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Sysdeco spin-off to be called AtexSysdeco Group AS of Oslo, Norway -- the now-reluctant owners of the technologies of longtime publishing systems suppliers Atex, ComIT, Dewar and SyPress -- announced Dec. 23, that it had not only received orders for $20 million in investment capital to spin off the publishing systems business, but it had also chosen a semi-new name for the company. Atex Media Solutions Inc. of Bedford, Mass., will be formed shortly after an "extraordinary" Sysdeco shareholders meeting scheduled to be held Jan. 6, in Oslo. This follows a two-year travail wherein Sysdeco's publishing systems business drained the parent company of resources, personnel and funds (see The Cole Papers, December 1996). Orkla Finans, Sysdeco's investment bank which is also based in Oslo, said it had worked with the Sysdeco management team to place 9.3 million shares with public funds and private and institutional investors, mostly in Norway. In addition, Sysdeco management and Atex Media Solutions management has purchased more than 120,000 shares. Larry Mihalchik, the Boston-based financial expert who will become the chief executive of the new Atex, said the name was urged upon him and the rest of his management team by customers. "Whatever name we selected, to our customer base, we remain Atex," Mihalchik said. Mihalchik said that the name, which was chosen in an employee contest (two people proposed it), represents the company's roots in the past and vision for the future. "As our customers move into the new technological landscape, they are looking for leadership, and we intend to be that leader," he said. Atex Media Solutions Inc., (617) 275-2323. -- dmc Galacticomm sold, reorganizesOnce the front-runner in newspaper on-line servers, Galacticomm Inc. fell from grace in late 1995 when it clung to a proprietary client-server system while the publishing world embraced the World-Wide Web. An ownership change could herald moves that will put its name back on shopping lists. In a quiet release Nov. 26, the Fort Lauderdale, Fla., company announced that two of its independent developers and an investor group bought controlling interest from the estate of Timothy Stryker, the imaginative founder who died Aug. 6. The buyers are iView Software, Tessier Technologies Inc. and Union Atlantic, LLC, all based in the Fort Lauderdale area. Peter Berg, founder of iView Software, has been named chairman and chief executive officer, and Yannick Tessier, former head of Tessier Technologies, has been named president. Michael Hunt is chief financial officer. Terms were not disclosed. Although Galacticomm's The Major BBS propelled on-line pioneers like the Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram and a couple of dozen other U.S. dailies, its successor Worldgroup server fizzled with web-struck publishers. Moves to get on the Web started with a new "fat" client plug-in for Netscape Navigator, which was released in April, followed by an NT server with "active" HTML and "thin" Navigator and Microsoft Explorer plug-ins that were to roll out in December. The main strategy now is to deliver the promise of the Web, said Lisa Kelley, marketing and public relations manager. Gradually, she said, the distinctive Galacticomm features, such as teleconferencing, news groups and security, will be reconstructed for web browser access. Another marketing area may be in designing prepackaged systems for associations or customers who don't have the time or expertise to customize their own server. A system for schools is preloaded with profiles, graphics, access areas, e-mail and security befitting administrators, teachers and students. Servers preset for newspapers are possible. This packaging is a role previously held by "Ambassador Dealers" and independent software developers. Tessier Technologies was among the largest, pushing everything from games to multimedia databases. Among its add-on offerings was a video conferencing program by iView, which now is likely to become a significant Galacticomm feature. One newspaper-oriented system is "Online Newspaper in a Box," a turnkey hardware and software package from Palantir Corp. of Baltimore, Md. Union Atlantic is an informal group of investors who are "really excited about technology," Kelley said. She did not know of other investments made by Union Atlantic.
Galacticomm Inc., -- MJL Mark your calendarsAttending industry-related conferences, expositions and meetings frequently requires more planning than our monthly listings can take into account. For those executives who would like to plan to attend the leading meetings of 1997, we present this list of key events:
-- dmc Bit bucket ...MIS guys: At Newsday of Long Island, N.Y., Phil Rugile has been named information systems director. Rugile comes to the paper from Cascade Systems Inc. of Andover, Mass., where he had served in a variety of roles, not the least of which was as project manager for Newsday's pagination implementation. Previously Rugile had been with Cybergraphic Systems, CMP Publications, DuPont/Crosfield, Avon and Time Inc. ... At the New Haven (Conn.) Register, Vincent Arnold has been named director of management information systems; previously he'd been veep of MIS at Fairchild Publications. ... Production guys (and gals): At Gannett Co. Inc. of Arlington, Va., Mark Mikolajczyk has been named as production vice president; he will replace Donn Wheeler, who is scheduled to retire. ... At the Cincinnati Enquirer, David Preisser is taking Mikolajczyk's old job as vice president for production. ... At Florida Today in Melbourne, Fla., Peter Zanmiller is taking Preisser's old job as production director. (No word yet on who will fill Zanmiller's old job at the Times Herald in Port Huron, Mich.) ... Also in Gannettland, Ralph Rhodes has been named production manager at the Reno Gazette-Journal in Nevada; previously he'd been pre-press manager at the paper. ... At the Daily Record in Parsippany, N.J., Jeff Lear has been named creative services manager; previously he had been production services manager at the Courier-News in Bridgewater, N.J. ... At the Indianapolis Newspapers, Bill Bolger has been named director of operations; previously he had been with Knight-Ridder Inc. in Miami. ... At the Seattle Times, Katharine Hunter has been named composition and production planning manager; previously she had been advertising operations manager at the Los Angeles Times. ... New jobs: At the Dayton Daily News in Ohio, Jeff Adams has been named director of photography. Adams joined the Daily News in April 1993 as systems editor, to help direct the newsroom pagination project. Before joining the Daily News, Adams was head of an electronic newspaper project, the Digital Missourian, at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. ... At the Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., Jennifer Small has been named assistant editor of information services; previously she had been a librarian at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics. ... New media mavens: At New Jersey Online of Jersey City, Sara Glines has been named managing editor. Previously she had been editor of electronic publishing for the New Haven Register, where she worked with corporate parent Journal Register Co., to develop its first web site. At NJO, she'll be overseeing daily operation of the site, http://www.nj.com/, and working as liaison to the Star-Ledger of Newark. ... At E.W. Scripps Co., the Cincinnati-based newspaper chain, Neal Fondren has been named to the new position of vice president for new media. Fondren has been an executive with the media company's cable television division; in his new job, Fondren will coordinate Scripps' Internet ventures. ... They once were giants: At Atex Media Solutions Inc. (see story, Page 10) of Bedford, Mass., newly installed CEO Larry Mihalchik has named his executive team: Max Coebergh has been named senior vice president for international sales and operations (Coebergh has a long and colorful career in the newspaper business, including stints at Atex, Triple-I and Mission Critical Technologies); Clive Segal has been named senior vice president for U.S. sales and operations (Segal came from Sysdeco's United Kingdom operation and has been running the Media Group's U.S. operations for the last six months); Allen Miller has been named vice president of marketing (Miller is a longtime Atex executive who most recently was running Sysdeco's U.K. operation), and Pat McGinnis has been named vice president of engineering (McGinnis recently rejoined Sysdeco/Atex after a five-year career at System Integrators -- which was preceded by a couple of years at Lotus, which was preceded by 15 years at Atex). Still to be named: finance and human resources veeps. Stay tuned. ... Vendor vibrancy: At Agence France-Presse of Washington, D.C., Steve Messere has been named manager of sales and marketing for North America. Messere had held a similar position with Presslink of Reston, Va. (which is moving to Philadelphia). ... At the Agfa Division of Bayer Corp. in Ridgefield Park, N.J., Alexander van Meeuwen has been named senior vice president for graphic systems; previously he'd held a similar position with Agfa in the United Kingdom. He replaces Jerry Stolt, who will be taking "new corporate responsibilities within the Agfa organization." ... At Cascade Systems Inc. of Andover, Mass., Colin Britton has been named director of strategic programs; previously Britton had been product manager for Cascade's MediaSphere. Taking Britton's MediaSphere job is Francesco Rietti; previously Rietti had been a product marketing manager. ... At Linotype-Hell Co. of Hauppauge, N.Y., David Dinin has resigned as president. "In light of the recent acquisition of Linotype-Hell by Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG, now is the appropriate time to leave," Dinin said. Niels Winther, a senior executive at Heidelberg USA, will assume Dinin's responsibilities. Dinin had returned to Linotype-Hell in March after a two-year hiatus. ... At Monotype Systems Inc. of Rolling Meadows, Ill., Richard Alexander has been named a customer service representative; previously he'd been with Scangraphic. ... At Polaroid Graphics Imaging of Waltham, Mass., Ronald Collins has been named vice president and general manager; previously he held a similar position with Polaroid in Europe and the Middle East. ... Also at PGI, a maker of dry pre-press films, Michael Spera has been named sales director for the eastern United States and Canada; previously, Spera had been with American Color's Atlanta office (and before that, DuPont Printing and Publishing and Crosfield Electronics). ... Confabs: Mactivity, the Macintosh webmaster "university," is Jan. 5-7 in San Francisco. Session tracks include "Macintosh Web Primers," "Building Macintosh-based intranets" and "Macintosh web development." For the scoop, call (408) 354-2500 or point your browser at http://www.mactivity.com/. ... The Asian Newspaper Publishers Expo is Jan. 6-10 in Hong Kong; for info call (607) 722-8042. ... MacWorld Expo -- just 75,000 of your closest Macintosh colleagues -- will be Jan. 7-10 in San Francisco. For the skinny, send e-mail to smacgregor@mha.com or use the fax-on-demand at (800) 645-3976. ... The Newspaper Association of America's SuperConference -- with tracks addressing pre-press, health and safety, press and materials and post-press -- will be Jan. 12-17 in Orlando, Fla. For more information, call (703) 648-1282 or send e-mail to brahm@naa.org. ... The Interactive Services Association meets Jan. 19-21 in Scottsdale, Ariz. For details call (301) 495-4955 or e-mail isa@isa.net. ... Harris Publishing Systems Corp.'s annual seminar on pagination and workflow will be Jan. 23-24 in Melbourne, Fla. Speakers include Jack Trawick of the Winston-Salem Journal in North Carolina, Tom Kehoe of Florida Today, Wayne Parrick of the Los Angeles Times, Howard Finberg of Phoenix Newspapers, Peter Levitan of New Jersey Online and Gina Maniscalco of the Boston Globe. (Oh, yeah, some guy named Cole will also be chattering away.) For details, point your browser at http://harris.com/hpsc/ or call (800) 832-3932. ... #
"In other words, the place of the Insanely Great has also been the place of the Spent Genius and the I'm So Cool I Can't Stand Myself. If discipline is asserted and some corporate consistency created, will Apple still be the breeding ground for what developers and consumers consider cool?" From THE COLE PAPERS, January 1997, Copyright © 1997, All Rights Reserved. |
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