24. ICANON Associates Inc. (above): Hawker provides Palm hand-held computer access to an assortment of single-copy distribution information, including master trucks and draws. 39. PROTEC S.A. (left): The Ciclon module features space management and, in conjunction with AdLine, advertising order entry.

17. Devlin Electronics Ltd.: In an era of not being particularly concerned with keyboard efficiency (something the industry obsessed about in the 1970s and '80s), it probably is antediluvian to suggest that perhaps some of our users might be more productive if they weren't hunting all over the screen for the "jump" function. Toward this end, Devlin provides keyboards customized for Unisys Hermes and CCI Europe NewsDesk systems, as well as its latest offering, a keyboard designed for rack-mounted Sun servers, with a three-button trackball. (011) {44} 01256-467367, e-mail: rsucher@netcomuk.co.uk.

18. Digital Technology International: If I had time to visit only one booth at NEXPO 2002, this is the one I'd hit. Top-flight editorial and advertising products, top-flight people (except for that David Oldham kid). (801) 853-5000, e-mail: dtinfo@dtint.com.

19. Esko-Graphics: Last year's merger of Purup Eskofot and Barco Graphics has produced a company that covers scanning, pre-press workflow and platemaking. The Belgian-Danish company, which has U.S. offices in Ohio and Georgia, will be introducing an updated version of its PERfection Publisher, a scanning application designed to work with the EskoScan CopyDot scanner which can separate images from editable text, giving publishers the ability to make last-minute corrections. (770) 427-5700, e-mail: info.usa2@esko-graphics.com.

20. Gannett Media Technologies International: Linux anyone? The open-source operating system is gaining traction throughout the technology business, and newspapers are no different. Witness Cincinnati-based Gmti, which has sold and installed 19 Linux-based digital asset management (DAM) systems in the last 18 months. New for NEXPO 2002 will be an offering of the company's Digital Collections DAM system that includes RedHatDB as an alternative to the Oracle database. RedHatDB is a commercial version of the open-source PostgreSQL. (513) 665-3777, e-mail: mtucker@gmti.gannett.com.

21. GDT-Nova: The California company will be showing the new EZAgent, an on-line application that allows high-volume advertisers to create ads off-line, connecting back for batch processing. It features a merge application that brings in previously created ads, formats them automatically and presents pricing and preview information interactively. (916) 434-5044, e-mail: jan@novapub.com.

22. Harland Simon: Though primarily a press controls company, the United Kingdom-based Harland Simon is moving into the production automation space. Its ColorWare page planning tool brings it right into the advertising department. ColorWare, which was recently sold to the New York Post and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, continually advises where color pages can be placed as the newspaper layout develops. The company, which has North American offices in Chicago, will also show its Esprit automatic imposition generator for the best press layout configurations. (630) 572-7650, e-mail: rob.watson@harlandsimon.com.

23. Hummingbird Ltd.: New to NEXPO, the Toronto-based Hummingbird makes SearchServer, a text retrieval system that is available for both end users and as a component for suppliers which runs under Microsoft Windows or UNIX. Features of SearchServer include the ability to summarize and capsulize the found document, support for XML document search, natural language processing (no need for constructing Boolean searches) and dynamic clustering of results. (416) 496-2200, e-mail: getinfo@hummingbird.com.

24. ICANON Associates Inc.: Frequently overlooked in the newspaper business software game, Icanon's Newzware product line hits all the high points: carrier delivery, single copy sales, Total Market Coverage, mail subscriptions, display advertising accounts receivable, general accounts receivable, payroll and general ledger. The Blue Bell, Pa.-based company's Hawker Single Copy Distribution system leverages the ubiquitous Palm hand-held computer's technology, providing remote account management, tying into the central database (Dow Jones & Co. recently signed to use Hawker in its Houston operation). (610) 313-1850, e-mail: sales@icanon.com.

25. iPIX: This Oak Ridge, Tenn.-based provider of Internet picture technology will announce ipix Ads, a proprietary product allowing newspapers to integrate a simple-to-use system into their on-line classifieds which allows placement of photos with the ads. Some images on eBay are displayed using iPIX; a custom system was developed for the Los Angeles Times' Recycler.com. (925) 277-9499, e-mail: info@ipix.com.

26. Mactive Inc.: An e-mail arrived recently, on top of a quoted new-system-sale press release from this Melbourne, Fla.-based company, asking, "Is it my imagination, or is this the only company that consistently seems to be selling to newspapers?" According to Mactive, it had installed 30 advertising order entry systems -- representing 1582 seats -- by the end of 2001. Since NEXPO 2001, Mactive has signed contracts to install 37 new sites. In January 1997 the company had three employees; today it has more than 100. If you're in the market for an advertising system, you must visit Mactive. (407) 435-0215, e-mail: info@mactive.com.

27. Managing Editor Inc.: From its humble beginnings providing its Advertising Layout Software (ALS) and Classified Layout Software (CLS) -- areas where it is still an industry leader -- Jenkintown, Pa.-based MEI continues to innovate and expand its product line. New for NEXPO 2002 will be database technology code-named Quicksilver, which communicates with MEI's AdsUP and AdWorks ad booking systems, plus the company's Roundhouse ad production database, plus the color positioning and press configuration from MEI's Page Director Color Planning System, plus run-of-press (ROP) and classified layouts from ALS and CLS -- all headed for editorial pagination from either Quark XPress or Adobe InDesign. The result is a system that monitors the entire pre-publication enterprise. (215) 886-5662, e-mail: info@maned.com.

28. Media Command Inc.: The former Geac Publishing Systems, providing a full spectrum of publishing software from editorial to advertising to circulation and business, continues to do well outside the United States. It recently reported a big circulation system sale to Southam Newspapers in Canada, a big business software sale in Mexico, and continuing good pre-press sales in Australia, but it can't seem to catch a break here, despite the fact that it's based in Tampa, Fla. (813) 739-1700, e-mail: sales-us@media-command.com.

29. MerlinOne Inc.: Conflict-of-interest alert: The chief operating officer of MerlinOne used to be a writer for The Cole Papers (how the mighty have fallen). Bias regardless, Quincy, Mass.-based MerlinOne's digital asset management systems are high-quality. Like those transformer toys, Merlin 4.1 can be a full DAM, a picture desk, a PDF page archive, an advertising art management system or a traditional text and/or photo archive. MerlinOne's foray into the wide, wonderful world of electronic tearsheets bagged it the Boston Globe as a first customer. (617) 328-6645, e-mail: info@merlinone.com.

30. Mindset Software Inc.: Another band of System Integrators' refugees, Mindset has an interesting portfolio of publishing and Internet products (the company also does contract programming). At NEXPO, Sacramento's Mindset will feature Scpii, a second iteration of the SII-inspired classified pagination application. With an exclusive distribution agreement from Net-Linx Publishing Solutions (which bought SII in 2000), Mindset recently sold Scpii to New York's Buffalo News and the Daily Breeze of Torrance, Calif. (916) 446-8000, e-mail: info@mindsetsoft.com.

31. AlfaQuest Technologies: Alfa-what? Relax, this is the company formerly known as Monotype Publishing Systems of Rolling Meadows, Ill. In a long and boring story involving lawyers, the business had to give up the Monotype name. But the company continues to provide the same high-quality imaging and output systems, including a new offering -- the PrintExpress line of production management systems (raster image processors -- RIPs -- and production workflow) that now runs under the Microsoft Windows NT operating system on Intel hardware. This is in addition to the company's long-standing commitment to Sun hardware and software, although the company does point out that at the Dallas Morning News, AlfaQuest replaced 29 NT servers with two Sun Enterprise 420 servers. (847) 427-8800, e-mail: kroeske@monoexpress.com.

32. MultiAd Services Inc.: If you make up ads -- and who doesn't? -- you need to stop by to see the latest features in MultiAd Creator, the longtime ad makeup application, which includes text-on-a-path, a magic wand tool (no more going back to Photoshop for masking) and Mac OS X compatibility. Also on tap will be Creator Server, an application development tool which powers Peoria, Ill.-based MultiAd's own Creator Ad-Master, an on-line, template-driven ad building system. (309) 690-5393, e-mail: gpotts@multiad.com.

33. Net-Linx Publishing Solutions: Remember "NonStop?" If you were buying a publishing system in the 1980s, it was one of the most repeated phrases you heard during the sales process. The old System Integrators sold editorial and advertising systems based on technology from the late Tandem Computers that were, as the trademark implied, nonstop (fault tolerant, or "highly available"). But SII was bought by Germans who brought in a management team who couldn't be bothered by the trivialities of a computer system that guaranteed 99.9999 percent up-time. Those guys went away last year. The new guys listened to all the old SII customers who said, "You know, that Tandem stuff was pretty nifty." Hence, Net-Linx -- which maintains offices in Ann Arbor, Mich., and Sacramento -- will announce at NEXPO a "memorandum of understanding" with Hewlett-Packard (which merged with Compaq, which merged with Digital Equipment Corp., which merged with Tandem) that HP's NonStop Enterprise Division will assist Net-Linx in making nxAdvertising and the editorial product Insiight available on NonStop platforms. HP executives will be in the Net-Linx booth to discuss their prospective alliance -- without stopping, one might imagine. (916) 830-2400, e-mail: albert.debruijn@net-linx.com.

34. NewsEngin Inc.: Growing its business the old-fashioned way -- slowly, only doing what it does best -- suburban Philadelphia NewsEngin actually sprouts out into its own booth this year, maybe attracting a little more foot traffic than it has received in the kiosks of the past. The company will be showing its product line of thin-client productivity tools and its editorial suite. In a dramatic departure, NewsEngin is going to show a new version of its asset tracking family that is based on something besides Lotus Domino (think IBM's DB2, Microsoft SQL Server or Oracle). Also new will be a browser-based version of the SourceTracker application that keeps track of a journalist's contacts, notes, stories, documents and Internet resources. There's other stuff that will please both journalists and geeks. Get thee to NewsEngin. (636) 537-8548, e-mail: jim@newsengin.com.

From THE COLE PAPERS, June 2002
Copyright © 2002, All Rights Reserved.