Aaronson leaves SII after 14 years
The board of directors of System Integrators Inc. announced March 7 that Chief Executive William Aaronson was no longer with the company.

The board appointed Erika Williams, the Sacramento-based company's chief operating officer, as interim chief executive.

Aaronson, who was with SII for 14 years, was named CEO almost two years ago. Previously, he had been a sales and marketing executive with SII.

Williams joined the firm last summer; she had been an executive with Amdahl Corp. of Sunnyvale, Calif. During her last two years with Amdahl, Williams was senior vice president and general manager of Amdahl's Enterprise Storage Systems division.

Neil Diver, the chairman of SII's board, said in a prepared statement, "The transition should be seamless, since under the previous organizational structure, virtually 90 percent of the management reports to Erika.

"She has meshed ably with the new SII and achieved considerable respect from those inside and outside the company, and her new role will only serve to expand her sphere of influence."

Diver's statement also said, "Bill Aaronson has spent 14 years with SII, and we wish him well in his future endeavors."

In an interview, Williams said, "I can't really tell you a lot about that because we don't discuss personnel matters."

Williams said that though she was interim chief executive, the board members "haven't started a search" for a new chief executive.

Two weeks after Williams was named interim CEO, Diver confirmed that the board had not begun a search for a new chief executive.

"The board has given Erika our full support," Diver said in an interview. "I fully expect Erika will succeed in her job and I'll do whatever I can to help her succeed."

Diver, who is something of a professional member of boards of directors -- he's also chairman of Ameriwood Industries International Corp., a furniture maker based in Grand Rapids, Mich., and Forseon Corp. of Riverside, Calif., another software maker -- bristles at the suggestion that "the banks" are controlling SII.

"It's an unfortunate misperception that the banks are running the company and an unfortunate misperception that the banks are stripping out the management team," said Diver.

Following its exit from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1994, SII is now owned by three banks and an investment firm: Bank of America, Chase Manhattan, Credit Agricole and Cerberus Partners L.P. of New York.

"Yes, we work hard to keep the stockholders informed," said Diver. But, he said, "the stockholders do not want to have the appearance of running the company."

Diver concedes that part of the problem is that he and his fellow directors are unknown in the publishing industry. "It's a complex industry and a complex company," Diver said.

"Do I understand everything about this business today?" Diver asked. "No. Do I understand more than I did 18 months ago? Yes."

Williams too is something of an unknown quantity. Arriving at SII as chief operating officer eight months ago, she made a big impression on the users group at its annual fall meeting (see The Cole Papers, October 1995).

Asked about her understanding of the publishing business, she responded, "I've learned quite a bit." She added, "But comparing it to Bill [Aaronson]'s, it's minuscule."

Williams has learned enough, she thinks, to say that the newspaper business is "an industry about to go through a tremendous upheaval," the same type of change that banking, insurance and mutual funds went through 15 years ago.

"The basic underlying structure of the business has to change," Williams said.

Williams said newspapers "don't seem very motivated" to change. "Right now, I'm working with a couple of customers, and as far as I can tell, the projects have slipped four months and nobody's blinked an eye," she said.

The interim chief executive acknowledged that the company was in a bad position in terms of technology -- "I'd like to have a Windows client now rather than at the end of the year" -- but that an entirely new classified system is being developed for German newspaper publisher Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (WAZ).

A research and development team for WAZ is being put together in New Hampshire, she said, for a project that will require "a lot of different technology partners."

Williams said SII would continue to develop new products and systems. No thought had been given, she said, to a strategy where SII would only provide service and support to existing customers.

"That's what I call 'cashing in the chips,'" Williams said. "We're not going to do that."

-- dmc

System Integrators Inc.,
(916) 929-9481,
e-mail: sii@sii.com.

Newly formed AII lays off 97
The merger between Autologic and Information International Inc. became effective at the end of January, seven months after it was announced. Within a month, the company restructured by laying off 97 workers.

The merged company is called Autologic Information International Inc., and is publicly traded on the Nasdaq exchange under the symbol Aiii.

Autologic had been a subsidiary of Volt Information Sciences Inc. of Blue Bell, Pa. Information International Inc. of Los Angeles was a publicly traded company.

Volt Chairman William Shaw was elected chairman and chief executive officer. Dennis Doolittle, former president of Autologic, was elected vice chairman and chief operating officer. Al Edwards, former president of Triple-I, was elected president of AII.

Doolittle will be responsible for company operations, including finance, engineering, manufacturing, field service and DigiFlex, a subsidiary providing digital delivery of advertising. Edwards will be responsible for worldwide sales and marketing, and for the Xitron subsidiary, which makes output management systems.

The company will continue to operate out of the old Autologic facility in Thousand Oaks, Calif., and the old Triple-I facility in nearby Los Angeles.

Triple-I sales executives essentially will be the newspaper sales force for the new company; they will be led by Alan Cross, a Triple-I veteran, who will be vice president of sales/newspapers.

Autologic's Al Brunner has been named vice president of sales/commercial, a market in which Autologic had long been strong. Richard Ridderbush, Triple-I's longtime lead sales executive, is now in charge of the combined company's product marketing.

The merger process began in June 1995, when a letter of intent was signed and announced at NEXPO '95 in Atlanta (see The Cole Papers, August 1995).

Each Triple-I stockholder will receive one share of AII for each Triple-I share owned. Thus, stockholders of Triple-I other than Volt will own about 2.3 million shares of common stock, or 41 percent of AII. Volt will hold about 3.4 million shares of AII, or 59 percent.

The combined debt-free resources include revenues of $100 million and net worth of about $38 million.

The February layoffs cost the new company $691,000 but will save the business $6 million a year. The worldwide workforce stands at approximately 450.

-- dmc

Autologic Information International Inc.,
(805) 498-9611.

Bit bucket ...
Designing Designers: At the Society of Newspaper Design, President Jim Jennings has appointed a bunch of new officers. Anthony Lanier, graphics editor of the Patriot Ledger of Quincy, Mass., has been named director of Region 1. ... Linda Monroe, assistant managing editor for operations at the Courier-News in Bridgewater, N.J., has been named director of Region 2. ... Kristen Herzog, an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Florida, has been named director of Region 3. ... Sandra Lee, a mass communications instructor at Grambling State University in Louisiana, has been named director of Region 5. ... Garry Fairbairn, editor of the Western Producer in Saskatoon, Sask., Canada, has been named director of Region 8. ... Phil Nesbit, principal of Print Communications & Media Services in Adelaide, Australia, has been named director of Region 14. ... Mary Holdt, design director of the New York Times Regional Newspaper Group, is now chair of the membership and marketing committee. ... Marshall Matlock, assistant professor at the Newhouse School of Public Communication at Syracuse University in New York, has been reappointed as chair of the competition committee. ... Dave Gray, managing editor for technology at the Providence (R.I.) Journal, has been reappointed chair of the finance committee. ... Olivia Casey, a designer at the Dallas Morning News, has been reappointed chair of the technology committee. ... And Dale Peskin, the deputy managing editor of the Detroit News, has been named president of the Society of Newspaper Design Foundation. Peskin takes over from Howard Finberg of Phoenix Newspapers Inc., who had been the foundation's founding president and served a three-year term. ...

New media mavens: At Microsoft Corp. of Redmond, Wash., Mike Gordon is taking one of those "editorial positions" about which the software giant does not wish to speak. Gordon had been head of Interactive Studio at the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, responsible for the papers' on-line efforts on both Prodigy and the Web. ... At the Dallas Morning News, Neil Foote has been named manager of interactive services; he'd been assistant retail manager. ... At Universal Press Syndicate in Kansas City, Mo., Bill Mitchell has been named editor and director of development for Universal New Media. Mitchell was a founder of Mercury Center, the San Jose Mercury News on-line service, and was a reporter and editor at the Detroit Free Press before starting that paper's new media initiative in 1991. ...

Times are a-changin': At the Los Angeles Times, the merging of the business, publishing and editorial systems groups into the Technology Resource Group has brought forth some new titles. Newsgathering liaisons are Wayne Parrack and Tom Kuby; advertising liaison is Marianne Grant; new media liaison is Bill Fletcher; pre-press/pre-media liaison is Wayne Sudol, and service desk liaison is Jim Angius. ...

Vendor vanities: At the Associated Press in New York, James Farrell has been named director of AdSEND, the news cooperative's digital ad delivery service. Farrell had been a senior account executive for AdSEND. ... At Digital Technology International of Orem, Utah, Floyd Inman has been named southwestern regional sales manager. Previously, Inman had been with Monotype, Information International and Hyphen. ... At Linotype-Hell Co. of Hauppauge, N.Y., David Dinin has been named president. After an eight-year career culminating in the presidency of the merged Linotype and Hell companies, Dinin left about two years ago, only to return now. ... At Monotype Systems Inc. of Rolling Meadows, Ill., Brian Harrington has been named graphic systems support engineer. Harrington had spent 12 years at the Rockford (Ill.) Register Star, most recently as technical services manager. ... At Tribune Media Services of Chicago, a bunch of appointments in the Electronic Information Services division, including Frederick Schecker as executive producer (he'd been managing editor of electronic media at the Kansas City Star) and Jay Brodsky as technology development manager (he'd been in the TMS technology department and before that had been with The Gazette of Cedar Rapids, Iowa). ...

Confabs: Interactive Marketing will be April 15-18 in New York. The keynote speaker is Alfred Sikes, president of Hearst New Media and Technology. Interact with the organizers at (714) 489-8649 or on the Web at http://www.imcweb.com. ... The System Integrators Systems Users Group has scheduled its only 1996 meeting April 21-24 in Sacramento, Calif. The group, which usually meets twice a year, is meeting only once in '96 because of the fall elections. The European System Integrators Users Group will meet concurrently. The agenda includes a two-day vendor show, new-product demonstrations and a series of professional development workshops. Information kits may be obtained from Barry Abisch at (914) 694-5094 or babisch@westches.gannett.com.... If you're into magazines or pre-press, the combined Folio: West and Pre Show/West meetings April 23-26 in Los Angeles could be for you. Details are at (203) 358-9900. ... The IFRA Symposium, "Redefining Pre-press," is April 23-24 in Antwerp, Belgium. Speakers include William Ahearn, executive editor of the Associated Press; Dennis McGuire, chief executive of Managing Editor Inc.; Kerry Northrup of IFRA, and Don Oldham, chief executive of Digital Technology International. Call IFRA at (011) {49} 61 51 70 05-0 for more info. ... The Pacific Area Newspaper Publishers Association holds its annual meeting -- which includes a technology trade show -- April 30-May 3 in Hobart, Tasmania. For the Down Under details, call (011) {02} 9959 4396. ...#

From THE COLE PAPERS, April 1996, Copyright © 1996, All Rights Reserved.