COLE'S NEWSWIRE, May 17, 2000

May 17, 2000
Vol. 6, No. 16

COLE'S NEWSWIRE is a weekly distribution of information about the sales and installations of publishing technology and the latest news on new products developed by suppliers to the industry.

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AGFA GRAPHIC SYSTEMS
Mortsel, Belgium-based Agfa has announced LiteSpeed, a liquid coating that is applied on press to a reusable metal substrate and then digitally imaged. The patented formula is based on Agfa's Thermolite plate technology. It is non-ablative and requires no chemical processing. As a result, it eliminates processing costs and is safe for both the operator and the environment. LiteSpeed reduces make-ready time and because it can be reapplied to the same substrate, it reduces labor and dramatically cuts plate costs. Performance on press is equal to a conventional lithographic printing plate, with a run length of 20,000 impressions.

LiteSpeed works with CreoScitex's SP process, which sprays a "switchable" lithographic coating onto a metal substrate while it is mounted on press. The "plate" is then imaged on press using CreoScitex's thermal imaging technology. CreoScitex tested its new concept using LiteSpeed on an adapted digital offset press platform.

Agfa said that MAN Roland is investigating a future implementation in its DICO digital press platform, which will be introduced as a product at Drupa 2000.

Agfa is on the Web at http://www.agfa.com/.

ARTWORK SYSTEMS GROUP N.V.
The Gent, Belgium-based supplier of professional pre-press software solutions, has announced that it has successfully completed the acquisition of Enfocus, a privately held leader in Portable Document Format (PDF) software technology. Also headquartered in Gent, Belgium, Enfocus has U.S. offices in San Mateo, Calif.

The acquisition price for the shares of Enfocus was 10 million Euro (US$9.02 million) and the aggregate consideration for the acquisition will not exceed 16 million Euro ($US14.4 million). Artwork Systems financed the transaction from cash on hand and loan facilities.

Enfocus is a software provider in the emerging PDF market whose leading product is PitStop, a PDF editing and pre-flight tool.

Artwork Systems said the current management of Enfocus will remain in place and will run the company independently. Enfocus will report its financial results separately from the parent company. The acquisition will provide Artwork Systems with 20 additional employees, six of whom are development engineers with expertise in innovative software technology.

Enfocus is on the Web at http://www.enfocus.com/, while Artwork is at http://www.artwork-systems.com/.

ATEX MEDIA SOLUTIONS INC.
The Bedford, Mass.-based supplier of digital advertising and content management solutions for media companies has announced the sale of the Digital Collections DC4 digital asset management system to Hong Kong's SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST. The system will enable 60 in-house concurrent users and unlimited Internet users to access the library and archives, as well as manage text and photo wire information and assist with production. The DC4 system will be interfaced to the newspaper's Atex editorial system.

Atex Media Solutions is on the Web at http://www.atex.com/.

DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY INTERNATIONAL
The Springville, Utah-based DTI has announced that North Wales Newspapers (NWN) of Mold, Flintshire, UK, has installed a ClassSpeed advertising sales and production system.

NWN previously used technology from both Norsk Data (ND) and Press Computer Systems (PCS); ND for sales order processing and from PCS for page planning and classified pagination.

The NWN group-wide ClassSpeed advertising system incorporates approximately 80 seats with remote sites linked to the Ethernet network at the Mold headquarters via a wide area network using ISDN and Cisco routers. Sited in Mold is the Sun Enterprise 450 database server with an A5000 mirrored disk array.

The NWN group produces its newspapers from 11 sites with a circulation area of over 2,500 square miles -- from Bangor in the west to Chester in the east and Newtown to the south.

DTI is on the Web at http//www.dtint.com/.

GRAPHIC ENTERPRISES INC.
The North Canton, Ohio-based GEI and Konica Graphic Imaging recently announced a joint marketing alliance that will bring newspapers the a full range of pre-press products from both companies.

The alliance offers a complete solution including GEI's range of workflow software, proofers and copy dot scanners paired with Konica's imagesetting, platesetting and consumable solutions.

The alliance will also bring together Konica and GEI's service teams. Each company has approximately 60 service centers located around the country.

GEI also said that it and Parascan Technologies of Worchester, United Kingdom, had announced a joint marketing agreement to combine their pre-press software solutions to create one unified product line in the U.S. and international markets.

As part of the joint sales, technical and support agreement, GEI will represent the entire combined product line in North America and Parascan will represent the product line in Europe.

Konica Graphic Imaging U.S.A. is based in Glen Cove, N.Y. and is on the Web at http://www.konica.com/, while GEI is on the Web at http://www.geiworldwide.com/.

SAXOTECH
The supplier of publishing systems has announced new releases of both the SAXoPRESS Content Management System and the Publicus Web Publishing System.

SAXoPRESS 3.0's enhancements include the SAXoPlan Module, which gives users full-featured contact and schedule sharing, assignment tracking and resource planning; new edit tracking features of SAXoTEXT that allow users to view all the additions and deletions made to a story as it moves through the editing process; Element Editing allows different users to work on the individual pieces of the same story at the same time; improvements and expansion of the abilities of the SAXoAdmin tool, and thin-client computing hardware and software standards.

Publicus Version 3.0's enhancements include an e-commerce solution lets visitors shop for and purchase products featured on the site and an updated portal module (new services include a new Movie Listings Guide, Television Listings Guide, Local Weather Services, an improved Chat Service and Search Engine Integration).

The company also said that it had sold a 105-seat system to HELSINGBORG DAGBLAD, in Sweden. The system will be staged on Sun Solaris servers, running an Oracle8 database and utilizing Apple MacOS pagination, editing and reporting stations. HELSINGBORG DAGBLAD is a daily newspaper with a circulation of 50,000.

And SAXoTECH said it has made a strategic partnership with Tansa Systems AS of Norway to bring Tansa's spelling, style and hyphenation checking system to North America. The first English-language versions will be available in May 2000.

SAXoTECH, with U.S. offices in Rockville, Md., is on the Web at http://www.saxotech.com/.

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COLE'S NEWSWIRE is compiled by Aimee Beck and distributed by The Cole Group, publishers of THE COLE PAPERS, COLE'S NOTES and NEWSINC., and consultants to newspapers and magazines worldwide. To receive more information about The Cole Group, send e-mail to: info@colegroup.com.

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