12. CreoScitex America Inc.: The Trendsetter News platesetter is twice as fast this year as last, handling as many as 200 plates per hour.

3. Advanced Publishing Technology Inc.: The PageMaster application provides display advertising layout and classified advertising pagination functions.

15. FileFlow Inc.: Large image files can be easily moved around the Internet with FileFlow's FastSend. After signing onto the web site, a registered user types in an e-mail address (or picks it from an address book), types in a short message and picks "Select file(s)." The FastSend browser plug-in then brings up its upload dialog box and images are then dramatically compressed and sent on their way.

16. Geac Publishing Systems: Reporters on the road can use FlashNEWS, a Palm operating system application that uses a wireless hand-held computer to interface with Geac's CyberNews editorial system.

1. Adobe Systems Inc.: Let's see -- you're in newspaper technology ... have you ever heard of "Photoshop"? How about "Illustrator"? "PostScript"? "Acrobat"? Maybe even "InDesign"? The newspaper of the 21st century could not be published without Adobe software, plain and simple. The company says its presence at the show will not be limited to its own booth; there will be Adobe representatives helping a variety of suppliers explain the connectivity between Adobe products and the rest of the world. In the booth, plenty of theater-based demos: WoodWing Software and Managing Editor Inc. (see below) will be demo'ing their InDesign plug-ins, and there will be demos of all the Adobe product line, including InDesign, InCopy, Acrobat, Photoshop, Illustrator and the Adobe Web Collection. (408) 536-6000; e-mail: info@adobe.com.

2. AdStar.com Inc.: Coming back to its roots, AdStar.com will be showing its application service provider (ASP) browser-based ad order entry system for contract and prepaid advertisers. A privately labeled web site, the AdStar.com system allows for interesting up-sells (an AdStar.com relationship with Eastman Kodak Co. promotes the company's PictureReady service allowing ads to contain photos) as well as for add-on features (ad expiration or e-mail notification services). Be sure to ask to see the return on investment charts. (310) 577-8255; e-mail: info@adstar.com.

3. Advanced Publishing Technology Inc.: Here's a phrase you don't hear too often in the newspaper business anymore: fault-tolerant. For the uninitiated, that means "no crash." APT is touting its Appliance Server, which is based on Windows 2000 and is fault-tolerant. In addition, the company will be showing its improved and updated ACT Order Entry, a classified and display ad order entry system that allows for exchanging and integrating data with business and editorial applications (whether APT's or someone else's). Also improved are the ACT Editorial and PageMaster modules. (818) 557-3035; e-mail: sales@advpubtech.com.

4. Advanced Technical Solutions Inc.: The focus here will be AdVisor, the company's advertising system. Now in Version 3, AdVisor comes with eVisor Power Sales -- a wireless ad order entry system based on a hand-held computer and Microsoft's Web Server Active Server Pages. Customers' billing information and credit, contract and fulfillment status are available on the hand-held, and it can detect current color position availability and can transmit in display-ad text as well. Also on display will be the company's MediaDesk Editorial (now with InDesign or XPress as options for page-layout) and Circ2000 circulation (hand-held computers used in this application too), as well as remote advertising management and technical outsourcing services. (978) 657-6500; e-mail: info@atsusa.com.

5. Agfa Corp.: One of the top suppliers of computer-to-plate (CTP) systems worldwide, Agfa has begun to actively pursue the North American market. The company has a full range of CTP products, including its IntelliNet NewsFlow workflow management system, its Apogee workflow system (supplemented by Apogee Create, a "reliable" Portable Document Format generation and preflighting tool), the Polaris family of platesetters (the Polaris 100 is a flatbed 25.6-inch-by-35.4-inch device that produces 200 single newspaper page plates per hour at 1016 dpi -- dots per inch), the Phoenix News family of platesetters (18.1-inch-by-27-inch drum device with a variety of output resolutions ranging from 1016 to 2540 dpi), flatbed scanners, proofing systems and chemistry and plates. The company will also be selling the Monotype Pantera 62 imagesetter and raster-image processor. (978) 658-5600; e-mail: richard.ferranti.rf@us.agfa.com.

6. The Associated Press: The news cooperative will have a number of new and recently released services available for demonstration, including State Online in XML (each state has its own wire feed, which will come in the News Information Text Format -- NIFT -- which is an implementation of eXtensible Markup Language), FTP (file transfer protocol) for Grand Central Stocks (faster delivery of stock-market listings that bypass telephone lines), Web-based AdSEND (the service has been streamlined) and AP Mapshop (co-developed by mapping powerhouse Esri, real-time web-based mapping tools). The service will also have 15-minute clinics in FTP stocks, electronic ads, using AP on your web site, how to select a digital camera and how to color-correct digital photos. (212) 621-1700; e-mail: info@ap.org.

7. Autologic Information International Inc.: Way, way back in the dimmest, darkest regions of your memory may be the fact that Autologic was once in the editorial front-end business. Well, surprise: it is again. Autologic is now representing the Tera product line (the Italian company has made significant penetration in the U.K. market as well as good sales throughout Europe; there are a dozen Tera sites in the United States), and the company will be showing the APS Tera Publishing System (text editor, pagination, page tracking and Web publishing) and the APS Content Management System (stories, pictures, complete pages). This is all editorial ... an advertising system is apparently on the horizon. And I bet if you wanted to talk about output systems -- either film or computer-to-plate, along with raster image processors and workflow systems -- they'd probably do that as well. (805) 498-9611; e-mail: ldavis@autologic.com.

8. Brainworks Software Development Corp.: Stepping up to the plate to become one of the big kids, Brainworks acquired Freedom System Integrators Inc. last month from Monotype and has integrated the Freedom product line of editorial and advertising systems into the Brainworks line of business and circulation systems. For example, classified and display advertising now share a single database and billing system; when the ad is saved, it is instantly in the billing system. Of course, the company will also show its business software, including a new integrated marketing and sales force automation system, Web-based customer service and its paperless technology products, which include electronic tear sheets and electronic statements and invoices. (631) 563-5000; e-mail: info@brainworks.com.

9. CCI Europe: The gold standard among systems and suppliers, this Danish company is trying to develop products that take a little less gold to acquire. Toward this end, the CCI NewsDesk BaseLine product -- most of the same NewsDesk functionality, but none of the customization -- has been sold to five newspapers and the idea is being extended to the CCI AdDesk environment as well (Tribune's Daily Press in Newport News, Va., has signed up for an AdDesk BaseLine). In addition to the NewsDesk (up to Release 6) and AdDesk products, the MediaStore digital asset management system (co-developed with IBM) will be emphasized. The company also says it will have "some major announcements" scheduled. (770) 420-1100; e-mail: info@ccieurope.com.

10. CKP Newspaper Systems Inc.: Look ma -- no servers. CKP will be demo'ing its entire product line over a T1-based virtual private network (VPN) connection to the Houston Chronicle, illustrating not only the distributed nature of the CKP systems, but also the fact that there are no performance hits because of it. New for this show will be Millennium Classified Ad Pagination (now Java-based, the product interfaces to a variety of classified front-end systems and provides WYSIWYG preview) and Millennium Editorial Pagination (featuring "industrial strength" composition, multiuser workflows and thin-client page layout). (603) 472-5825; e-mail: millennium@ckp.com.

11. Cold North Wind Inc.: New to NEXPO, Cold North Wind provides publishers with digital archiving services, scanning microfilm back issues and converting them into files that can be optically character recognized and indexed. The company then hosts these converted archives, providing an e-commerce environment for selling access to the digitized content. As the company says, "We generate new revenue from old news." (613) 722-9886; e-mail: info@coldnorthwind.com.

12. CreoScitex America Inc.: Last year we were quite impressed with the CreoScitex Trendsetter News computer-to-plate output device, and this year the company says that the machine is twice as fast -- it now does as many as 200 plates per hour. The CreoScitex Squarespot imaging takes care of under-exposure problems and creates a dot with no gain. The spot size is small enough to ensure that spots can be knitted together to create any shape halftone dots. (781) 280-7359; e-mail: paul_willis@creoscitex.com.

13. Digital Technology International: At NEXPO '99, we were high on the concept that three major suppliers were bringing new editorial front-end systems to the market; 24 months later, one of the companies has abandoned its new product and the other has yet to have installed its product anywhere. The third company, though -- DTI -- probably has more business than it knows what to do with. By our count, 17 papers are installing or have installed the DTI 'Speed 5.0 product line. Based entirely on InDesign, the 'Speed products leverage DTI's long-term database expertise and couple those two advantages with the company's newspaper expertise (it's owned by a newspaper publisher). DTI is probably the most exciting company at NEXPO 2001. (801) 853-5000; e-mail: info@dtint.com.

14. Edgil Associates Inc.: Most people (be they business people or technical people) don't understand the complexities of credit-card transactions -- merchant accounts, variable bank rates, the nuances of the various bank networks. EdgCapture not only leverages Edgil's understanding of these Byzantine matters, it also leverages the company's understanding of the newspaper business (the company was founded in 1984 by Atex refugees). Version 3 of EdgCapture basically talks to any accounting, advertising or circulation system and can then do interesting things like transaction consolidation to achieve the best banking rates. Also shown will be Ads To Go (it breaks apart display ads and turns them into Web ads) and Dynamic Data Delivery (D3) automated content process for "unique newspaper data flow requirements." (617) 251-9932; e-mail: sales@edgil.com.

15. FileFlow Inc.: Using patented compression algorithms, a browser plug-in and the Internet (both Web and e-mail), FileFlow moves large files quickly. We experimented with a 9-megabyte tagged-image format file (TIFF) and it uploaded over a 128-kilobyte-per-second line in 55 seconds (download speed was about the same). The service supports not only TIFF, but Adobe Photoshop native (PSD) and Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) formats as well (and though the system handles JPEG files, they seem to go no faster than TIFF). The process is relatively painless: after establishing an account with FileFlow, the sender logs onto FileFlow's web site and picks a "send file" icon. After filling out a simple form (the e-mail address of the recipient, a subject line and a note), the browser plug-in brings up a file navigation dialog box and the file to be sent is chosen. It is then sent, via the browser, to FileFlow's servers, which send e-mail to the recipient, who clicks on the URL in the mail to download the image. Oh, and that 9-megabyte TIFF? We e-mailed it to ourselves over the same dataline -- it took 15 minutes to upload. (508) 473-3728; e-mail: sales.us@fileflow.com.

16. Geac Publishing Systems: The latest from the Canadian-Australian-British supplier of editorial, advertising, pre-press and business systems is FlashNews, an application written for Palm OS-based hand-held computers that allows breaking news and pictures to be uploaded to the paper's newsroom computer either wirelessly or over phone lines. The company will also be showing its CyberNews Web, a browser-based story-editing and management tool (also new will be Cyber$ell Web, a browser-based ad order entry system). For the geeks in the house, there's the fact that all the Geac products now run under the same Genera database, providing the "superb business benefits of a single database," as well as the ancillary benefits of better -- and easier -- database licensing. Most of these features are because of the company's commitment to XML, or so say Geac executives. (813) 872-9990; e-mail: takecommand@geac.com.

From THE COLE PAPERS, June 2001, Copyright © 2001, All Rights Reserved.