(Company Operations)
April 30, 1999... THE LAST TWO DECADES have been hard on vendors of large systems in publishing and prepress markets. The big names of years gone by- companies such as ND Comtec, CSI and Hastech-have disappeared. For the most part, they have been displaced by...

CCI: A Historical View.(Company Operations)
April 30, 1999... A quick update on CCI's history helps to understand its position today. CCI Europe was founded in 1979 as a result of an investment that Aarhuus Stiftsbogtrykkerie Group (the Danish foundation that is CCI's parent organization) made a couple...

Xpress vs. InDesign vs. Inhouse.(Quark and Adobe Systems' DTP software)(Software Review)(Evaluation)
April 30, 1999... CCI and some other developers have chosen to create their own page layout software rather than use Xpress, because of the limitations within Xpress in a multi-user environment. Will Adobe's new InDesign program change this scenario? Will...

Shifting Away from Proprietary Systems.(Technology Information)
April 30, 1999... The word "proprietary" has a bad connotation. It is so bad in certain markets that newspapers, instead of selecting a system from what's available in the market, prefer to develop their own systems. But if a system developed inhouse isn't...

CCI vs. Unisys.
April 30, 1999... During the past two decades, CCI Europe has installed more than 300 publishing systems at newspapers, magazines and other publishing houses in Europe and North America (plus one in India at The Hindu, an English-language newspaper with a...

Progress with PDF, Composition Systems and Other Topics.(Industry Trend or Event)
April 30, 1999... PDF a Year After the White Paper AT THE SEYBOLD SEMINARS in New York last year, a group of German and Swiss PDF experts put together a White Paper listing the shortcomings of PDF in prepress work. That effort was so successful that the...

Page Layout, Composition and Database Publishing.
April 30, 1999... THE MOST SIGNIFICANT item in the area of page layout and composition was the formal introduction of Adobe's InDesign, which we have covered in detail in the past. (See Vol. 28, No. 11, p. 3, and No. 13, p. 3.) But there were some other...

Prepress Workflow and Related Issues.
April 30, 1999... TWO COMPANIES IN TRANSITION highlighted the field of traditional prepress production. Dalim Software GmbH, exhibiting for the first time under its new ownership, previewed new versions of its Twist and Litho products for workflow and image...

Data Compression.
April 30, 1999... WAVELET COMPRESSION technology, which burst onto the scene one year ago, has become a ho-hum business. There are now four players in the graphic arts: Altamira and its OEM Iterated Systems, LuraTech, and newcomer LizardTech. All have shown...

Networking and Telecommunications.(Industry Trend or Event)
April 30, 1999... ACCEPTING THE INEVITABLE, vendors of telecommunications services for the graphic arts are reaching out to the Web. This fundamental change in the communications landscape was a key theme at Seybold Seminars Boston, perhaps marking the...

Autologic adds wider, faster CTP unit to line.(Autologic Information International 3850 CTP)(Product Announcement)
April 30, 1999... New 3850 images 200 plates per hour Autologic Information International continues to add to its highly successful line of 3850 imagers. Not long after it began to deliver the metal-plate version of the venerable system, it has added a...

Xeikon buys Nipson, debuts new front end.(Company Business and Marketing)
April 30, 1999... Acquisition adds versatility in high-end printing; PrintStreamer 2 unveiled In a series of wide-ranging announcements, Xeikon has acquired the high-speed monochrome printer manufacturer, Nipson; introduced a new front end for its digital...

Barco's PrintStreamer 2: Not Just for Xeikon.
April 30, 1999... Although much of the fanfare surrounding the introduction of Barco's PrintStreamer 2 was in the context of its role as Xeikon's new front end, it will be put to other uses. The PrintStreamer 2, which Barco refers to as a "press server," can...

Danka says outsourcing business was profitable.(Correction Notice)
April 30, 1999... In responding to our story about its plans to sell its outsourcing business to UK finance group Schroder Ventures (see Vol. 28, No. 13, p. 2), Danka Office Imaging has informed us that the business is one of its more profitable units. In our...

Monotype group takes over Prepress Solutions.(Company Business and Marketing)
April 30, 1999... Panther and FasTrack imagers In a deal that unites two of the most storied organizations in the industry, Prepress Solutions has been acquired by the same interests that own Monotype Systems, Scangraphic, Freedom System Integrators and...

Carlisle takes top post at ECRM; focus on sales.(Company Operations)
April 30, 1999... Givens freed to address other tasks George Carlisle, former executive with Compugraphic, Scitex and Indigo, has been named president and CEO at ECRM. He replaces Bill Givens, the company chairman, who had been serving as president and CEO...

Transparency scanner added to Imacon line.(Imacon FlexTight Photo)(Product Announcement)
April 30, 1999... Targets commercial and portrait use Danish scanner manufacturer Imacon, which has sold 1,600 of its FlexTight Precision II scanners in a little more than two years, has expanded its line to include a smaller model for transparency...

Cebit '99: printers, ink and trends in telecom.
April 30, 1999... Dots of Berlin offers imposition software This year's Cebit show in Hannover, Germany, continued the trend of the past in widening its scope in the area of information communication technology-ICT. It also continued its growth pattern,...

Harlequin, Scitex, et al. settle patent issues.(Company Business and Marketing)
April 30, 1999... Dispute over trapping, dot generation The long dispute between Scitex, Screen, Harlequin and others over a variety of prepress technology issues is over. The participants, which included Dainippon Screen Manufacturing Co., Scitex,...

Clal leads $10 million investment in Portalis.(Company Financial Information)(Brief Article)
April 30, 1999... Portalis Ltd. of Israel, the developer of the scanner system that enables high-speed digital printers to function like copiers, has raised $10 million in new funds. The private investment was led by Clal Electronics Industries, which also is...

Digital Technology to acquire DPS Typecraft.(Company Business and Marketing)
April 30, 1999... Sees growth and global expansion The owner of Digital Technology International, Oldham Associates of Springville, UT, plans to acquire its UK distributor of 14 years, DPS Typecraft. After culmination of the deal, which is subject to the...

PEOPLE.
April 30, 1999... Xerox has named Rick Thoman CEO, replacing Paul Allaire, who is stepping down as CEO but remaining as board chairman. The news isn't surprising. When Thoman joined Xerox as president and COO almost two years ago, the board indicated that he...

Silicon Graphics changes name.(to SGI)(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
April 30, 1999... After 15 years as Silicon Graphics, the company that started as a 3D graphics business has changed its name and logo. Saying its core offerings also include servers, supercomputers and global services, Silicon Graphics is now officially named...

Extensis combines text, images.(PhotoGraphics 1.0)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
April 30, 1999... Extensis has developed a new Photoshop plug-in, called PhotoGraphics 1.0, for use in combining images with text and graphics. It enables the creation of basic vector shapes that can be filled and stroked, as well as text on a path, that can...

Associated Newspapers cited.('99 Newspaper of the Year in the UK)(People)(Brief Article)
April 30, 1999... Associated Newspapers of London, the pioneer newspaper group featured often in this publication, has been chosen as '99 Newspaper of the Year in the UK. In addition, Murdoch MacLennan, the company's managing director and the current president...

Atex distributor in Africa.(Atex Media Solutions)(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
April 30, 1999... Atex Media Solutions has signed a new distribution agreement covering much of Africa. Under the deal, the New Media Technology Group of Johannesburg, South Africa, will market, distribute and support the full range of Atex products in South...

Digital printing 'customizes' postage stamps.(Australian Post promotion)(Company Business and Marketing)
April 30, 1999... Australian promotion uses DocuColor 40 In the U.S., you have to be dead to get your picture on a postage stamp. But in Australia, through the miracle of on-demand printing, all it takes is a few dollars. It's all part of a new promotion...

Vendors Critique Our Scanner Tests-And We Offer a Response.
April 30, 1999... OUR EVALUATION of high-end, flatbed A3 scanners (see Vol. 28, Nos. 9 and 11) proved to be controversial. Since the publication of our results, we have received letters from four of the vendors whose products we tested. The letters are...

CTP Status Report: When Will It Fulfill Its Promise?(Graphic Arts Technical Foundation's Technology Forecast)(Industry Trend or Event)
April 19, 1999... Every year, the Graphic Arts Technical Foundation publishes a Technology Forecast. Last year, in a section written by Frank Romano, professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology, the study predicted that CTP installations would...

New Canon proofer set to challenge Epson 5000.(Bubble-Jet BJC-8500)(Hardware Review)(Evaluation)
April 19, 1999... Multidensity inks, faster engine Canon's latest desktop ink-jet printer, called the Bubble-Jet BJC-8500, is ready to challenge the color proofing market advantage gained by Epson with its Stylus Pro 5000. In specifications, the two...

Bidco's new film imager rated fastest in market.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
April 19, 1999... But distribution will be the key to success Bidco has developed a capstan-technology imagesetter with a rated raw imaging speed of 80 inches per minute at 1,000 dpi. It is called the Mach 2. When it comes out of beta testing, which is...

Besco to sell Optronics scanners, platesetters.(Besco Graphic Systems)(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
April 19, 1999... Optronics has signed a distribution pact with Besco Graphic Systems making Besco its primary dealer of Aurora PlateSetters and ColorGetter scanners in the U.S. Besco, a reseller of graphic arts products throughout the U.S., will focus on...

Barco adds archiving with GoldenRetriever.(Barco Graphics)(Company Business and Marketing)
April 19, 1999... Runs under nt, uses cd jukebox Barco Graphics has announced an archival system called GoldenRetriever. We haven't seen it yet, but the company says it runs under nt and provides a cd-rom jukebox for storage. Built around a database, it...

Web support and production tracking grab spotlight at America East.(Industry Trend or Event)
April 19, 1999... The America East regional newspaper show typically jump-starts the show season by featuring many of the products that will appear again at the national Nexpo event in June. This year's show was particularly notable because of the new products...

Variable-data initiative takes root in Boston.(Variable-Data Printing Initiative Group)(Industry Trend or Event)
April 19, 1999... The Variable-Data Printing Initiative Group met for an update Other than the introduction of PageFlex Designer (see following article), there wasn't much action on the show floor during the Seybold Seminars recent event in Boston;...

PageFlex gives debut to Designer interface.(PageFlex text processing software)(Product Announcement)
April 19, 1999... Aiding design of variable-data projects PageFlex is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Bitstream with a mission to develop, market and support on-demand publishing software and related technology. PageFlex Inc., headquartered in Cambridge,...

Purup-Eskofot adds one president, ousts another.(Company Operations)
April 19, 1999... Schulin-Zeuthen takes over in Denmark; Mangold out in U.S. Purup-Eskofot has appointed a new president at its world headquarters in Denmark and removed the president of its U.S. office. The changes, which follow the disclosure that the...

Heidelberg, Agfa, Xerox: Battle Lines Form as Drupa Approaches.(Company Business and Marketing)
April 19, 1999... Heidelberg has acquired Kodak's Office Imaging business, which includes the division's printer, copier-duplicator and roller assembly operations. As a part of this plan, a fundamental restructuring of Heidelberg is taking place: the splitting...