The Seybold Report on Publishing Systems articles from February 1998

The Seybold Report on Publishing Systems archives from February 1998

People. (People) (News Briefs)(Brief Article)
February 23, 1998... Miles 33 Newspaper industry veteran Kenny King has joined Miles 33 to head a new effort to sell the Miles newspaper system in North America. He reports to Ray Mancini. King, who cofounded Composition Systems Inc. more than two decades...

Copydot scanning comes of age: an overview and test of the products. (includes a related article on the testing process) (Hardware Review)(Evaluation)
February 23, 1998... One of the most interesting conclusions following last year's Imprinta show was that advances in professional scanning technologies hadn't ground to an undignified hair after all. Despite the lure of huge potential sales in the mass market,...

Kodak's DCS 520 digital camera: hot new product for professionals.(Product Announcement)
February 23, 1998... EPI AFTER A COUPLE OF YEARS in which digital camera news has focused on the consumer market, Kodak has shaken up the professional market with a new model in its DCS series. Aimed squarely at the professional, the new DCS 520 is a...

Heidelberg to offer DI version of Speedmaster. (Speedmaster DI 74 image processor)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
February 23, 1998... Heidelberg is revamping its digital imaging product lines with the addition of a direct-imaging version of its popular Speedmaster press and the discontinuation of the Herkules Plate CTP system (see next story). Neither move is...

Herkules Plate dropped before reaching market. (Heidelberg's film imager) (Product Information)(Brief Article)
February 23, 1998... Heidelberg's Prepress division announced that it is dropping its Herkules Plate development before any machines ever made it to market. Herkules Plate, which is a metal-plate version of the four-up Herkules Pro film imager, apparently...

1997 revenues, orders grow. (Heidelberg) (Company Financial Information)(Brief Article)
February 23, 1998... In its financial report for the first nine months of 1997, ended Dec. 31, Heidelberg said its revenues rose 37% and its order intake increased 58% compared with the same period in 1996. Turnover was 4.8 billion Deutsche marks ($2.64...

Agfa-Dupont deal set. (Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
February 23, 1998... Agfa will take over DuPont's graphic arts film and offset printing plate businesses on March 1, we have learned. Approval from the European Union Commission was granted on Feb. 11. Approval from the antitrust authorities in the U.S....

I4I acquires Grif. (Infrastructures for Information) (Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
February 23, 1998... Infrastructures for Information (I4I) has acquired Grif S.A., the European software publishing and development firm specializing in document management systems based on SGML, XML/XSL and HTML standards. I4I, a developer of information...

HP color tabloid printer. (DeskJet 1120C Professional Series)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
February 23, 1998... Hewlett-Packard has announced its first color ink-jet printers capable of printing tabloid pages. Called the DeskJet 1120C Professional Series, the printers can produce 4.5 letter-size color pages and 6.5 monochrome pages per minute....

Metro reborn as QED. (Penman Research's work flow software) (Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
February 23, 1998... Penman Research is releasing a pre-beta, Windows version of its QED cross-platform software for collaborative work and work management. QED is the rebirth of the Aldus Ireland Metro workflow concept, demonstrated a couple of years ago...

Scitex's strong close nets profit for 1997. (Company Financial Information)(Brief Article)
February 23, 1998... In its best financial news in three years, Scitex has reported its second straight profitable quarter, a small profit for the year and a huge growth in revenues for its long-downtrodden Graphic Arts Group. In reporting the results for...

Scitex buys Idanit to enter wide-format competition. (Idanit Technologies) (Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
February 23, 1998... As part of a strategy to reignite growth, Scitex has bought Idanit Technologies, the Israeli manufacturer of wide-format ink-jet printing systems. The completion of the acquisition, worth approximately $60 million in cash, is expected...

Donnelley publishing unit acquired by Quark. (Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
February 23, 1998... Quark agreed Monday to buy the Coris Publisher high-end asset-management package, developed by R.R. Donnelley, for an undisclosed sum. Coris Publisher, a set of publishing tools built around an Oracle database, was created for complex...

Xerox's large-format printers back in fold. (Xerox Colorgraf Systems) (Company Operations)(Brief Article)
February 23, 1998... Xerox Colorgrafx Systems will become part of Xerox Corporation's Production Systems Group (PSG). The new structrure, effective immediately, improves marketing and distribution efficiency and enables more closely coordinated customer service,...

Imation to cut 1,700 jobs in restructuring. (Company Operations)
February 23, 1998... CD-ROM business to be sold; service orientation adopted for some lines Imation plans to cut 1,700 jobs worldwide, about 17% of its work force, in a restructuring designed to save $90 million a year. The job cuts, to be completed by...

T/R, PIP in on-demand deal. (T/R Systems' MicroPress cluster printing system) (Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
February 23, 1998... T/R Systems has signed a worldwide pact to supply its MicroPress Cluster Printing system, along with marketing and service support, to the PIP Printing franchise network so that PIP can offer on-demand printing. The PIP network...

Cybergraphic gets huge WAZ newspaper order. (Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung) (Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
February 23, 1998... Cybergraphic has received an order for a huge advertising and pagination system for the German newspaper groups Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (WAZ) and Zeitungsgruppe Thuringen (ZGT). The order, which will take two years to install,...

Agfa, OneVision to cooperate on PDF. (Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
February 23, 1998... Agfa and OneVision of Germany have signed a letter of intent to incorporate OneVision technology into future PDF-related products such as Agfa's Apogee workflow system. The two companies will work closely to establish distribution,...

World-Wide Power in deal to buy XChange U.S. (Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
February 23, 1998... The presidents of The World-Wide Power Company and GeneSys have acquired Quark Xpress Xtension broker XChange U.S. and X-Ray Magazine for an undisclosed sum. The newly formed XChange North America (XChange NA) will now undertake a...

Offices on the move. (Xyvision, Purup-Eskofot) (Company Operations)(Brief Article)
February 23, 1998... Xyvision has moved to a new location just a few miles away. Xyvision, 30 New Crossing Rd., Reading, MA 01867-3254; phone (781) 756-4400 or (800) 999-2667, fax (781) 756-4300; www.xyvision.com. Purup-Eskofot has moved into its new...

SoftQuad: $49 million lost on $4.4 million sales. (Company Financial Information)(Brief Article)
February 23, 1998... Kurzweil discrete-speech sales fall; Alpha subsidiary sues L&H division SoftQuad announced estimated fourth-quarter sales of $4.4 million and an estimated net operating loss of $4.9 million. The company said the results reflect the...

Screen supports poly plates. (Dainippon Screens' DT-R3075 external-drum film recorder)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
February 23, 1998... Screen has announced a new option to image polyester plates on its DT-R3075 external-drum film recorder. It supports three sizes-21.65?*25.6? (550*650mm), 21.65?*26? (550*660mm) and 22.05?* 26.4? (560*670mm)-which covers the most...

Apple's market share slides. (Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
February 23, 1998... Just when it seemed as if Apple's problems were improving, after posting a $47 million profit, Apple confirmed that its worldwide market share slid to 3.1% in the fourth quarter. According to Reuters, Apple disclosed the information in...

Corbis deals with Digimarc, acquires Digital Stock. (Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
February 23, 1998... Corbis Corp., home of the largest digital image collection, has licensed Digimarc's watermarking SDK and Digimarc's BatchMarc Pro, which embeds watermarks into large image collections. It is also evaluating other Digimarc products,...

Oce licenses LinoColor. (Heidelberg's color management technology) (Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
February 23, 1998... Oce has licensed Heidelberg's color-management technology for its new Oce 5350 wide-format color printing system. Developed for print-for-pay companies, the system includes a 42" or 60" printer, the Oce Graphics Server Rip and an advanced...

W3C recommends XML. (World Wide Web Consortium) (Industry Trend or Event)(Brief Article)
February 23, 1998... The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has announced XML as a recommendation. Developed by a W3C working group, XML was released as a proposed recommendation in early December.

New textile printer for Encad. (Encad Digital Textile System) (Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
February 23, 1998... Encad will release its first textile printer on March 11. Called the Encad Digital Textile System, it is designed for Macintoshes and PCs and will print directly on fabric.

IBM, Norsam in optical-disc deal. (Norsam Technologies) (Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
February 23, 1998... IBM has signed an agreement with Norsam Technologies to develop ultra-high-density optical discs. Norsam, a spinoff from Los Alamos National Laboratory, uses a charged-particle beam of 50nm wavelength (equivalent to far-ultraviolet...

QuickTime key for MPEG-4. (Apple's QuickTime format) (Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
February 23, 1998... The ISO's Motion Picture Experts Group has adopted a joint proposal from Apple, IBM, Netscape, Oracle, Silicon Graphics and Sun to use Apple's QuickTime format as the starting point for developing the MPEG-4 specification for audio and...

Harris licenses Inso's Quic. (Quest Internet Classifieds system) (Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
February 23, 1998... Harris has licensed Inso's new Quest Internet Classifieds (Quic) system, to compose, along with WebDump, Harris's WebCASH application. After WebDump extracts scheduled ads from the CASH database, Quic automatically filters and distills...

Graphic arts standards: a follow-up. (Industry Trend or Event)(Brief Article)
February 23, 1998... In "Standards for Data Exchange in the Graphic Arts: A Status Report" (Vol. 27, No. 10), we did not identify the sponsor of these activities or provide contact information for those wishing to obtain standards, get more information or...

Time Bomb 2000.
February 23, 1998... There is a peculiar pleasure in reading about disasters. It's a blend of human drama, armchair quarterbacking, the frisson of danger and yet the security of your favorite easy chair. What's more, the pleasure is diminished not one whit...

Installations. (News Briefs)(Brief Article)
February 2, 1998... Unisys gets La Stampa order Unisys has announced a multimillion-dollar contract with Italy's fourth-ranking newspaper, La Stampa (Turbo; daily circ. 400,000). Unisys will install more than 400 workstations with the Unisys Publishing...

Comdex fall, part II: Directions for prepress systems; new technology. (includes related article on face recognition technology) (Industry Trend or Event)
February 2, 1998... IN OUR LAST ISSUE, guest contributor Mike Gold of Computer Network Integrators (CNI) began a discussion of the issues confronting us as we search for new components for building prepress systems. He focused on basic computer technology (use...

Agfa bolsters CTP lineup with deals for imagers and copydot scanning. (Company Business and Marketing)
February 2, 1998... AS THE INDUSTRY gets ready for a new phase built around CTP imaging and PDF workflows, Agfa has taken some important steps to bolster its position as a key supplier of the major components of these workflows. In the last few weeks, it has...

Standards for data exchange in the graphic arts: a status report. (includes related articles on color management, International PrePress Association, glossary of terms and acronyms) (Industry Trend or Event)
February 2, 1998... AS THE GRAPHIC ARTS industry increasingly replaces film, cameras and contact frames with computers, software programs and digital data processes, file formats for the exchange of print-ready material become an increasingly critical issue. The...

Nova gains rights to SII system for midrange use. (Nova Publishing Systems obtains rights to System Integrators' software) (Company Business and Marketing)
February 2, 1998... New firm also deals with Pongrass, ComputerEase, AISI and Lightfoot Nova Publishing Systems of Auburn, CA, has obtained the exclusive rights to sell and install the latest version of System Integrators' editorial and advertising software...

Scitex morphs out dust and scratches. (FinalTouch software)(Product Announcement)
February 2, 1998... Semiautomatic software for scanners Scitex has developed a software program for removing dust and scratches from scanned images. Called FinalTouch, it is a semiautomatic routine that looks at scanned data and identifies what it thinks needs...

Phaser 360 offers 6-ppm 800 dpi, PostScript 3. (Techtronix solid-ink color printer)(Product Announcement)
February 2, 1998... Tektronix offers free black ink Tektronix has introduced a new model in its Phaser series of solid-ink color printers. Called the Phaser 360, it is Tektronix's first printer to support PostScript 3. It also offers higher resolution, lower...

HP's ScanJet speeds scanning process. (HP ScanJet 5100C color flatbed scanner)(Product Announcement)
February 2, 1998... Simultaneously scans and optimizes Hewlett-Packard has introduced the ScanJet 5100C, an A4-size color flatbed scanner that is claimed to optimize all elements of a page during one simultaneous scan, producing a file that is ready to be...

Storm acquires Logitech's scanners. (Company Business and Marketing)
February 2, 1998... Deal valued at $15-20 million Storm Technology, known in the industry for getting flatbed scanners at a price point beneath $100, has signed an agreement to acquire Logitech's scanner business. Storm, which says it already dominates 70% of...

Extensis and Astrobyte agree to merge. (Company Business and Marketing)
February 2, 1998... Productivity tools for publishing Under a merger agreement (whose financial terms were not disclosed), Astrobyte will be absorbed into Extensis's Portland, OR, headquarters. Astrobyte's BeyondPress Internet authoring software, which uses a...

Dragon cuts prices, wins Comdex awards. (Dragon Systems) (Company Business and Marketing)
February 2, 1998... NaturallySpeaking takes multiple awards; $99 price matches Via Voice's Dragon Systems has again lowered prices for its general-purpose, large-vocabulary continuous-speech-recognition software, NaturallySpeaking. The product now comes in...

Interactive PDF Web forms introduced. (Adobe Acrobat 3.0) (Product Information)
February 2, 1998... Adobe teams with Haht to provide link with database systems Adobe has announced the ability to create interactive VDF Web forms in its latest release of Acrobat--3.0. Features include built-in JavaScript, support for dynamic page templates...

QMS turbocharges its 2425 printer family. (QMS 2425 Print System)(Product Announcement)
February 2, 1998... Faster processor leads improvements QMS has enhanced its 24-ppm, network laser printer, the 2425 Print System, equipping it with a 133-MHz NEC VR4300 processor. Called the 2425 Turbo, it supports the CrownView and CrownAdmin 3 suite of...

Our experiences using a QMS 2425. (QMS 2425 Turbo multifunction printer) (Hardware Review)(Evaluation)
February 2, 1998... QMS provided us with a 2425 printer for purposes of evaluation and comparison with some other printers, including an HP LaserJet 5-siMX and an Apple LaserWriter 8500, also supplied for evaluation. Ail three are A3 printers, nicely packaged and...

Optronics opens new Europe headquarters. (Company Operations)
February 2, 1998... Cooperative support with Komori set Optronics International has opened a new European headquarters in the Netherlands. The new facilities address product demonstrations, benchmark testing and customization of products for the European market....

PGI names master distributor in Europe. (Polaroid Graphics Imaging names Dantex Graphics) (Company Business and Marketing)
February 2, 1998... Dutch office closes; Dantex takes over Polaroid Graphics Imaging has closed its office in the Netherlands and named Dantex Graphics of West Yorkshire, UK, its master distributor for Europe. Dantex, which will handle sales and support of the...

Saxotech to fill Morris order for 31 sites. (Morris Communications license agreement) (Company Business and Marketing)
February 2, 1998... In a follow-up to a relationship announced at IFRA in October, Saxotech has received a letter of intent from Morris Communications to license the Saxotech editorial system for use at all 31 of Morris's newspaper sites. Pilot systems will be...

Howtek gets new CEO: Parr replaces Bothwell. (Company Operations)
February 2, 1998... Graphics and medical imaging targeted Howtek has appointed W. Scott Parr president and CEO, replacing David Bothwell, who has retired after filling the position on a temporary basis for nearly four years. Parr, who will report to Robert...

Oce. (Company Financial Information)
February 2, 1998... Oce increased its profits by 40% in 1997, to 237 million Netherlands guilder ($112 million), despite the delayed introduction of the 3125C seven-color copier-printer. Oce said it expects profits to increase again in 1998. Most of the '97...

EFI. (Electronics For Imaging) (Company Financial Information)(Brief Article)
February 2, 1998... EFI recorded fourth-quarter revenues of $61.7 million, down from $90.2 million in the same quarter of 1996, a 32% decrease. The company lost $5.6 million for the quarter, compared with a profit of $20.1 million in 1996. Included in the...

Splash Technology. (Company Financial Information)(Brief Article)
February 2, 1998... Splash Technology ended its second quarter with revenues of $22.2 million, up 44% from $15.4 million in the same quarter last year. Including costs relating to the acquisition of ColorAge, the company posted a net loss of $22.8 million,...

LaserMaster. (Company Financial Information)(Brief Article)
February 2, 1998... LaserMaster recorded net sales of $21.6 million and net income of $898,000 in its second quarter, compared with sales of $24.6 million and a net loss of $483,000 last year. For the six months, sales were $37.0 million and the net loss was...

Digimarc. (Company Financial Information)(Brief Article)
February 2, 1998... Digimarc has received outside financing totaling $5.8 million. The funding will fuel new applications for the company's core digital watermarking technology and enhance corporate sales. Reuters, Macrovision and Philip Monego, Digimarc's...

Digital Equipment. (Company Financial Information)(Brief Article)
February 2, 1998... Digital Equipment reported second-quarter earnings of $74.8 million, up from $31.9 million a year earlier. Operating revenues in the quarter were essentially flat at $3.32 billion vs. $3.36 billion a year ago. Despite the flat revenues,...

Kodak. (Company Financial Information)(Brief Article)
February 2, 1998... A $1.5 billion charge for restructuring asset write-downs and other charges resulted in net earnings for Kodak of only $5 million for the year, with a fourth-quarter loss of $744 million. This compares with 1996 net earnings of $1.3 billion,...

Xerox. (Company Financial Information)(Brief Article)
February 2, 1998... Xerox's fourth-quarter revenues rose to $5.4 billion from $5.1 billion in 1996, spurting an increase in income to $525 million from $426 million. Revenues for the year were $18.2 billion, up from $17.4 billion last year. Net income for the year...

QMS. (Company Financial Information)(Brief Article)
February 2, 1998... QMS announced net income for its first quarter of $401,000 on revenues of $28.6 million. This compares with net income of $62,000 on revenues of $31.5 million in the first quarter of 1997. The company achieved the higher net income on lower...

Corel. (Company Financial Information)(Brief Article)
February 2, 1998... Corel reported its worst year ever in 1997, losing $231.8 million on revenues of $260.6 million. For the fourth quarter, Corel lost $67 million on revenues of $43.6 million. The magnitude of the loss reflects in part the failure of the...

People. (printing and electronic publising industry) (Industry Trend or Event)
February 2, 1998... Joe Manseau has been appointed GM of Escher-Grad's U.S. operations, to direct daily operations and sales and channel expansion. During his 17 years in the graphic arts, Manseau has served in several posts at Agfa, including national sales...

Trends take center stage. (printing industry) (Industry Trend or Event)
February 2, 1998... We recently took in the Imaging Symposium hosted by Lyra Research, the publisher of the Hard Copy Observer. Lyra tracks equipment and consumables trends in all segments of the broad printing market. Commercial printing and publishing is just...