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Triple-I/Monotype merger offThe October death of Peter Purdy, industry pioneer and chairman of International Publishing Associates Holding Ltd., apparently also brought the death of plans to merge two of IPA's divisions -- Monotype and Berthold -- with Information International Inc. On Nov. 1, Triple-I of Los Angeles announced that the proposed acquisition of Monotype Systems and H. Berthold had "been terminated and all negotiations have ceased." In August, the industry warmly greeted the announcement that Triple-I -- a publicly held company that in recent years has purchased Camex, Diadem, DigiFlex and Xitron -- would buy Monotype and Berthold and merge them into its operations. It seemed a good match: Triple-I traditionally has had a weak presence in Europe and the Pacific Rim; Monotype has always loomed large in those markets. IPA -- a holding company that in addition to Monotype and Berthold owns Freedom System Integrators of Wichita, Kan., QED Technology Ltd. of Cheltenham, England, and GB Techniques of Prestwick, Scotland -- was created by Purdy, longtime industry executive Charles Crocker and Italian investor Tullio Ponzi in 1992 and '93. Crocker left the business in 1993. Charles Ying, the president and chief executive of Triple-I, responded to inquiries about the canceled merger on the Internet in a message posted Nov. 10. "Without [Purdy's] drive and determination to make the merger happen," wrote Ying, "the deal soon deteriorated to a point where it became obvious that it wasn't going to happen." As another industry executive put it, "When Purdy was gone, the architect of the deal was gone." The deal apparently would have called for Triple-I to turn over stock to IPA. Purdy was to have had a seat on the Triple-I board of directors. Triple-I and Monotype had anticipated the completed merger by combining their U.S. sales forces in September. By mid-November, the sales forces had returned to their respective corners. In addition, Triple-I announced mid-month that its previous manufacturing and marketing agreement with ECRM of Tewksbury, Mass., for the 3850 imagesetter had been terminated and that Triple-I would set up a new manufacturing facility and again begin building the product. It was unclear at press time whether Triple-I would continue its 3850 marketing agreements with all the companies that are now selling the product. -- dmc Du Pont shuts down WhirlwindThe gale forces of marketing probably are responsible for knocking the wind out of Whirlwind, the editorial and classified front-end system whose lineage stretched back to Composition Systems Inc., Hastech and Camex. Du Pont Newspaper Systems of Nashua, N.H., maker of the beleaguered product, was scheduled to be shut down Nov. 30 when, in mid-month, it became apparent that no one would be buying the development and marketing rights to Whirlwind. Although Du Pont had "letters of intent" to purchase Whirlwind, said Cathleen Branciaroli, public relations manager for Du Pont's Printing and Publishing division, the company "couldn't come to closure" with any of the prospective buyers. Following initial layoffs in August, she said, "fewer than 30 people" were to be let go. The other product line being sold out of Nashua, the ImagiTex monochrome scanner business, was purchased in August by Sixty Eight Thousand Inc. of Santa Clara, Calif. Now going by the name Arrisystems, the company hired longtime industry executive Gary Moore (formerly of Information International Inc. and Scitex) to run ImagiTex, which will remain in Nashua. It was an open industry secret that the company most interested in Whirlwind was System Integrators Inc. of Sacramento. But a deal was not to be. "We differed considerably on where they think the technology is and where we think the technology is," said William Aaronson, the president and chief executive of SII. Aaronson said he personally visited a number of installed Whirlwind sites and came away with the feeling there would be considerable work to get the systems to the point they would be fully functional. "I'm surprised at [Du Pont's] conviction" regarding the status of the product, Aaronson said. The first customer for the product that became Whirlwind was the Houston Chronicle, which signed a contract in February 1988 with Camex -- which was purchased by Du Pont a short time later -- for a new editorial and classified front-end system that was to be based on Sun workstations and UNIX (see The Cole Papers, February 1993). "We are continuing on," said Jack Stanley, the Chronicle's vice president of operations. Houston's all-day paper is currently producing two-thirds of its pages on Whirlwind, including features and business, according to Systems Editor Paul SoRelle. Stanley said that "not much" had happened with the system between the late June announcement that Whirlwind was for sale, and mid-October. "In the last month," he said in November, "we've had more things fixed than we had in the last four months." Stanley said his paper would take over finishing the product. "It's nothing a little Brasso and a little elbow grease can't fix," he said. Other Whirlwind customers include Krause Publications of Iola, Wis., Il Secolo Xix of Genoa, Italy, Otago Daily Times of Dunedin, New Zealand, and the Chronicle of Higher Education in Washington. It appears that Du Pont is negotiating with each customer to relieve itself of any Whirlwind obligations; thus, customers we contacted were unwilling to discuss the situation. Apparently, though, customers will get a full set of source code. Some former Du Pont programmers are discussing whether to start a small support firm for these few Whirlwind sites. Stanley, for one, still believes in Whirlwind's concept of using industrial-strength products such as Sun workstations and the multitasking UNIX operating system for publishing. "I'm quite encouraged, and I still believe in the vision," he said. "Frankly, I like a machine that can walk and chew gum at the same time." -- dmc SII gets new board -- and out of Chapter 11After 444 days of reorganizing under Chapter 11, System Integrators Inc. of Sacramento, Calif., emerged from bankruptcy with a new board of directors. The new directors -- and a new business plan -- went into effect Oct. 31, despite the fact that a Delaware judge had approved the reorganization in mid-September and all parties to the reorganization had said it would take effect within "10 to 30 days." Sources in the company said implementation of the reorganization plan was delayed because of "tax considerations," but couldn't say whether those considerations were to benefit SII or the group of banks and venture capitalists who now own more than 80 percent of the company. The bank group -- which includes the Bank of America, Chase Manhattan, Credit Agricole and Cerberus Partners -- and SII's managers have picked three outside directors to serve along with William Aaronson, SII's president and chief executive:
A fifth director will be elected by the first four at a board meeting this month. "These are individuals of vision and experience in the high-tech industry," said Aaronson. "I have every confidence that their guidance will prove extremely beneficial to SII as it continues to develop new products and applications for our newspaper customers." -- dmc Seybold newsletters, trade shows soldAs part of the sale and breakup of the Ziff Communications empire, the leading commercial trade shows for the publishing industry and their related newsletters have been sold to a Japanese software publisher. Ziff Davis Conference and Exposition Co. of Foster City, Calif. -- formed a year ago with the merger of the Seybold organization and the Interop conferences, and referred to as ZD Expos -- will be acquired around the first of the year by Softbank Corp. of Tokyo for $202 million. Indications are that the new owners will change the name to Softbank Exposition and Conference Co. The company will continue to be run by its management team, lead by William Lohse, a longtime Ziff executive. Ziff, a family-owned business that publishes computer magazines such as PC Magazine, PC Week, Macuser and Macweek, announced in June that the grandsons of the company's founder no longer wished to be in the publishing business and that the company was being put up for sale. Though initially planning to sell the company as an single unit, the family's investment banking firm, Lazard Freres, recommended breaking it up into four components to realize more value. In addition to ZD Expos, the components include:
ZD Expos was created with Ziff's 1990 purchase of the Seybold organization, which included Seybold's three newsletters -- Seybold Report on Publishing Systems, Seybold Report on Desktop Publishing and Digital Media -- as well as the annual Seybold trade shows in Boston, San Francisco and Paris; the Digital Media trade show in Los Angeles, and the consulting organizations in the United States and Europe. Last year that group was merged with Ziff's Interop trade show to create ZD Expos. Softbank is the leading supplier of off-the-shelf software in Japan and also publishes magazines (including some titles licensed from Ziff). A publicly held company, it was started by Masayoshi Son, who still owns a large portion of the business and is president and chief executive. -- dmc Bit bucket ...Reston rumbles: Changes at the Newspaper Association of America include Leonard Forman's leave-taking from the job of chief operating officer. Forman will become the chief executive of an interactive shopping service that is a joint venture between Long Island's Newsday and Nynex, the regional phone company. Forman, who had been with the Newspaper Advertising Bureau of New York when it was merged into NAA two years ago, had always said he wanted to return to the Big Apple. ... New vice president of circulation marketing is Leon Levitt, who had been the director of circulation and readership since 1992; previously, he had been with New York Times Regional papers. ... And new exhibit sales manager for NEXPO is Dawn Rhine, who will handle not only the Big Show, but also all the other technical symposia; Rhine had been with the American Nurses Association. ... New media bits: At the Tribune Co., Eugene Quinn has been named general manager of Tribune Interactive Network Services; previously he had been general manager of Chicago Online and Destination Florida. ... At Landmark Communications of Norfolk, Va., Allison Askew-Hahn has been named general manager of the Virginian-Pilot and Ledger-Star Electronic Information Services; previously she had been on-line advertising manager for Landmark Information Services. ... At Newhouse Newspapers, Jim Willse has been named editor of The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J.; previously he had been director of new media for the group (and before that, editor and publisher of the New York Daily News). ... At Central Newspapers, Myrta Pulliam has been named director of electronic news and information for Indianapolis Newspapers (the Star and the News); previously she had been assistant managing editor for news at the Star. ... Society pages: New officers of the Society of Newspaper Design include Deborah Withey, president (formerly design director at the Detroit Free Press, Withey was named corporate design consultant for Knight-Ridder Newspapers in October); Jim Jennings, first vice president (he's group managing editor for Thomson Regional Newspapers in London); Neal Pattison, second vice president (he's managing editor of the Albuquerque [N.M.] Tribune); Lynn Staley, treasurer (she's the deputy managing editor for graphics at the Boston Globe), and Ed Kohorst, secretary (he's the design editor of the Dallas Morning News). ... Vendor vibrations: At Atex Publishing Systems Corp. of Bedford, Mass., Rod Fenwick has been named veep of desktop products; previously he had been veep of marketing. ... To fill that gap, Allen Miller has been named director of marketing for Atex Americas; he'd been manager of business development for integration services. ... Also as part of these changes, Barry Truitt has been named veep of corporate accounts, Atex Americas; he'd been veep of North American sales (which means that the eastern and western sales managers, and the sales director for Latin America -- Steve Dienna, Jerry Riley and Otto Lanz, respectively -- now all report directly to Ian Anderson, COO of Atex Americas). ... We've probably left something out of this reorg, but suffice it to say, if you're anyone at Atex you either report to Anderson or Chief Executive Danny Chapchal. ... At Harris Publishing Systems Corp. of Melbourne, Fla., James Fuller has been named customer support site manager; he'd been the systems manager at The Enterprise in Brockton, Mass. ... At Managing Editor Software Inc. of Jenkintown, Pa., Garrett Queen has been named southeastern regional sales representative; Queen, who had been a system integrator for Mesi, previously had been systems manager for Tabloid Newspapers of Newton, Mass. ... Also new at Mesi, Lisa Carlin has been named international distributor liaison. ... Confabs: The Society of Newspaper Design will hold its business sections management camp Dec. 4-6 in Chapel Hill, N.C. Manage to get Bill Ostendorf on the phone at (401) 277-7315. ... The Newspaper Association of America's Database Marketing Conference will also be Dec. 4-6, in McLean, Va. If the NAA's phone isn't in your database, you can try (703) 648-1142. ... Internet World '94 will be Dec. 5-8 at the Javits Center in New York. A followup session called Document Delivery will be Dec. 6-9. Both are sponsored by Mecklermedia Corp.; phone is (203) 226-6967. ... And just as the New Year's Eve hangover begins to cease throbbing, it'll be time to go to San Francisco for MacWorld Expo. It's Jan. 4-7; the phone is (508) 879-6700. ...#
"A lot of us have Newtons and do not use them much anymore, because they do not support two-way wireless communications." From THE COLE PAPERS, December 1994, Copyright (c) 1994, All Rights Reserved. |
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