How the integrators pitch woo
to try to win your affections
An integrator bridges the chasm between the customer and the marketplace. As with bridges, integrators come in a range of designs, each suited to the terrain spanned.
Each integrator we spoke with touted a distinguishing attribute or two. Here, in alphabetical order, and in their own words, they promote their strengths:
American Computer Innovators (ACI): Jumping into the newspaper market about 14 months ago, the question to ask ACI is, 'Why take on a notoriously fickle market?'
"The industry was ripe for someone as good as us," President Scott Killoh said. "We can show you how you can become an information company. We can show you how to put an engine in that will kill your competition before they can get started."
ACI's strength, which may be little exercised until newspapers buy into the concept, is modeling the needs of the business as a whole, then matching technology to the model.
Experienced in serving much larger companies, ACI rightly can claim considerable ability in networking, and having knowledge about technology beyond publishing to bring into the newspaper marketplace.
"There are other products and other ways of doing these solutions," Killoh said, "and people inside the industry aren't looking at them."
Atex Publishing Systems Corp.: A heritage of working with newspapers distinguishes Atex from other integrators, according to Allen Miller, director of marketing for Atex Americas.
"There's no substitute for being on-site 10 minutes before deadline," Miller said. "We have the frame of reference other integrators don't, by having people who can go in and look at their business requirements and understand them -- not having to have your customer explain them to you is valuable."
That heritage also means that unlike other integrators, Atex brings its own product line to the process. Miller points out this does not inhibit selection of solutions, but may provide a starting point in making comparisons of what's available.
Because of its size, Atex is equipped to provide the range of help newspapers want, small to large. One may want an enveloping security blanket, as a proprietary supplier might have wrapped around its client, while "some customers want some help to kind of paste it together," Miller said.
Computer Network Innovators (CNI): "We serve people who want one-stop shopping," said Mike Gold, president of a company that is an old-timer among integrators -- at the age of six.
Gold lives by the integrator's Golden Rule: "Never build what you can buy. Once you build it, you have an interest in it -- you may not be objective enough to decide something may be better."
A specialist in the small- to medium-sized newspaper market, CNI counts on consulting -- site visits and needs analysis -- for 25 percent of its business, Gold said.
When serving as an integrator, CNI seeks to prepare a client for eventual self-sufficiency by establishing a unique relationship with a client. "We make it a contractual requirement that we approve the newspaper's choice of system editor, system manager and ad manager," Gold said.
Why? "We're being paid for our expertise to pick the right manufacturer," he said. "It's incumbent upon the newspaper to develop a lot of in-house expertise on desktop publishing."
CPS Technologies: A production-oriented integrator, CPS has made the leap from proprietary hardware manufacturer.
"We were forced into it -- we were kicked in the ass" 2¢ years ago, said Chief Executive John Attas Jr. "People said, 'We don't want to buy the mainframes any more, we want to buy PCs.'"
Now, "we consider ourselves to be not merely an integrator but a consultant and super-integrator, so to speak," Attas said. "We get very involved in all aspects of newspaper production."
Telling a newspaper about potential savings tied to new technology is an issue Attas approaches "extremely cautiously."
"I have a reputation for being brutally honest. You have to be careful about how you deal with these issues," he said. At one site, he was asked about potential savings from a new classified system.
"There were six classified operators present, and their ranks would be cut in half," he said. "You just can't say that."
Digital Equipment Corp.: More than two years after it returned to the newspaper industry, DEC has established itself as a high-end, full-service integrator that's part of a computer manufacturing giant.
"We started out with a concept that we would take open systems from just about anywhere to provide what the customer wanted. We didn't even care about the choice of hardware," said Bob Cohen, worldwide newspaper segment manager. "All the bids we finally won were based on DEC platforms, but that wasn't part of the business model."
Now, having products to market isn't the key -- knowledge is. "Because we do collect market requirements -- the dreams of the companies we deal with -- that does make for a very, very wide network," Cohen said. "Not making our own products opens up lines of communication."
Why go with DEC? "We like the approach of not having a specific solution, but being a company who understands multiple industries and understands newspapers," Cohen said.
NovX: Networking is NovX's bread-and-butter, but working cooperatively with a customer is central to its approach as an integrator.
"We're a networking company," said Account Executive Joe Snell. "The Internet is basically a big network."
While experience with linking to the Internet is a key sales point for NovX -- it manufactures a line of Internet servers -- it is not how contracts are won, Snell said.
"We tell the customer that we're not going to convince them to buy anything ever, we're going to understand their needs and come up with out solutions," he said.
Snell points to his staff's skill level, which includes a number of people with newspaper backgrounds. "Anyone can call and buy XYZ computer or XYZ software. What the products the integrators provide are pretty much all the same," he said. "The difference is totally in the people."
Rosecomm: While fresh to the newspaper industry, Rosecomm has a history in publishing worth studying.
President Rose Atkins gained experience as a network integrator while working for Nynex and other firms on projects at TV Guide, R.R. Donnelley, Scitex, Toys 'R' Us, the Christian Science Monitor and the short-lived sports paper, The National.
With this background, what does Atkins rate as Rosecomm's greatest strength?
"Our strengths are network design, project management and our training philosophy," she said. "The value we bring is not just the technical side of things, we bring the people communications portion in, which is probably the most vital.
"We help them redefine the roles and responsibilities of the people -- it's not enough just to put the system in. You have to rearrange and reposition people to accommodate the new system."
Training needs to be "task oriented," she said, citing her firm's two-week course in color production that encompassed both software and procedures.
The people Rosecomm trained could take on their revamped jobs easily, she said, while a coworker who went to a different course "was totally lost -- all he got was applications training."
-- PW
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