Vol. 2, No. 22 • February 28, 2003

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A N A LY Z I N G P U B L I S H I N G T E C H N O L O G I E S Digital Rights Management

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:

Complex Products, Pricing Are eMeta’s Forte

Finishing

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In the online world, it’s entirely possible to offer vast arrays of products and prices, to sustain multifaceted business relationships and to offer any number of business models. It’s just bits in the database, right? Of course, the real trick is to make it possible for ordinary mortals to manage complex programs without going crazy. Systems that can do that are thin on the ground, and their wares are correspondingly costly. We look at one supplier, eMeta, that does a nice job of it, and examine how two large-scale publishers have put its system to work.

Content Management

Print Workflow

Sansui Integrates Custom System in Kerala 7

Fusion Automates Ringier’s Prepress

HIGH LITERACY AND A PLETHORA OF local languages make India a hotbed of newspaper opportunity. To take advantage of it, Malayala Manorama commissioned Sansui to build a cross-media system based on InDesign and a bespoke contentmanagement system. The transition is slated for May completion.

SWITZERLAND’S LARGEST MEDIA FIRM has installed an open workflow system based on Fusion Systems’ DigiPage, along with supplemental components supplied by a local integrator. It handles both PDF and application files, and feeds eight presses. We take a look at the system’s features and infrastructure.

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Powis Parker Adds Hardcover Binding 17 Owners of the Fastback perfect-binding system from Powis Parker will soon be able to produce hardback books with their machines.

Business

EFI Wins Battle for Printcafe 18 In a fight that included legal maneuvers, rival bids and corporate intrigue, EFI holds off Creo in battle for Printcafe.

Graphics Software

Macromedia’s MX Push

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Macromedia completed the MX transition of its desktop product line by introducing FreeHand MX. It also introduced a new subscription service, DevNet, which will offer developers software and related resources through its Web site.

Color Management

Streamlining Color for Reader’s Digest

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The Reader's Digest Association wanted to set up a single European production hub for all 20 European editions. We’ll tell you how the project turned out.

DEPARTMENTS

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The Latest Word GATF tests stochastic screening.

People

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By the Numbers

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Film use continues slow decline.

Prepress

Dalim Poised for Growth

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Although 2002 was a year in which many notable firms in the industry posted losses and had to lay off employees, Dalim Software added employees and had double-digit growth. In this update from its recent usergroup meeting, we examine its product line and plans for 2003.

In The Bulletin

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For news between issues, visit:

THE

The Latest Word

A NA LY Z I N G P U B L I S H I N G T E C H N O L O G I E S

GATF examines stochastic screening

Business & Editorial/Production Office 428 E. Baltimore Ave., PO Box 644 Media, Pennsylvania 19063, USA phone: (610) 565-2480 fax: (610) 565-4659, 565-3261 web: www.seyboldreports.com editor: e-mail: managing editor: senior editor: executive editor: contributing editor: correspondents: e-mail: contributors:

Peter E. Dyson (phone x122) [email protected] Patricia S. Evans (x125) Mark Walter (x126) George Alexander (x142) Steve Edwards Kurt Wolf [email protected] Laurel Brunner, James Felici, Hans Hartman, Matt McKenzie, Bill Rosenblatt, Ron Roszkiewicz, Andy Tribute, Bernd Zipper, David Zwang production manager: Edmund H. Rozecki (x118) Customer Service phone: (800) 325–3830 or (610) 565–6864 fax: (610) 565-1858 e-mail: [email protected] accountant: Shirley Gay (x 112) Foster City (Seminars) Office 303 Vintage Park Dr., Foster City, CA 94404 phone: (650) 578-6900 fax: (650) 525-0193 publisher: James Smith editorial advisor: Craig E. Cline

Most claims upheld, but no gamut benefit seen GATF is in the process of conducting a study of commercially available stochastic and hybrid screening methods. Initial results were made public at the recent Tech Alert conference in Pittsburgh, PA. GATF set out to see if there were important differences among the various approaches and to test some of the claims made for stochastic screening. There were no major surprises in the findings. Stochastic screening works and it is not hard to print, but it does require a different approach to both prepress processes and presswork. In particular, when making plates, different dot-gain curves are required. It is generally necessary to compensate for more midtone gain than with conventional (AM) screening. That’s because, in the midtones, stochastic dots generally have larger perimeters for their coverage area than do AM dots, and the perimeter is where dot growth occurs.

Contrary to what some vendors have claimed, GATF found no increase in color gamut with stochastic. It also found that the stochastic screening produced smoother vignettes (at least, said some observers), that it minimized moiré problems, that it did a better job of reproducing skin tones and that color variations were less noticeable than with AM screening. Among the claims about stochastic, pro and con, that GATF did not test are that ink consumption is less, that makeready (register) is quicker, that more varied substrates can be printed and that plate life is reduced. Full details of the study will be published in a report later in the spring. We were interested in the photomicrographs of various vendors’ stochastic screens. Once you decide not to use a conventional AM approach, there are TSR obviously quite a few alternatives.

The Seybold Consulting Group The Seybold Consulting Group advises both users and vendors on an individual project basis. Please direct inquiries to Mark Walter at (610) 565-2480, x126, or [email protected].

Screening samples. In these photomicrographs, the top two images of each set show the plate; the bottom two show the printed result. Highlight dots are at left in each set, midtones at right. © 2003 by Seybold Publications, P.O. Box 644, 428 E. Baltimore Ave., Media, Pennsylvania 19063, ph. (610) 565-2480. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is strictly prohibited. The Seybold Report (ISSN: 1533-9211; USPS 020-953). Subscriptions are available in the U.S./Canada for $595 per year and Internationally for $640 per year (24 issues mailed semimonthly). POSTMASTER: Send address changes for The Seybold Report to: Seybold Publications, 428 E. Baltimore Ave., Media, PA 19063 Periodicals Postage Paid at Media, PA and at additional mailing offices.

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February 28, 2003 • The Seybold Report • Analyzing Publishing Technologies

Digital Rights Management

Complex Products and Pricing Models Are eMeta’s Forte BY MATT MCKENZIE Online publishing could free us from one-size-fits-all subscriptions, allowing enormous freedom to tailor prices and products to each customer’s needs. A high-end player, eMeta, has developed elegant software that supports this tailoring. We look at two installations that are exploring its potential.

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ll-or-nothing subscriptions are still a common line of business for online publishers. Today, however, publishers are increasingly interested in business models that allow them to apply a wider and more carefully targeted variety of pricing and subscription options. This is especially true in vertical markets such as financial or technical publishing, where publishers routinely distribute highly specialized content to professional, academic and corporate users. Over the past three years, eMeta has built a profitable business serving these customers. The company’s eRights system, launched in September 1999 (see SRIP, Vol. 4, No. 1), is designed to manage potentially complex, multifaceted relationships between online content and subscribers. Although the existing eRights system will have limited appeal among smaller publishers (with smaller budgets), eMeta has continued to refine its system with features likely to appeal to highend online publishers.

The eRights system At a high level, the eRights server replaces the standard authentication component of a Web server. The eRights server offloads the authentication request, validates a user’s content request against the publisher’s business rules, and then either grants access to the content or directs the user to an alternative resource (such as a subscription page or a request for payment). Publishers, of course, require more than just a souped-up authentication system. According to Jon Lewin, eMeta’s founder and chief technology officer, the company has focused on several challenges common among high-end online publishers. •

They want to offer a variety of online products, often with an equally wide range of price points and access options.

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They have segmented yet overlapping groups of subscribers who may possess access to more than one set of content (for example, an individual sub-

scriber who also has access through a professional or academic affiliation). •

They want to manage multiple subscription plans, including trial subscriptions, institutional licensing, and access based on geographic location or membership in a particular group.

A related problem is the fact that many publishers routinely experiment with their online business models in ways that would be impossible with a print publication. In order to conduct these experiments, they require the ability to design, launch and track sophisticated online marketing campaigns; to adjust subscription and pricing options quickly and at a very high level of granularity; and to develop innovative contentmerchandising schemes. The eRights system makes it much easier to run these types of experiments by using a graphical interface that makes it relatively simple for publishers to create business rules and to administer the system. EMeta has been profitable since launching eRights in 1999. The company’s initial customer base focused on scientific, technical and medical publishers such as IEEE and Celera Genomics. Since then, the company has continued to focus on high-end business, finance (e.g., Thompson Financial) and specialty publishers, along with the world’s six largest publishing houses (e.g., McGraw-Hill, Harcourt) and major daily news organizations (e.g., the New York Times and Financial Times). According to Lewin, eMeta has focused its eRights development efforts in three key areas: Authentication and administration. A single user may have multiple identities within the system, and a given piece of content may fall within multiple packages. As a result, the eRights system manages relationships between users and content that are potentially extremely complex and which the users themselves may not recognize. This is not simply an academic exercise; it can have a direct business impact on customers. A user with access through both an institu-

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Digital Rights Management tional license and an individual pay-per-view license, for example, would clearly prefer to receive access through the “cheaper” option. Recent upgrades to the eRights authentication system include delegated administration tools that allow corporate or institutional subscribers to manage their own subscription and content-access policies. An administrator could, for example, change the number of concurrent seats included in a subscription, or could adjust access privileges for individual subscribers, reducing the administration burden on the publisher. The eRights server will also implement the Microsoft Passport single-sign-on standard, and the company is following the Liberty Alliance Project, a proposed open single-sign-on specification.

Follow the money. The eRights system includes relatively advanced billing and account-management features, in addition to the ability to integrate with existing enterprise accounting or ERP systems.

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Commerce. The eRights commerce system includes integrated billing and payment servers that can also function as stand-alone products. In addition to providing standard features such as credit-card authorization and subscriber-account management, the system includes functions of special interest to publishers, such as the ability to calculate prorated charges or credits when a user changes his subscription status. The system can also debit incremental charges against an existing account balance (useful for managing a large number of small payments) or allowing customers to defer payment until their charges exceed a certain amount (reducing the publisher’s transaction costs). The system includes a module that applies targeted offers, such as a free trial or student discount, based upon a user’s existing access rights, referring URL or other metadata. This is one of the most powerful components of the eRights system, since it allows publishers to create targeted marketing campaigns quickly and easily for any number of different user groups.

Integration. The eRights APIs support integration with a number of third-party applications, including enterprise billing, general ledger and ERP systems; contentand asset-management systems; and digital rights management tools. In addition, eRights supports several content-search models: A publisher may charge for access to search results, charge for access to content listed in search results, or even filter the search results to show only content to which a subscriber currently has access. ERights also includes a Partnership Adopter module that enables content syndication, referral arrangements and other forms of business-to-business commerce. The Partnership Adopter allows users to log into a partner’s or customer’s site, and then seamlessly be signed-on and granted access privileges on the publisher’s site.

ERights in the Field FT.com: Don’t burn bridges. Two of eMeta’s most prominent customer acquisitions last year were the New York Times and the London-based Financial Times. Both news dailies are highly visible international brands with large mainstream user bases and large collections of free content. Both organizations are also attempting to strike a balance between monetizing their content while retaining as many current subscribers as possible. According to Andreas Bartels, director of product management for FT.com, maintaining this balance was a prime objective—the company wanted to avoid at all costs the Wall Street Journal’s take-no-prisoners approach to building a paid online subscriber base by shutting out visitors. In 2001, FT.com averaged around two million unique users and 43 million page views per month (compared to a worldwide print subscriber base of around 475,000). FT.com also had a good start toward reducing its dependence on advertising, deriving around 35 percent of its revenue from e-commerce sources such as custom business research. “We had the e-commerce stream in place, but we had to find a way to monetize our online user base,” Bartels said. When FT.com approached eMeta, Bartels said, the company already had a distinct online subscription model in mind. The idea was to create a “fifth edition” of the daily paper while also providing exclusive access to online archives, business information and tools such as e-mail and a calendar. FT.com also wanted the ability to manipulate the line between paid and free content easily, as well as the freedom to offer a variety of price and subscription models, including new options for its corporate subscribers. In addition, Bartels said, eMeta could offer experience working with FT.com’s existing OpenMarket content-management server. FT.com divided its eRights implementation into several phases. The company’s first goal, said Bartels, was to set up core subscription and billing functional-

February 28, 2003 • The Seybold Report • Analyzing Publishing Technologies

Digital Rights Management ity on its site, along with the ability to move articles easily between the paid and free sections of the site. Initially, for example, FT.com allowed visitors to access free news articles for seven days before placing the article into the paid archive; based on its subscriber data, the company soon reduced the free period to three days. The current subscription model includes a 15-day free trial with an automatic conversion to a paid subscription unless the user cancels. It also provides two levels of subscriber access, including a premium package with access to financial and third-party news sources. According to Bartels, FT.com’s two-tier system revealed a surprising trend: More users subscribe to the premium package than to the basic subscription. FT.com’s second goal, Bartels said, was to target the company’s marketing efforts more effectively, such as campaigns aimed at subscribers from specific regions. These efforts also included an arrangement with Pearson Education (Pearson is Financial Times’ parent company) where U.S. students get discounted subscriptions by entering a PIN when they land on FT.com. More recently, FT.com has started to implement eRights’ delegated-administration features, allowing subscribers to manage their own subscriptions without contacting a customer-service representative. The company also plans to implement the server’s IP-address authorization feature for some of its larger clients, especially in the education sector. According to Bartels, the company’s eRights implementation has met its goal of building a paid subscription base without driving off existing subscribers or cannibalizing ad-based revenue. As of February 2003, FT.com counted 3.2 million unique visitors and 50 million page views, while also meeting the company’s goal of deriving 5 percent of its revenue from approximately 40,000 paid subscribers. In the future, FT.com plans to devote more energy toward expanding its B2B market, a process that Bartels said will require a good deal of experimentation with various subscription and access models. IEEE: Something for everyone. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) manages a publications collection that is complex even within the scientific, technical and medical market—it includes 110 journals and magazines, plus about 400 conference proceedings per year, representing 30 percent of the world’s electrical and electronics engineering and computer-science technical content. This content collection totals more than 900,000 articles, including an online archive dating to the late 1980s for most titles— in some cases, dating to the 1950s. The IEEE subscriber base is equally complex, currently including 380,000 individuals who may join as at-large members or as members of 37 affiliated societies. In addition, IEEE provides access to subscribing academic libraries, corporations and government insti-

tutions. Given the number of overlapping memberships, access privileges, subscription models and other factors, the site provides an interesting test of eRights’ subscriber-management capabilities. According to Klaus Gutfeld, director of electronic delivery for IEEE, the organization launched its paid online service in 1998 with a simple all-or-nothing subscription for institutional customers. IEEE adopted eRights in 1999; in early 2000, the organization launched a more complex set of packages including access to periodicals, to conference proceedings and to a limited set of back issues. Today, according to Gerry Grenier, staff director of publishing technologies for IEEE, the organization is moving toward the creation of “virtual journals” that aggregate relevant content from any title or content category within its collection. “We’re seeing a lot of overlap in subject matter, and a single journal may not include everything of interest to a particular subscriber,” Grenier said. IEEE has created, for example, a biomedical-engineering package using article abstracts and a controlled-vocabulary thesaurus to collect relevant content from a variety of sources in its database. IEEE is in a good position to deliver the structured data necessary to implement these types of packages; the organization committed ten years ago to use SGML to structure its digital content for CDROM products and to assign every article, issue and publication title a unique identifier within its collection. According to Grenier, moving to the eRights system has allowed IEEE to adopt increasingly complex subscription packages without having to create and

Volume 2, Number 22 • The Seybold Report • Analyzing Publishing Technologies

Making an offer. ERights allows publishers to develop fully customized content-marketing packages, including a wide range of eligibility and fulfillment options.

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Digital Rights Management said. In addition, IEEE uses eRights to manage its concurrency-based site-licensing schemes with both individual and institutional subscribers. “The beauty of it is that we haven’t been able to come up with a business model that we couldn’t execute through eMeta,” Grenier said, including any combination of “classic” journal subscriptions, customized “virtual journals,” single-article sales, site licensing and time-limited access.

Conclusion

One subscriber, many subscriptions. ERights provides a single source of information for subscribers with multiple subscriptions and access rights, along with links to account-management and billing information.

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manage hard-coded business rules. Today, for example, IEEE allows members to subscribe to a digital library package in which they may download up to 25 articles per month into an online personal file cabinet. The 25-article limit refreshes automatically every month, and downloaded articles remain available to the member for five years. This flexibility also allows the IEEE sales staff to market customized content packages to libraries and other institutional customers. “In theory, every member could have a different set of access rights,” Grenier

Publishers are likely to appreciate eMeta’s ability to enable mix-and-match business models. This was, after all, one of the great promises of the Internet— publishers could jettison the one-size-fits-all print subscription model in favor of a more nuanced range of options. Once the technical and administrative headaches are out of the way, publishers can get down to the business of figuring out exactly what subscribers want and how much they are willing to pay for this content. This could be a major source of additional revenue for publishers with online collections that are diverse and deep enough to attract subscribers with a variety of different business needs and different levels of price sensitivity. Among smaller publishers, eMeta isn’t a compelling product, just as big-ticket content-management or e-commerce systems aren’t very compelling (a typical eRights installation can run well into six figures). Among large publishers with diverse content collections and highly segmented customer bases, however, it’s easy to see why eMeta continues to gain ground in TSR a generally stagnant market.

February 28, 2003 • The Seybold Report • Analyzing Publishing Technologies

Content Management

Sansui Integrates InDesign, Custom Content Management in Kerala BY LAUREL BRUNNER An up-and-coming system integrator in India is building a modern cross-media production system for Malayala Manorama. The paper sees a growing local-language market for print and online services, especially for expatriates.

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ne of the most ambitious installations of an InDesign-based system is currently under way at Malayala Manorama. The newspaper is based in Kottayam, a city in the southwestern Indian state of Kerala. The 300-seat system is a nice design win for Adobe; it’s the first big InDesign site in India. But it’s also a significant contract for Sansui, which designed and implemented a complex content-management system around InDesign. The software will support 400 journalists and the newspaper’s 250-strong production team. Altogether, Malayala Manorama employs more than 2,000 people; besides newspapers, the company also publishes magazines and books. The market opportunity. Malayala Manorama chose InDesign for all the usual reasons: greater production flexibility and shorter deadlines and to help the newspaper meet its market’s changing content requirements. The latter include more local editions and tighter integration with the newspaper’s multichannel Web portal. Such commercial drivers are of particular concern in India, where newspapers are often at the vanguard of the country’s rapid social, economic and political change. Malayala Manorama’s investment is as much about strengthening its contribution to social development as it is about strengthening its competitive position. At last count, India had a population of more than one billion—around three times that of the U.S. and more than 15 times that of the U.K. According to the Indian Newspaper Society’s official 2001 figures, there are 394 daily newspapers in India, of which only 60 are English-language titles. The official combined daily circulation in 2001 exceeded 29 million copies. English-language titles accounted for 5.5 million dailies, Hindi for 8.4 million and the 15 other official languages (among them Malayalam) for 15.8 million. However, unofficial estimates (which are probably no less accurate—India’s just like that) put the 2001 counts closer to 60 million. Moreover, most newspapers in India are read by at least ten people, so total readership was substantially higher. Numbers for 2002 aren’t available, but it’s clear that circulations are rising fast; some local industry sources suggest they may

be as high as ten times the 2001 figures. Among other consequences, the ad market is developing quickly, so it is easy to understand why Malayala Manorama wanted to upgrade its production processes.

The move to InDesign What makes this story compelling is the scope of the task. Malayala Manorama is based in Kottayam, one of the larger cities in Kerala. This seaside state, which has a population of approximately 32 million, has the highest literacy rate in India; several districts have achieved 100-percent literacy. The local language is Malayalam, whose orthographic script adds an interesting dimension1 to an already complex set of production requirements. The newspaper’s desire for a PDF workflow—which some developers disparage because PDF hasn’t always processed diacritics and conjuncts reliably—only adds to the thrills of producing the 16- to 20-page newspapers for Kerala’s 14 districts. Altogether, Malayala Manorama publishes 50 editions of the newspaper. Status quo ante. More than 20 years ago, the newspaper moved from handwritten copy and hot-metal typesetting to digital production. About seven years ago, an Indian system integrator, Sansui, crafted a system based on Microsoft Word 6 and Lotus Notes. The system was heavily customized to meet the needs and workflow habits of the 400 journalists at 34 bureaus throughout the state; it comprised a set of Word macros, nine-column page templates and a user interface written in Visual Basic. Lotus Notes automatically routed the finished stories, using a hierarchical basket system defined according to location, desk and journalist. Underlying it all was an SQL database. Pagination and edition management also relied on Word. Stories were automatically pasted into the relevant page grid, which was a Word document. The page previews—also Word documents—were colorcoded to show their state of readiness: red for unassigned, orange for assigned but incomplete, green for filed stories, etc. Lotus Notes could automatically reject stories with over-matter, returning them to the originating journalist to fix. (Under-matter, however,

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The Malayalam script was originally written on palm leaves, a surface that doesn’t lend itself to uprights or angles, so the script is very curvy and graphic in character. It uses many conjuncts and contextually sensitive characters, so justification, kerning and hyphenation rules are complex.

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Content Management

Summary judgment. SmartFlow’s summary window shows each story’s vital statistics, metadata, identifiers and news-management details.

could only be identified by looking at the page previews.) To a remarkable degree, the system mimicked many of XPress’s functions. According to Biruc Jacob, one of the newspaper’s software engineers, “We have exploited all of the options of Word.”

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A description of some other Sansui technologies for newspapers appeared in Vol. 2, No. 6 of The Seybold Report.

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The paper uses a font that was designed years ago by Linotype. The h&j algorithm uses matching tables for conjunct characters and complex rules for inserting discretionary hyphens. InDesign then selects the best available hyphenation point.

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From Word to InDesign. The new production system is also being developed by Sansui.2 Parts of the system are already in place, running in parallel with the old system; the transition is expected to be completed by May. The new system has been configured so that the pagination tool, although based on InDesign, looks like the old Visual Basic pagination module, except that several new functions can now be supported. The system will add thumbnail views, for instance, and it will allow remote access for up to 160 pages that could be in production at any given time. Page refresh and on-page tracking of stories will be fully automated and entirely user-definable, and there will be a direct link to previews from the page so that journalists can immediately see the results of their changes. The new system will provide and manage meta-information about stories and images, and automatic e-mail notifications will alert journalists, editors and ad-copy chasers to late pages. InDesign is being configured to match the journalists’s habits and wish lists. It has the same control palette as the newspaper’s old Word-based system and the same model for controlling user access to page elements. All page elements are visible to everyone, but only certain elements are unlocked for any given user. This trick is managed using InDesign’s layering tools. Only the newspaper’s chief subeditor, who has the final say over what the pages looks like, gets full access to all editorial elements. Because InDesign provides onpage editing, over-matter and under-matter are immediately obvious, and both journalists and editors can see their pages’ state of readiness. Completed stories are tagged with NewsML and routed to the paper’s Vignette content-management system, where stories destined for output on the Web are parsed via the newspaper’s Web DTD. A Lotus Notes

Browser-based. Much of Sansui’s content-management system is accessible via a standard browser window. As this audit trail shows, the system supports multiple languages.

workflow engine manages this copy flow, and an SQL database stores multiple story versions for both content tracking and archiving. Malayala Manorama’s own software is providing the communications and interface management across these systems.

Sansui’s technology Sansui is responsible for the integration of all system elements. All of the modules run on the Lotus Domino server at the newspaper. •

SmartFlow is a rule-based routing technology that uses NewsML tags to manage stories and their associated metadata. It handles local routing of incoming stories, parsing NewsML tags and sending files to the appropriate paging baskets. (Sansui’s SmartPage module, using InDesign as a pagination engine, then puts the story on the page.) SmartFlow also routes stories to the archive.

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Newshound is a browser-based retrieval and aggregation application for wire stories and images.

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SmartBureau provides a browser-based view into the production system.

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SmartArchive, an XML archiving tool, will eventually manage all aspects of Malayala Manorama’s digital content-management system. Because it is wholly Web-based, SmartArchive has the potential to support editorial inputs from all of the paper’s publications, including those from the company’s book and magazine divisions. The archive repository stores XML files in Unicode (UTF8) format and uses a third-party filter to convert between Unicode3 and the paper’s proprietary font encoding.

February 28, 2003 • The Seybold Report • Analyzing Publishing Technologies

Content Management In the old system, images were placed onto newspaper pages manually, but this is changing as the newspaper migrates all layout to InDesign. Images are processed using Binuscan’s IPM (Image Processing Machine), and thumbnail image views are available within both SmartFlow and SmartArchive. When the newspaper moves over entirely to InDesign, SmartFlow will also handle image placement, displaying FPO images on the page and substituting high-resolution images at output time. Sansui is also working on a digital rights management system, so that the newspaper can sell its content. Malayala Manorama is currently looking for scanning technology to enable it to digitize its microfilm library of content, which stretches back over the last 100 years.

Advertising Malayala Manorama’s IT staffers have designed their own ad-planning and -booking system, using the company’s SAP-based infrastructure. As we write this, the ads are still being placed on the page manually, but when the new system goes live, ad production will also be based on InDesign. As with editorial components, the advertising components will be managed on the page using the software’s layering functions. In both the old and new systems, page dummies are sent from the ad sales department to both production and editorial departments. The production department creates a transparent PDF layer with the ad content, then brings advertising and editorial together into a composite page by combining the ad layers with the appropriate PDFs of editorial pages. The status of ads and images cannot yet be shown on editorial page previews, but we’re told that a colorcoding feature is under development and will be part of the final installations. PDFs of the combined files are preflight-checked using Callas PDF Inspektor and Enfocus Pitstop and then RIPped for final output at the various remote printing centers. The newspaper is considering going the Certified PDF route for ad agencies, as Malayala Manorama has experienced problems getting decent PDFs from its advertising agencies.

recently had to upgrade its capacity; two MAN Roland Uniset presses (rated for 60,000 copies per hour) have been ordered for the cities of Kochi and Tiruvanthapuram. The Kochi press was expected to go into production as this issue went to press. The presses are built in a joint venture between Manugraaf and MAN Roland. This joint venture provides MAN with a presence in India, and because the press is an Indian one, Malayala Manorama will not have to pay the 54 percent duty levied on imported equipment. The newspaper’s PDF workflow, combined with copydot scanners in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore and Tiruvanathanpuram, provide a wholly digital delivery system for remote production sites. Approximately 1.24 million copies of the newspaper are printed at the publisher’s 13 print sites, with the printing of 80,000 additional copies outsourced to printers in Bombay, Chennai and Bangalore. (In Bombay, 40,000 copies are printed for day-one delivery to the Persian Gulf countries, where many Malayalees live.) The remote print plants also print local zoned editions of the newspaper. In addition to the local zoned editions and the Gulf edition, Malayala Manorama is also available on demand. The newspaper earns around $600 monthly from copies sold via PEPC (or Newspaper KiOSK, as it is becoming known). As Malayala Manorama’s

Proofing. Proofing and ICC-based color workflow technologies are being supplied by Compose. The newspaper is hoping to have its remote-proofing and color-management systems in place by May. All devices are to be profiled, including the company’s cold-set newswebs and heat-set color presses. (So far seven presses have been profiled. We were told that, since all are quite similar, it may be possible to have a single profile that applies to every press.)

Story scan. Sansui’s Newshound window shows stories and pictures available over the wire. A flyout shows the topic line within one story.

Wire search. Newshound has found a wire-service story in response to a query (the highlighted term). Both story content and headers can be viewed.

Printing and distribution Malayala Manorama has nine print centers throughout the state, printing 1.25 million copies daily plus additional publications for the group. The paper has Volume 2, Number 22 • The Seybold Report • Analyzing Publishing Technologies

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Content Management also started selling products from the site. The group is developing an online e-commerce system to provide a payment gateway for both Malayala Manorama information products and locally sourced goods. The site expects to start earning profits within four years. The Kerala market is large enough to make this a reasonable projection: Around seven to ten percent of Internet penetration in India—some 7 million people—comes from the newspaper’s home state of Kerala. Advertising will continue to be billed through traditional means for the foreseeable future, but eventually advertising payments will be possible online. And although Indian newspapers are traditionally sold on a per-copy basis, Malayala Manorama is using the Web to sell subscriptions.

Competitive environment

Expansion. Malayala Manorama’s new printing plant in Kochi waiting for the Manugraaf-MAN Roland press. (Photo: Paul Lindstrøm.)

managing director George Jacob puts it, “Whatever medium is available, we must use that medium.”

Online editions One of the most important media for any newspaper is the Web. Malayala Manorama’s online edition is a multichannel news portal rather than a static Web site. The portal is already plugged into the new editorial system. It is designed primarily for the Malayalee diaspora, but it also serves local readers who are not comfortable with Malayalam; one of its channels offers an English version of the newspaper. There is one content coordinator for each of the site’s 15 channels: lifestyle, news, sports and so on. The news channels have two additional editors, who are shared with the print version of the newspaper, to develop news stories for the site. As you would expect, there is close cooperation between the print and digital content creators. All the channels can use editors from the publisher’s newspaper and magazine titles as content consultants. The site’s income comes from banner ads and, especially, classified ads. In the four months since launch, this multichannel site has had an encouraging response. According to Mariam Mammen Mathew, operations director of Malayala Manorama Online, there are 720,000 page views per day and 15 million per month—and rising. (The previous static site attracted only around 1 to 2 million page views per month.) More than 35,000 people have registered for Malayalam e-mail and chat services so far; they come primarily from the U.S. and the Middle East. Ad revenues are currently 70–80 million rupees (about $1.5 million). Malayala Manorama Online has 10

In Kerala, the newspaper has long had a wider reach than television, but this is changing and, thus, threatening newspapers’ advertising revenues. Malayala Manorama is easily the dominant player in its market, with a circulation claimed to be 400,000 higher than its nearest rival. However, the newspaper recognizes that it must keep investing in new technologies and product development in order to maintain its position. According to managing director Jacob, “Kerala is the only state in India where there is true competition,” with a local-language title competing strenuously with the national English-language titles. In Kerala the English-language nationals sell fewer than 120,000 copies across the whole state. More seriously, India’s two largest language newspapers (Dainik Jagaran in Hindi, Eenadu in Telugu) sell only 2 million copies between them nationwide, and all newspapers are competing for a finite ad market. Malayala Manorama and other language titles have to battle against the perception that affluent buyers are more likely to respond to English rather than local-language titles.

Conclusion India is still a chaotic and unpredictable place. It represents a vast market, but its merchants constantly have to respond to social changes that occur at ferocious speed. Fortunately, one thing is boundless in India: its peoples’ positive attitude and ability to work around obstacles. Most people will say “yes” almost before they know what’s wanted. With this sort of enthusiasm, Malayala Manorama and Sansui are moving quickly toward fully digital content creation, production and management. The Malayala Manorama project is carrying Sansui into a different league as a system vendor. Once a local integrator that customized off-the-shelf applications, it now looks like a significant contender in world markets. We expect that we will be hearing TSR more from this firm.

February 28, 2003 • The Seybold Report • Analyzing Publishing Technologies

Print Workflow

Ringier Selects Fusion to Automate Its Prepress BY KURT K. WOLF Ringier AG, Switzerland’s largest media firm, has invested 1.8 million euros in upgrading its facilities in Zofingen, Switzerland. A key part of the investment is the Fusion workflow, based on Fusion Systems’ DigiPage workflow plus a few additional components assembled by the local distributor.

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ingier PreMedia, the prepress division of Ringier Print Zofingen AG, Switzerland, has stayed at the leading edge of technological development throughout the shift from proprietary CEPS systems to open PostScript-based systems. Along the way, it has grown to an impressive size, with all the complexity that entails. The printing operation, which has two gravure and six offset web presses, each week produces six Ringier publications of 90–120 pages. There are six more Ringier monthlies of a similar size. Then there are 10 periodicals that Ringier prints for other publishers, as well as another 40–50 individual print jobs each month, ranging from 8-page flyers to 500-page vacation catalogs. This kind of volume can only be handled by working around the clock, both in the pressroom and in the prepress division. About 100 Macs and PCs are connected to the prepress network. The SGI servers, now running the Fusion workflow, deliver pages to eight Epson printers and six Iris proofers, as well as three Lüscher Xpose 160 platesetters and four Helioklischograph gravure units. Prepress manager Olaf Forte took us through his operation and told us about the demands on his division: “Around 70 percent of our production is supplied PDF page data. The rest is in the form of ‘open’ files, such as Quark XPress. We have to make sure that printing continues around the clock. Based on the production schedule, each 48-page magazine flat must be imaged to plate within an hour of the arrival of the PDF page files. To manage that, we use Artcom Impose for both offset and gravure.”

The Fusion workflow The workflow that Ringier had originally installed for the scanning and computer-to-film operations has left a lot to be desired in recent years. So Ringier undertook a year-long evaluation of all the prepress workflows on the market. In Fusion, it found a solution that, on the one hand, could integrate the existing infrastructure and, on the other, seemed suited to their large operation

because it could be scaled up almost without limit. Hans Ruedi Keller, of the Zurich computer consulting firm Schwarzaufweiss (“Black-on-white”) which distributes Fusion, worked hard to present the advantages of his product. One of the smallest workflow providers in Switzerland, he eventually succeeded in landing the country’s largest workflow system order. Today, the Fusion workflow consists of three main components: FullPress 11 and WebNative Venture from Xinet, the Harlequin RIPs from Global Graphics, and the FlashNet archive and backup system from Software Generation Ltd. The Fusion workflow was created in 1997 when LDR (the prepress dealer based in Portland, OR) combined the Harlequin RIP with FullPress and got them running on multiprocessor SGI computers. It was extended with the FlashNet software on the initiative of Schwarzaufweiss in Zurich. In March 2002, LDR spun off the rapidly growing workflow business into its own company, Fusion Systems International (www.fusionsystems.com), also based in Portland. The international distribution structure was unaltered. (In the U.S., Fusion is distributed through #1 Network, www.no1network.com.) Fusion arose from the requirement for a true, centralized, but scalable server for the professional publishing environment. The Fusion workflow interfaces are documented and the database structure is published. Data can be sent to any output device via standard bit- and byte-oriented protocols.

Xinet Fullpress Xinet originally wrote FullPress for the Unix operating system for two reasons: It was the most stable and open operating system, and it offered unlimited scalability. Today, FullPress runs on the following operating systems: •

Sun computers with Solaris

•

SGI computers with Irix

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Apple computers with Mac OS/X Server

Volume 2, Number 22 • The Seybold Report • Analyzing Publishing Technologies • © 2003 Seybold Publications

We have examined other aspects of Ringier’s operation in past issues. The company was an early customer for Lüscher’s Xpose 160 platesetter (see Vol. 1, No. 19), and it developed MediaSpider, which lets print buyers work with printers via the Internet (see Vol. 1, No. 22).

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Print Workflow central server and doesn’t need to travel over the LAN, the files are prepared extremely quickly, including pulling data from the database and executing the final RIP process. FullPress supports more than 20 different imagefile formats. That means high-resolution data doesn’t need to be converted before being used in a layout. The formats include TIFF, JPEG, PostScript, EPS, PDF, Photoshop native, Alias PIX, Barco, Contex CT, Crosfield Studio 9000, DCS 1 and 2, Dalim CT/LW (including masks), Eclipse Tile, Eskofot/EskoScan, Scitex CT/LW and SGI Image Library. Important functions. FullPress has attracted a loyal following, not just because of its stability, but also because of the variety of important functions it includes. • FullPress functions. Xinet’s software accepts images from various sources and dynamically prepares low-resolution FPOs, so that edits to the original image are immediately reflected in the FPO versions. The high-res versions are automatically substituted during final output.

•

Intel computers with Windows NT and Windows 2000

•

Intel computers with Solaris x86

FullPress is a powerful server program with workflow functionality. It stores shared documents on drives connected to a central server. Mac users can select these drives in the usual way and display them on their desktops. They can work with these drives just as they do with their local disks, and the access speed is just as fast. The Xinet file-sharing technology allows FullPress to provide various views of a single high-resolution file. It lets several clients work with the same file, each in his own way. When high-resolution images are scanned in or transferred to the server, FullPress generates low-resolution (FPO) versions. Rather than existing as separate files, these are derived from the original data on the fly and presented via separate networkdrive mappings. Those who want to work with the high-resolution data can get it from the “High-res volume.” Simultaneously, others can work with low-resolution versions from the “FPO volume.” Still other users can view the same images over the Internet in GIF or JPEG format. Although these volumes appear to contain separate files, that is only because FullPress is working in the background to display different views of the same high-resolution originals to different users. The Xinet technology guarantees that changes to the high-resolution original are immediately visible in all views. Easy image substitution. When users send files for printing via the FullPress print spooler, FullPress replaces the FPO versions with the high-resolution image data. All changes are passed along, just as though the user had been working with a full-resolution file. Because all the data for each job resides on the

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Picture Wrangler. This Xinet XTension for Quark XPress is an alternative, optimized for the FullPress workflow, to the normal dialog window for using or getting information about images. It avoids the necessity of selecting each image and indicating its path name in order to have it updated. Instead, one just indicates in FullPress the top

The Confusion About Fusion he Fusion workflow referred to in this article is now sold under the DigiPage name. Here is a bit more detail about the various products and companies involved in the workflow. In 1997, when LDR decided to combine the Harlequin RIP with the Xinet FullPress file-andprint server, it christened the resulting workflow “Fusion.” LDR later spun off the workflow business as a separate company, Fusion Systems International. Fusion Systems split the Fusion workflow into two versions. One, for high-resolution output in the prepress market, was named DigiPage. The other, for low-resolution and largeformat applications, was named ColorRay. Both are marketed through independent integrators. One such integrator, Schwarzaufweiss in Switzerland, sold the Fusion (now DigiPage) workflow to Ringier. Fusion Systems dealers also sell Xinet’s WebNative (browser-based access to job information) and WebNative Venture (WebNative combined with a MySQL database). Schwarzaufweiss was also responsible for getting Xinet and the U.K. firm SGL (which makes the FlashNet backup software) to work together, and the FlashNet package was part of the system Schwarzaufweiss assembled for Ringier. The cooperation between Xinet and SGL led to a closer relationship, and, since the beginning of 2003, Xinet has become the exclusive sales and support channel for FlashNet in the graphic arts market. George Alexander

T

February 28, 2003 • The Seybold Report • Analyzing Publishing Technologies

Print Workflow level of the FullPress volume where the images reside, and all the links are updated within a few seconds. •

FullPress XT. This module lets the user color-correct images within the XPress layout. In addition, the XTension permits every type of XPress layout to be reliably output to film or plate.

•

ICC color management. The ICC-based color management in FullPress leaves the original RGB file unaltered and recalculates the image data according to the profile whenever the job is output. That means color information within FullPress remains independent of the output device and medium.

•

Unsharp masking algorithm. As part of FullPress, Ringier can make use of an exclusive image-sharpening facility. This allows the unaltered image data to reside on the server, with sharpening taking place during output. The original files are not changed. Ringier is pleased in all respects with the printed result.

•

Placement of PDF files. From PDF files, FullPress creates FPO versions that can be placed in a layout. During output, the original PDF data stream is sent to the RIP without conversion into any intermediate format.

•

Pre-separation and cropping of color separations. In most applications, the creation of color separations is an integral part of the output process. In FullPress, by contrast, color separation occurs prior to the RIPping stage. If you want to output just the cyan separation, FullPress sends only the cyan separation with cropped images, including any required trapping information.

Distributed processing. Ringier’s installation includes two application servers (the Zenith with 12 processors and the Zeno with 8) and a backup unit, the 8processor Zulu. Mass storage, accessed via a separate network path, includes two TP9400 systems and an Ampex robotic tape library.

ious output devices. The Fusion workflow was implemented in collaboration with Schwarzaufweiss. The RIPs associated with the existing output devices (proofers, imagsetters, platesetters, gravure engravers) were replaced by the server-based RIPs. This means that all output will be identical, no matter which device it is imaged on. The storage network consists of Fiber Channel switches and two SGI TP9400 RAID systems with a total of 2.5 TB of storage capacity. For archiving,

Physical plant. Ringier houses the servers and storage boxes in one server room to simplify cabling and cooling.

The configuration at Ringier Ringier chose to use the Silicon Graphics processor because of its modular construction, which allows components to be added when more performance is required, permitting the volume of work produced to rise in turn. Additional processors or memory, or an arbitrarily large increase in disk capacity, can be implemented quickly and with minimal work. System administrator Samuel Siegrist took us into the server room and described the functions of the various computers. There are two main computers, both SGI Origin 3400 machines. One has eight processors, the other 12. There is also a secondary machine with four processors. All are equipped with 1 GB of RAM per CPU. Ten identical Harlequin RIPs run on the two main computers under the control of the FullPress software. These are the machines that send data to the varVolume 2, Number 22 • The Seybold Report • Analyzing Publishing Technologies

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Print Workflow there is an Ampex robotic tape system that can currently handle 55 cassettes of 300 GB each. The archiving process is controlled by the FlashNet package from Software Generation, Ltd., in Southampton, U.K. Central data access. SGI’s Clustered File System (CXFS) technology gives all three servers simultaneous read-and-write access to all data volumes directly over the storage network. This offloads most of the heavy network traffic from the LAN. In this respect, the CXFS solution is more than a consolidation of storage, as implemented in a classic storage network. Thanks to CXFS, the dynamic reassignment of disk storage is not necessary. When the amount of CXFS storage is increased, all the servers benefit directly. The ability of all three servers to access data over the storage network simultaneously makes a noticeable performance improvement. Internet communication. Xinet’s WebNative offering provides the printing company with an Internet connection to its clients. Clients, production partners and employees can all access parts of the FullPress file system using a standard Web browser. Following a password-protected log-in process, users can send or retrieve files. Thus, they can use the servers 24 hours a day, from any location. Passwords and file-access restrictions safeguard the company’s own data. They make sure that each of the WebNative users gets access to only that part of the file system that contains that user’s files. WebNative Venture combines WebNative with an SQL database, for even faster searching, structuring and categorizing of data. Ringier is using WebNative internally in order to test its usability with its own editorial operations, among other applications.

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Company URLs Fusion Systems: www.fusionsystems.com Xinet: www.xinet.com SGL: www.sgluk.com LDR: www.ldr.com Schwarzaufweiss: www.schwarzaufweiss.ch

Satisfied customers At the end of our visit, Patrick Schmid, head of data management, emphasized that the FullPress user interface is easy to use, and Segrist pointed out that there had been hardly any system crashes since the conversion to the Fusion workflow in the summer of 2002. He also praised the support he got from Schwarzaufweiss, which helped to make the conversion simpler and quicker than anticipated. Naturally, the stability of the software is an important consideration in Switzerland’s largest pre-press operation. But other Fusion customers praise it as well. For example, Dr. Ralf Biering, CEO of Mediahaus Biering in Munich, comments, “FullPress solved all the problems that we previously had. While our workflow has not fundamentally changed, it is now more stable, more efficient and faster. We have used WebNative to develop better relationships with our customers through quicker turnaround times.” The unlimited scalability of the workflow means that even small prepress departments can take advantage of its high productivity and stable competence. Or, as Schwarzaufweiss’s Keller said in all modesty: “Fusion is a great thing, but even a small business can benefit from it.” TSR

February 28, 2003 • The Seybold Report • Analyzing Publishing Technologies

The Latest Word

Update on Dalim Software GmbH In tough times, Dalim is doing well, the company tells its users. In January, Dalim Software invited its users to the second EuroDUO (Dalim User Organization) meeting in Munich, to share their experiences with the Dalim workflow products. Dalim’s management proved to be in a very positive mood, thanks to recent market successes, and they provided a detailed preview of the new products expected this year. Dr. Carol Werlé, the CEO, radiated optimism and confidence as he welcomed the more than 80 users from throughout Europe and reported—in three separate conference-opening presentations—on how business was going. The three presentations were required because Dalim had divided the users into three groups by language: German, French and English. The three groups met in parallel throughout the two days. That meant a lot of work for the Dalim staff, but it was typical of the customer orientation of the Kehl-based software house. Backdrop. Dalim Software was originally founded in Strasbourg (in France), but the company soon relocated to Kehl, just across the border in Germany. In 1998, it was reconstituted with help from its three largest customers—Axel Springer (Germany), Goldmann Druck (Austria) and North American Color (USA)—after overly aggressive expansion had landed it in bankruptcy. Additional funds came from Blanchard Systems (U.S.), Turning Point Technologies (U.K.) and Comtecs Itochu (Japan), and the management and some employees of Dalim also bought equity. Today. Werlé pointed out that in 2002 (a year when the leading firms in the industry, such as Adobe, Corel, Heidelberg and Xerox, posted losses and had to lay off employees), Dalim added 5 percent more employees, had a double-digit growth rate over the previous year and turned a profit on sales of over 5 million euros. He attributed this to the company’s workflow products, which provide printers and publishers with more protection against crashes, better scalability and higher throughput. The products are independent of output for-

mat, output device and client software, and are based on industry standards such as PDF/X and Java2. High points of the past year were the partnership with Gruner + Jahr, the new Internet-based programs Twist Weblink and Twist Dialogue, and the Web-based production-management package Ficelle. In addition, there were countless improvements to all the programs in the product line.

Secret of Dalim’s success The roots of Dalim’s success go back to Drupa 1990, when it launched the retouching and layout package that is now called Litho. It was one of the first programs to be able to edit PostScript (staffers called the internal data format “DalScript”), and, even then, its functionality was a superset of what the high-end repro systems were offering. It was written for the Unix operating system and ran on both Silicon Graphics and Sun Microsystems computers. The DalScript format later became the basis for the new products (such as Litho Normalizer and PDF Editor) that continue to be developed from the layout program. Based on this foundation, a workflow package, Twist, was developed in the mid1990s. It ran on the same platforms, to which was added Linux. (This year, Mac OS/X—also a Unix-based system—is being added as well.) This makes the Dalim products of interest to even dyed-in-thewool Mac fans (and that means most of the prepress world). In this user-group report, we describe Dalim’s software line as it stands today. Dalim Litho. Dalim Litho is a retouching and layout package for Unix computers, offering page layout, graphics creation and retouching in a single package. It was developed to support efficient and professional creation of pieces such as marketing materials, catalogs, magazines and—in particular—packaging. Because it operates on DalScript, a PostScript superset, it can import layouts and finished pages from PostScript and PDF as well as the native formats of Scitex, Hell and Crosfield. Even

Volume 2, Number 22 • The Seybold Report • Analyzing Publishing Technologies

more important, it can import TIFF-IT, AIF and 1-bit-deep bitmap files. Pages from Litho can be output to PostScript imagesetters and platesetters in the usual way. Prior to RIPping, all images can be rescaled to the output resolution, in order to speed up output. Litho’s output files are “flattened” PostScript or PDF (either PDF/X-1a or PDF/X-3). For PDF, Litho performs a “normalizer” function. For packaging printers, Litho can mix process and spot colors (and it has a special interactive trapping module for that application), can produce bar codes and can vectorize bitmaps. It can impose pages or make multiples with a step-and-repeat function. In a single program, it does what Mac users have previously needed four programs to do. Now that it runs on Mac OS/X and includes PDF editing ability, it may take on a new life this year. Litho64 was a new development for 2002. We believe this program is the first 64-bit desktop application in the industry. It can open, edit and retouch files of almost unlimited size (up to 9 GB). It can be used to edit full-size impositions for large-format presses. Dalim Twist. Twist is a modular prepress workflow system for large prepress operations, printers, and publishers. It comprises more than 150 standard workflow modules. It is freely configurable by the user, so that a custom workflow can be defined and stored for each client or each type of job. This allows recurring jobs to be produced with the greatest possible degree of automation. The charming aspect of it is the ability (already mentioned in connection with Litho) to import various file types, notably Scitex and TIFF-IT, as well as the robust PDF output it produces (Dalim calls it PDF/P2). This consists of raster data enclosed in a PDF wrapper, guaranteeing identical output on every PostScript RIP. Lossless compression can be applied. The files are fully compatible with PDF 1.3, so they can be incorporated into pure PDF workflows. Given Twist’s openness, flexibility and unlimited scalability, the price (27,000 euros for two CPUs) is definitely attractive. Twist is, without doubt, the most successful of Dalim Software’s offerings. In a sidebar, we discuss how the huge Gruner + 15

The Latest Word

Gruner + Jahr Drops Homegrown Workflow in Favor of Open System t the end of August 2002, Dalim and Gruner + Jahr made it known that they had established a technology partnership for the development of a printing data management system. The goal was to develop an automatic Internet-based production workflow. The system would include all functions, from receipt of data right through imposition, that are required for the prepress processes of a printer (either offset or gravure). At the user-group meeting, we encountered Dieter Bress, head of information technology at Gruner Druck, and asked him about the project.

KW: Why did you select Dalim in particular as your partner? DB: The reasons were quite practical. First, Dalim can handle all the data formats that Gruner + Jahr uses without a problem. Second, the Twist workflow gives us unconstrained choice of hardware, for computers and operating systems, as well as for output devices. Third, it is a modular system, and that lets us configure it according to our requirements. And fourth, this system also fulfills the requirements of our American web-offset subsidiary, the Brown Printing Company. That gives us a uniform workflow-management system in all our printing plants.

KW: Mr. Bress, don’t you already have an automatic workflow in your Itzehoe plant? DB: Back in 1989, we started development of the fully automatic workflow we use today, and we’re very satisfied with it. Using several programs, we automatically direct the production data through to our Digital Cromalin proofers, our Canon laser printers and our new gravure engraving machines. The same workflow system is used in our Dresden printing and publishing operation.

KW: What features impressed you the most? DB: As magazine and commercial printers, we were impressed with Ficelle, which creates more transparency between the publishing house and the printing operation. We can take advantage of the opportunity to automatically monitor the production process for magazines and make status information available to everyone.

A

KW: Then why did you want a new system? DB: The development of our system required enormous investments through the years. We could justify it because we could find no other workflow solution for our production process and for our volume of work. It simply did not exist at the time. Today, we can buy such a system and support it at minimal expense.

Jahr gravure plant in Itzehoe worked with Dalim Software on the development of Twist and eventually replaced its previous proprietary workflow with a Twist configuration. Dalim Swing. Swing is a slimmed-down, pre-configured spinoff of Twist for smaller users. For just 5,000 euros, you get all the features mentioned above, though only in a predefined workflow. You can edit the workflow, import and work on all the formats mentioned above, apply trapping automatically or manually, and use the 16

KW: When will the first system be installed? DB: We expect to have a basic system in beta testing in Itzehoe and in Dresden by the end of 2003. A year after that, we should be in production with the new system and should have the interface worked out with our commercial production datacollection systems. By the end of 2005, all our production should be running on the new system. After that, we plan to install the software in the Gruner + Jahr printing plants in the U.S. TSR

normalizer function to output robust PDF for digital proofers, platesetters, gravure engravers or DI presses. Large printers who use Twist, the usergroup attendees learned, often give their important data suppliers copies of Swing. That way, they receive only files that are already checked and ready to print. Twist Weblink. The Twist Weblink module gives outside users (provided they have permission) the ability to see the status of jobs in a Twist or Swing workflow from a standard Web browser. They can also send

new jobs to the server and make changes to the workflow. Twist Dialogue. The Twist Dialogue module permits viewing, commenting on and approving jobs via a standard Web browser, without the need for a program-specific plug-in. In conference mode, two or more users can view a job simultaneously. Soft proofs and comments are displayed to all participants simultaneously, in real time. Dalim Ficelle. With Ficelle, Dalim has created a program for reporting on, monitoring and controlling publications via the Internet. Publishing houses, editorial teams and prepress companies or departments can log onto the production system of a printing house and, in accordance with their permissions, keep track of the production process. The publisher can see what files have been delivered, editors can see which editorial pages are already at the printer, the advertising department can see which ads have been placed and the prepress department can see which scans have been done for an edition and which pages have been proofed. Ficelle lets all the decision-makers get at the production data that is relevant for them, in real time and via any Web browser, regardless of what kind of computer they have or where they are located. Ficelle can communicate with existing production databases and can import data concerning upcoming jobs. Through its support of the JDBC standard, it can import data from almost any estimating or MIS system, and it can return data about production duration for billing or analysis purposes. No wonder there was particularly great interest in Ficelle among the usergroup attendees.

Outlook for 2003 Various Dalim employees went into detail about the individual products—more detail than can be fully reproduced here. The most important new functions in Litho version 4.5 are conversion of bitmaps into vectors, as well as opening and editing native PostScript and PDF files. Though additional functions are still being developed for version 4.5, Dalim Software provided participants with a first taste of Twist version 5 (already in development). Kurt K. Wolf

February 28, 2003 • The Seybold Report • Analyzing Publishing Technologies

The Latest Word

Powis Parker adds hardcover binding Fastback owners can now produce hardbacks as well as paperback books. Owners of the Fastback perfect-binding system from Powis Parker (www.powis.com) will soon be able to produce case-bound (hardback) books with their machines. The extra elements required are an alignment jig and specially made covers with pressure-sensitive adhesive on the inside.

several sizes, colors, surface treatments (cloth or vinyl) and spine thicknesses. The cost of the covers will be $3–$5 each, depending on size and type, and the jig will cost $395 initially. (The company hopes to reduce the price once the volume of sales increases.) The jig and covers will be available sometime this spring.

The thickness of the book block is then measured with a gauge built into the jig, and the measurement is used to select a rigid cover with the right spine size. (Powis Parker provides covers How it works. The Fastback user first for a range of produces a coverless book block. This is spine thicknessalmost like making a paperback book— es up to 2 inchthe pages are bound together using one es.) The covers of the standard heat-activated adhesive come lined with strips that are used for making paperpressure-sensibacks in the Fastback. But instead of a tive adhesive, Powis Parker’s hardcover guide. This jig is used, in conjunction with the Powis cover, heavier sheets are bound to the covered by a Parker Fastback binding machine, to bind hardcover books. front and back of the book block. These protective sheet sheets will become the book’s endof release paper. At present, there is no way to image papers. Next, the cover is opened out flat on directly onto the covers, so the book would the jig and the book either be given a book jacket to identify it block is positioned or a printed sheet would be laminated on on top of it. The jig the front surface. In many cases, neither of helps ensure proper these methods would be completely satispositioning. A thin factory, so Powis Parker is developing a strip of the protecsystem for imprinting the covers on tive paper is demand with a digital foil-stamping unit. removed from the George Alexander adhesive, allowing the book block to be pressed into place, but also allowing repositioning if necessary. Once the positioning is correct, the remaining protective paper is removed and the entire book block is pressed into place. When the front endpaper has been attached, the process is repeated for the back endAttaching the end-paper to the cover. The operator is removing the release paper, completing paper that protects the pressure-sensitive adhesive inside the cover, which the binding process. is lying flat on the jig. With the release paper gone, the book block (standing on edge in the operator’s left hand) will be pressed down onto the adhesive, causing the end-paper to become attached to the cover. In the foreground, the thickness-measuring device (used to select the right cover size) can be seen.

Marketing. Powis Parker will offer premade covers in

Volume 2, Number 22 • The Seybold Report • Analyzing Publishing Technologies

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The Latest Word

EFI defeats Creo’s bid to buy Printcafe Complex financial maneuvers open the door after Creo thought it was nailed shut Over the past few weeks, Creo and Electronics For Imaging have waged a brief but intense war to purchase Printcafe. As this issue went to press, it appears that EFI has won, but a new outbreak of fighting cannot be ruled out. Backdrop. Creo has from the beginning been one of Printcafe’s major investors, along with Mellon Ventures, HarbourVest Partners and J&W Seligman. The general public also has a 35-percent stake; Printcafe’s IPO was floated in June 2002. At the end of 2002, there were roughly 10.6 million shares outstanding. In mid-January, Creo privately arranged to purchase substantial blocks of stock from HarbourVest and Seligman, which would increase its ownership from 30 percent to 55 percent. It also announced (see The Bulletin, Vol. 8, No. 17) an offer to purchase all remaining shares from the other investors at $1.30 per share. This was an 11-percent premium over the recent market price for Printcafe shares—a decent incentive to do a deal, but nothing to get excited about. The plot thickens. Little noticed at the time was the timing of these transactions. In particular, Creo’s deal with one investor, Seligman, was signed on January 21, but the stock transfer was not to take place until February 24. Within hours of Creo’s offer, EFI placed its own, competing offer before the Printcafe board. It, too, declared an intention to buy all outstanding shares, but it would offer $2.60 per share—twice as much money. As is typical, the offer comprised a combination of cash and EFI stock. The Printcafe board, obeying a legal requirement to get the best possible deal for its shareholders, immediately formed a special committee to review the offer and perhaps solicit additional offers. The committee comprised Printcafe CEO Marc Olin, Mellon director Charles Billerbeck and another Printcafe director, Victor Cohn. 18

The committee was in a peculiar position. As soon as Creo had a majority of shares in hand, the current board could expect to be replaced by Creo appointees, who would then vote to accept Creo’s buyout. That would scotch any EFI deal, which then was only a verbal offer. The committee had to do something fast. The poisoned cup. On February 13, Printcafe revealed its strategy. First, it adopted a shareholder-rights plan (or poison-pill plan, depending on who’s writing). Under the plan, whenever an “Acquiring Person” buys at least 15 percent of the outstanding shares, all the other shareholders immediately receive the right to buy additional shares at a predetermined price. The idea is to force the Acquiring Person to buy many more shares to obtain control. (This, we are told, is legal—at least, no American court has declared it illegal.) Creo presumably would become an Acquiring Person when it bought Seligman’s shares. Then, if all the other investors exercised their new rights, Creo would suddenly find that instead of being a 55-percent owner, it was only a 10-percent owner. Flank defenses. Second, Printcafe announced a three-part financial agreement with Electronics For Imaging. EFI received an option to buy 2.1 million shares of new Printcafe stock for $2.60 per share. If exercised, the effect of the option would be to dilute Creo’s stake from 55 percent down to 46 percent. (This would be entirely independent of any dilution from a poison pill.) What’s more, EFI could subsequently require Printcafe to buy the shares back at the same price, which it presumably would do if things don’t turn out in its favor. In return, EFI gave Printcafe a standby credit guarantee up to $14 million. This, we believe, was intended to neutralize the threat of a flank attack. Creo’s Iris Graphics subsidiary has lent about $11 million to Printcafe, and, without EFI’s credit line, Printcafe could instantly be bankrupted if Iris called in its loans.

Finally, Printcafe accepted “certain restrictions on Printcafe’s ability to take actions in order to facilitate a business combination with a party other than EFI.” Essentially, Printcafe promised that if it got a better offer, EFI would get a chance to reply with still more money. Creo sues. A few days after Printcafe disclosed the terms of the EFI deal, Creo filed suit in Delaware’s Chancery Court to halt the process. Creo alleged that Printcafe adopted the shareholder-rights plan without giving the ten-day notice that Nasdaq requires of its members, that the members of Printcafe’s special committee had conflicts of interest, and that the restrictions accompanying the credit agreement were contrary to shareholders’ interests because they precluded getting an even better offer than EFI’s. Creo’s suit also claimed that the shareholder-rights plan was not intended to protect existing owners from a hostile takeover, but rather to freeze Creo out of the bidding. It quoted a densely worded clause in the plan under which Creo’s purchase from Seligman would make Creo an Acquiring Person, but EFI’s purchase would not make EFI an Acquiring Person. The suit asked the Court for a preliminary injunction to prevent the poison pill from taking effect. But Delaware corporation law takes shareholder interests very seriously, and the Court has rarely acted to prevent a high bidder from winning a contest. Indeed, just one day after the suit was filed, the Court denied the injunction. Creo was thus forced to postpone its purchase of Seligman’s shares. Raise, then fold. Creo then attempted to beat EFI’s offer. It first approached the Printcafe board with an all-stock offer worth about $3 per share. The Printcafe board was not impressed; the EFI offer included some cash. Creo then proposed a $4 offer, but insisted on examining the same due-diligence documents that EFI had received. The contents of those documents hasn’t been disclosed. But on Monday, Feb. 24, Creo suddenly withdrew all offers, saying that “anticipated adverse financial impact of certain information” in the documents had caused it to rethink its desire to own Printcafe.

February 28, 2003 • The Seybold Report • Analyzing Publishing Technologies

The Latest Word Interestingly, EFI never responded to Creo’s new offers. As we went to press, EFI’s $2.60 offer was still in effect, though none of the shareholders had acted on it. Presumably, however, EFI has won the bidding war.

Macromedia continues MX push with FreeHand, DevNet

Uncertain peace. We can expect that the venture investors will sell quickly, as will most of the small holders, because $2.60 is well above last month’s market price for the stock. Creo, however, says that it hasn’t decided whether to sell or stay on as a minority owner. Creo also points out that, although the Delaware Court denied a preliminary injunction, it did not dismiss the suit, nor has Creo withdrawn it. If EFI decides not to play nice, Creo could return to the Court for another legal round.

Last month Macromedia completed the MX transition of its desktop product line by introducing FreeHand MX. It also introduced a new subscription service, DevNet, which will offer developers software and related resources through Macromedia’s Web site.

Why they fight. Last year, Printcafe’s Q4 sales were $11.3 million, about the same as Q4 in the previous year. Gross margins improved in 2002, and late in the year the company acquired PrintChannel. It is still losing money, but less than before: $678,000 (6 cents loss per share) last year versus $2.1 million (20 cents loss per share) the year before. The core of Printcafe’s business is the business software (billing, estimating, inventory, etc.) that it acquired by buying AHP, Hagan OA, Logic Associates, Programmed Solutions, etc. Although far from a monopoly, Printcafe has a huge share of this market. It now has about 4,000 customers to whom it sells various software licenses, maintenance contracts and services. For either EFI or Creo, Printcafe’s value lies in the opportunity to integrate its back-office products with existing workflow, production and proofing products. As both firms have discovered, getting the prepress technology to work isn’t enough. It is necessary to develop a soup-to-nuts package that is profitable for the printer and mindlessly simple for the customer. That means that estimating, order booking and billing have to be tightly integrated with file transfer, proofing and job delivery. EFI has long had the front end of the production process down pat; that’s what made Fiery so successful. Now it will be in an excellent position to add value on the back end. Peter Dyson

Courts Web developers with subscription plan

FreeHand MX. The latest version of FreeHand updates the user interface of the illustration program to align with other MX products and improves its integration with Flash and Fireworks. FreeHand MX supports ActionScript, the scripting language of Flash, and allows roundtrip editing of Flash (SWF) files. Macromedia has also improved the designer’s ability to experiment without compromising approved aspects of the illustration. With the “live effects” feature, for example, you can apply vector effects (such as bend, sketch and transform) and

raster effects (like bevel, drop shadow and gradient transparency) without altering the underlying object. Other new features include the ability to tie multiple attributes to a path, a new tool for adjusting gradients, a vector eraser and alignment tools, such as automatically snapping objects to points or other objects. Among our favorite innovations are its “live” primitives—vector shapes that FreeHand still treats as primitives, even after you’ve applied changes to part of the object, such as rounding off two corners of a rectangle (see illustration). Pricing for FreeHand is $399; upgrades from previous iterations of FreeHand cost $99–$199. Localized versions for European and Asian markets will be available at a later, unspecified date. FreeHand MX is part of a new Studio MX “Plus” package, which adds Contribute and a CD of extensions and

Creativity with control. With each release of FreeHand, Macromedia improves the control that designers and illustrators have to apply special effects to their drawings. Here, the “sketch” filter is being applied to the base car object, and its properties can be manipulated in the new object palette at right. Other effects are illustrated in the four images above, all done with effects layered on top of the base illustration. The overall user interface (menus, tool palettes, etc.) of FreeHand has been brought into alignment with the rest of the MX desktop applications.

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The Latest Word with advance access to developer kits issued on a quarterly basis. (If purchased separately, the four kits would cost $400.) The “Professional” service, priced at $1,499 the first year, provides single-user perpetual licenses to Macromedia Dreamweaver, Macromedia Contribute (Windows only), Macromedia Flash, Macromedia Fireworks, Macromedia FreeHand, “Live primitives.” In FreeHand MX, the “live primitives” feature lets and—the real bait—fully you can reshape portions of rectangles, ellipses and polygons withfunctional, developmentout losing the shape’s identity as a graphic primitive. The feature only licenses of all simplifies tasks such as rounding the corners of boxes. Macromedia server prodother goodies to the previously released ucts. The Professional service also Studio MX package. includes advance access to the developer kits. DevNet. Macromedia also introduced DevNet, an online subscription service tarOur take. DevNet, like the developer progeted at Web developers. DevNet subgrams run by companies such as scribers get access to developer versions of Microsoft, may be viewed as part of a MX server applications, as well as access trend among software companies to turn to code samples. their cyclical software business into one There are two flavors of DevNet. The that draws a more even and predictable “Essentials” service, priced at $299, comrevenue stream. In Macromedia’s case, plements the Studio MX software suite though, the program is especially impor-

People Stellent has named John Page vice president of North American consulting services. Page is responsible for all of Stellent’s consulting services in North America, including business development, client management and implementation oversight. Page has nearly 20 years of experience in the high technology industry. He gained expertise in enterprise systems consulting during his work in senior management positions at KPMG, IBM and Coopers & Lybrand. Before joining Stellent, Page was vice president of the high-tech and manufacturing practice for NerveWire, a privately held strategy and systems integration company. Prior to NerveWire, he was a senior vice president and member of the leadership team at Technology Solutions Co., a consulting and systems integration firm. TechBooks has named Ranjit Singh, former president and chief executive officer of 20

Reliacast, Inc., chief executive officer. Singh, who joined the company’s board of directors in May 2002, succeeds Thomas F. Cunningham, who served as TechBooks’ chief executive officer for the last three years. Singh has more than 20 years of experience as a senior executive and entrepreneur in technology services businesses, including tenures with Xerox and Citicorp. While at Xerox he launched a digital rights management company, ContentGuard. Documentum named Jeffrey Beir, the former CEO of eRoom, as executive vice president of its newly created Worldwide Products organization. Beir will be in charge of integrating operations for Documentum’s core products with those of recently acquired eRoom collaboration and TrueArc records-management products. Muller Martini has appointed J.C. Anson Manager of its Print Finishing Division. He replaces Felix Stirnimann, who returned to

Swap with precision. Macromedia has refined FreeHand’s search and replace facility to enable illustrators to change specific attributes that appear in specific types of objects.

tant, because right now Macromedia needs developers to evangelize the advantages of ColdFusion and the innovations of MX, especially Flash Remoting and Flash Communications Server. For that to happen, developers need inexpensive access to the server tools. While the cost of the Pro subscription isn’t as cheap as we’d like to see for individual developers, for agencies, studios and corporate Web/IT shops, it should be an attractive way to create working prototypes for clients without incurring upfront the full cost of the server licenses. Mark Walter

Switzerland for a position with Muller Martini’s marketing group. Anson has 21 years of experience in the graphic arts industry, with positions in sales, marketing and product management in the prepress, imaging and network-solutions fields, as well as handling strategic/national accounts in the print industry. Integrated Color Solutions, has appointed Dan Caldwell VP operations and Peyton Kay VP sales and marketing. Caldwell brings more than 20 years of experience in the prepress and graphics industry. He managed prepress production of Newsweek magazine at R.R. Donnelley. He also co-founded Color Solutions, Inc., and was instrumental in the startup, design and marketing of that company’s ColorBlind brand. Kay brings more than 16 years of experience in sales and marketing from companies including Joseph E. Seagrams & Sons and E.I. Du Pont de Nemours.

February 28, 2003 • The Seybold Report • Analyzing Publishing Technologies

The Latest Word

Streamlining color for Reader’s Digest A London repro house added color management to its asset management and workflow systems in order to land the Readers’ Digest contract. That, in turn, led to winning new customers. Effective implementation of digital technology is central to successful business development, especially in the printing and publishing business, but digital technology has had an especially cruel impact on the reprographics sector. However, it isn’t all doom and gloom, and many repro companies are reinventing their businesses to provide digital media services. One such company is Colour Systems, based in London. Colour Systems is using ICC color management as part of its media production services for Reader’s Digest, which has multiple production sites throughout Europe. Colour Systems manages all production, readying pages for final output. In Europe, there are now 20 editions of Reader’s Digest magazine. In April 2002, the Reader’s Digest Association (RDA) started working with Colour Systems to set up a single European production hub for all editions. Previously, the editions were produced at numerous sites. Image production was the responsibility of each production site, even though there were many images in common, so this involved a considerable amount of duplicated effort and cost. It also made image quality control across editions almost impossible. Color quality and rendering variations ranged from tonal inconsistencies to severe color shifts. Both the redundant-image and color-quality problems were addressed by Colour Systems. The company. Founded in 1987, Colour Systems was originally a prepress and repro house. But from the beginning, the firm understood that an effective media business depends on efficient digital production. Over the years, it has constantly reshaped its business to meet the printing and publishing industry’s changing expectations. Colour Systems today is a premedia and data-management company because, as joint managing director and founding partner David Brin explains, “We had to recognize what our clients’ needs were and come up with solutions.”

The company now employs 130 people to manage production for an international client base, including Emap, Ikea and Haymarket Publishing. Colour Systems’ primary business is magazine and book reproduction. Although ICC-based color management was initially implemented for the Reader’s Digest contract, it is now used throughout the company for all publication work. The project. Beginning in April of last year, Colour Systems developed a Centralised Management Workflow system for prepress. It was primarily designed to facilitate the production of Reader’s Digest by adding ICC-based color-management techniques to the company’s already tight process-management controls. The project met its objectives and also yielded additional benefits for the client. According to David Brin, the Centralised Management Workflow has “taken the worry from all these countries, and they know that each of the 150-page magazines are going to look the same and be of the same high quality.” RDA works with three European magazine printers: Donnelley, in Krakow, Poland, for the German, Russian and central-European languages; Maury, in Paris, France, for the French, English and western- and southern-European languages; and Zollekofar, in Switzerland, for everything else. Profiles have been made for the presses in Krakow and Paris, but the Swiss site has not yet been profiled. Editorial flow. Using the Centralised Management Workflow, Reader’s Digest production sites throughout Europe can send image and page files to the Colour Systems server in London for final production. The server, also known as the Systemassets.com Internet site, manages all RDA files that have to do with the publisher’s European editions. This includes library files, production files, graphics and master images.

Volume 2, Number 22 • The Seybold Report • Analyzing Publishing Technologies

Automatic file processing at a centralized production facility has produced substantial economies and process improvements for Reader’s Digest, and RDA has responded by using the system more. In order to meet RDA’s needs, Colour Systems is taking on more staff. Some of these people have come from Reader’s Digest production sites, bringing typographic and language skills that Colour Systems can use to improve throughput for the multiple languages Reader’s Digest supports. Advertising. The Systemassets.com site is used mostly for editorial production. Separately, Colour Systems is also handling advertising production for RDA using Colour Systems’ own PDF-based ad-delivery system. Colour Systems processes both international and local ads in each edition of Reader’s Digest. Incoming advertisements are checked for compliance to Reader’s Digest’s published specification and are processed accordingly. Colour Systems is working with the Periodical Publishers’ Association (PPA) to see if this technology could be used as a standard Web gateway for all magazine-ad delivery. Although ICC-based color-management techniques are not yet fully implemented in the Colour Systems gateway, they are expected to be incorporated in the future.

About Reader’s Digest eader’s Digest is the flagship title of the Reader’s Digest Association and the world’s largestselling magazine. Founded in 1922 and publicly traded since 1990, the Reader’s Digest Association is an international magazine publisher and direct-marketing company. Although it is based in the United States, the Association has served the European market since 1938. Reader’s Digest is published in 48 editions and 19 languages, and is available in more than 60 countries worldwide. Besides magazines, the Reader’s Digest Association publishes music, videos and specialinterest titles. The company is expanding its range of print-based products as well as its distribution and delivery methods to include electronic media as well as traditional print. TSR

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The Latest Word The workflow

and press halls can output content proofs if edition of the magazine, they are prepared The Colour Systems contribution to the they choose, but final dot proofs and onfor Maury’s press profile, while if the ediRDA’s workflow begins at www.systemaspress color accuracy are down to Colour tion is for a Russian, German or sets.com, a reprographics and quality-conSystems. The company has a range of Scandinavian language edition, the transtrol system that is the hub of Reader’s proofing engines including a Digital formation is to Donnelley’s Krakow stanDigest production. It facilitates shared proCromalin, several Irises and five new dard. The transformation is done either duction among Reader’s Digest sites and iProofs, with five more coming into the manually in Photoshop or automatically at allows Colour Systems to deliver presscompany shortly. All devices are profiled, the Systemassets server. Either way, the ready PDFs to the printing plants. and all of them can match output for each appropriate ICC Device Link profile Operators working on each edition access of Reader’s Digest’s profiled presses. For ensures accurate color-data transformathe site through a country-specific URL images with an unspecified output destinations. and user log-in. tion, Colour Systems uses the Digital Next steps The remote production sites can work Cromalin. Currently, ICC-based color management is with Systemassets.com in various ways. All proofers are calibrated and linapplied to images only, rather than to the They can download FPO images from the earized daily, with tolerances measured whole page file. Eventually, Colour Systemassets.com image library, as well as using a printed control strip and densitSystems wants to have an image, ink and upload high-resolution scans. ometer. If necessary, new profiles are print-control engine that can be used to Colour Systems is working on a written. Colour Systems’ Quickerproof, manage color at the point of final pagemethod of profiling scans that come in based on RealTime Image’s Renderview processing. This would allow color manfrom unknown sources. RGB scans can be technology, provides a soft-proofing agement to be applied to assessed for color prior to whole pages, including all profiling, and CMYK files the images, text and graphic can be profiled for density. he complexity of Reader’s Digest production elements on the page. Most pictures, though, are The company is also scanned by Colour Systems requires substantial complex color processing. looking at ways of extending or come to the hub from a its services for other Reader’s known color space (i.e., with Digest Association operaa profile supplied). Uploaded tions, particularly book production. Press images are automatically profiled for final facility for clients. It can ensure that all profiling is now under way in Barcelona, output, and a low-resolution FPO is creatproofing is reasonably compatible across where RDA prints its books. Colour ed for placement on the page. Uploaded sites. The combination of ICC-based Systems is also looking at asset managepages are also preflighted using Dalim’s color management and the RTI softment for its clients. Currently, the database Twist technology. proofing utility means that everyone in and the production workflow are CMYKColour Systems handles all high-resothe production chain can use a common oriented, but Colour Systems is considerlution image retouching at its London proof and output to the same press proing moving to an RGB workflow. offices, uploading completed pages to the file. Implementing a color-managed workSystemassets site, from which they can be flow has made a huge difference for downloaded either for proofing or for outDevice-link profiling. Device profiling has Colour Systems. As David Brin sees it, put. Colour Systems relies on Dalim’s long been a habit at Colour Systems; “Without color management, we wouldn’t Ficelle technology to manage the worknow the company is taking this further have won the contract for the Reader’s flow for production tasks. and working with transfer profiles or Digest editions, without which we woulddevice-link profiles. The idea is to incorn’t have got the Ikea magazine contract. It Input. Colour Systems handles most porate into the final color-conversion has allowed us to serve cross-border pubReader’s Digest input scans in London algorithms the profile data for each lishers.” For this repro company at least, with two Crosfield Celsis drum scanners device in a production workflow. This the future looks bright indeed. that have been upgraded to output RGB technology can therefore enhance color Laurel Brunner directly. Along with all monitors and management as color data moves proofers in the Colour Systems workflow, through increasingly complex producthese devices are regularly calibrated (and tion workflows. reprofiled when required) to ensure accuThe complexity of Reader’s Digest racy. Scanners are calibrated monthly; production requires substantial complex proofing engines are calibrated and lincolor processing. International editions are earized daily. produced using the standard Reader’s Digest USA press profile, and images delivProofing. Responsibility for final color lies ered digitally to Colour Systems via with Colour Systems, so all of the compaSystemassets.com are automatically transny’s proofers must be able to match specifformed from this standard profile. That is, ic press outputs. Remote production sites if the images are for an English or French

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February 28, 2003 • The Seybold Report • Analyzing Publishing Technologies

By the Numbers

Fade to Black; Film Use Continues Its Slow Decline It’s the counterpart of the success of digital cameras and the still-continuing trend toward higher pixel counts. PMA documents show substantial slippage last year.

BY PETER DYSON Last year, consumer film-processing volWhere we buy. Two other trends may The bright spot. If you want upward ume in the U.S. fell 13 percent. Some of round out this picture. First, consumers trends, you have to look at digital camthis decline can be blamed on the economy tend not to take their rolls to a camera eras. Although 2002 saw declines in the in general, and some of it is because people store; last year only 3.1 percent of jobs sales of low-resolution models, there were took fewer vacation trips last year. But a went there. Even less do they go to specialimpressive gains above the 2-megapixel big reason is that consumers are mark. adopting digital cameras in droves; The jump in the over-4 segment DIGITAL CAMERA SALES IN 2002 one household in five now owns a is impressive until you realize that 4Megapixels Unit share Change from last year digital camera. megapixel cameras did not arrive in 4 15 % +835 % were priced about where 2-meg but most of it is restricted to memcameras had been two years earlier: Total 100 % +36 % bers. The surveys do not cover pro$400–$500. fessional or industrial photography. ist one-hour outlets; only 1.5 percent went So although 4-megapixel cameras there. Instead, people take their rolls to accounted for only 15 percent of unit sales, Leading indicator. PMA’s surveys suggest warehouse clubs (10.9 percent), supermarthey brought in 35 percent of the revenue. that even when the economy rebounds, kets (11.3 percent), drugstores (25.8 perLikewise, although the under-1 segment film usage will not. Sales of analog camcent) and discount stores (37.7 percent). In was 15 percent of sales, it brought in only eras (excluding the single-use “cardboard part, these outlets are cheaper, says PMA. 3 percent of the revenues because these cameras”) fell 25 percent last year, while We suspect, though, that a bigger reason is cameras typically cost $50–$75. sales of digital cameras were up 36 persimple convenience; going to a specialist or cent, despite the bad economy. Because a camera store is a separate trip. Connections. It’s partly true that all this camera purchases are a leading indicator But PMA did not draw the obvious growth has happened because digital camfor film use, this suggests that in coming corollary. The merchandise on display at a eras are finally good enough and cheap years, film will continue to decline. enough to displace film. But there’s Cardboard-camera sales, which in one other factor: They have recently previous years have shown handsome become well supported by home comgrowth, continued to rise last year, but puters, printers and utility software. only by 4 percent. Correspondingly, Even as late as 2000, integrating the one-time-use film rolls claimed a larger camera’s device driver with a fraction of the overall processing busiWindows PC was a painful and risky ness. Rolls from APS cameras held a experience, while printing your digital steady percentage of the business, while snapshots was both costly and likely standard 35mm rolls (although still the to be dissatisfying. Now it’s pretty biggest fraction of the total) lost ground. easy. There are a couple of possible reaCameras were always the smallest sons for this. Many shutterbugs have sevwarehouse club or supermarket is rather part of a photographic food chain that eral cameras, but their APS cameras are different from the semi-pro cameras found began with the film manufacturers and probably newer than their 35mm cameras; in a camera store. Semi-pro gear is quite ended with photofinishers. Another part of APS was introduced to the market right at likely to use silver-halide film, while the the chain was the camera store, where you the start of the digital wave, in part as a upscale gadgets at Costco are almost could get expert advice, ancillary equippreemptive response to it. Also, APS camalways based on silicon. Thus, although ment, supplies and repairs. Today, the eras are smart devices that prevent many consumers may be switching their preferchain includes silicon foundries and softcommon errors. Thus casual photograences away from film, they are also being ware sweatshops, and expert advice comes phers are likely to use them as the primary pushed away by market forces that have from Internet news groups and (perhaps) a TSR or general-purpose camera. little to do with the film itself. nearby Circuit City. Volume 2, Number 22 • The Seybold Report • Analyzing Publishing Technologies

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In The Bulletin

Volume 8, Number 19 February 12, 2003 Xerox debuts 3535. Beefing up its offerings in the 20–40-ppm market, Xerox has introduced a multi-function (that is, printing/scanning/copying) device called the DocuColor 3535. As the name suggests, the rated speed is 35 letter-size images per minute in either black-and-white or color. It will handle paper sizes up to 12×9 inches, allowing the printing of 11×17 layouts with bleed. It uses an EFI controller. Resolution is 600 dpi with 8 bits/pixel of color information. It uses Xerox’s chemically grown EA toner, and in its basic configuration, the 3535 costs $29,995. Interwoven renews push into collaborative document software. Striving to achieve parity with rivals such as Documentum and Stellent, Interwoven has partnered with iManage to provide document-centric collaboration facilities that complement the content-management and Web publishing tools of Interwoven TeamSite. Under the agreement, Interwoven will resell iManage WorkSite MP and the two companies will work to integrate their respective products. Macromedia continues MX push with Freehand, DevNet. Macromedia has completed the MX transition of its desktop product line by introducing FreeHand MX. It also introduced a new subscription service, called DevNet. See page 19. Quark, Modulo: Who can sell QPS? Quark and Modulo clarify who can sell QPS. Newsstand. Artesia integrates TEAMS with storage system; Corel releases XMetaL 4; Topologi updates XML-aware

editor; Lightning Source, Palm Digital intro e-book Classic Collection for schools; Equilibrium releases MediaRich Server 3.0; NewsEditPro IQue now available for Windows 2000 and XP; Creo posts improved quarter; WayTech technology adopted by VESA; PDFEnhancer gets free update; LineType debuts Acrobat plug-in called LineScale; Creo updates workflow programs; EHelp releases RoboPDF. Insider Perspective: The German PC Levy and the Economics of DRM, by Bill Rosenblatt.

Volume 8, Number 20 February 19, 2003 EFI bids for Printcafe. Printcafe has announced a three-part financial agreement with EFI. The nub of the deal is that EFI has offered to buy all outstanding Printcafe shares at $2.60 per share. However, earlier Creo had offered $1.30 per Printcafe share. It also privately bought 2.6 million shares, thus increasing its stake from nearly 30 percent to roughly 55 percent. At that time, Creo indicated it was willing to buy all the remaining shares, essentially turning Printcafe into a wholly owned subsidiary. See page 18 for details. OS X and PDF: have it your way. Apple has released the 10.2.4 update to its operating system. Among a long list of fixes and updates was an interesting new feature that seems to be directed toward the publishing sector. PDF Workflow is an Apple Scriptable service that has been added (albeit hidden by default) to the OS X Print Menu.

Subscribe now to the publishing industry’s leading publication The Seybold Report: Analyzing Publishing Technologies (one-year subscription) U.S./Canada $595 International $640 Seybold Publications, PO Box 976, Media, PA 19063, U.S.A. Phone (800) 325-3830 or (610) 565–6864 • Fax (610) 565-1858 www.seyboldreports.com

Newsstand. Pageflex announces .EDIT 2.0, Divine nearing bankruptcy?; Agfa’s GLV technology standard on Xcalibur VLF; Lucid Dream introduces remote conferencing; Altova makes Authentic 5 free; Presstek, Tech Services in distributor deal; Adobe takes stake in Engage; Dynagram releases IN; DMCA gets second test; IDEAlliance to study print market. Insider Perspective: OpenType: Seven Years Later, Still the Font Format of the Future, by James Felici.

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In The Bulletin Since Last Issue

BBC brings broadcast systems to North America. BBC Technology, the technology company established two years ago by the venture arm of the British Broadcasting Corporation, plans to enter the American market with three professional broadcasting systems aimed at the media market. Most interesting is the fact that the design of BBC Technology’s systems addresses many of the requirements that media companies have in common. It is built in a modular fashion, with media- and business-specific tools wrapped around an Oracle database. It uses digital technologies to enable media sharing and editorial collaboration, yet makes use of desktop authoring tools. Perhaps most important, it supports both traditional and Internet distribution channels