NEXPO as the Ellis Island of newspaper system suppliers

NEW ORLEANS -- The streets are not paved with gold, and the melting pot seems ready to melt down sometimes.

Nonetheless, NEXPO '97 drew an uncounted, and possibly unprecedented, number of pre-press suppliers headquartered in places that don't have U.S. ZIP codes.

If you haven't added country codes to your long distance dialing routine, you may want to put it on your to-do list. Odds are good that you'll be signing on for an innovative piece of technology somewhere in the near future, but it won't necessarily have "Made in the U.S.A." sewn into the collar.

Scandinavians are a clear presence in the lineup. Some names, like CCI Europe, have become familiar. Joining CCI this year are Mactive from Sweden (editorial and advertising systems) and SAXoTech from Denmark (editorial production).

From the other side of the globe, there was apparently only one new entrant from Down Under -- Quantum 2000 (ad dummying). But two other Aussie companies remain a steady presence -- Pongrass, with 12 years at NEXPO (this time in its own booth) and Cybergraphic.

Scitex broke the ice years ago and now other companies from Israel -- this year including Zebra Pushware Solutions ('Net news delivery) -- do show up, though admittedly still in apparently small numbers (it is a long trip to make).

This year, Canadians -- especially from Montreal -- seemed to be everywhere: Newspaper Technologies from Calgary, Alberta (circulation software), and Innovative Systems Design Inc. (customer service systems) and Informatel (ad dummying) from Montreal.

And, of course, Germany (CoDesCo; ad system), Mexico (Dalai; editorial intranet system) and the U.K. (Press Computer Systems; ad software) add to NEXPO's brightening international flair.

The list is a tricky one to compile, because a non-U.S. address is often the only obvious indicator of a company's origin. But several companies we spoke with said that while their headquarters are abroad -- their home markets remain an important key to their success, in most instances -- they have either American divisions or third-party resellers/distributors/marketers to take care of their business in the United States:

In the first category are Zebra, CCI Europe, SAXoTech (which anticipates establishing a U.S. subsidiary in two months) and Mactive (which has subsidiaries in Denmark, Norway, Poland and the United States).

Relying on third parties are Pongrass, through various distributors; CoDesCo, through DeskNet, and Press Computer Systems, through Publishing Connections Inc.

A few among them -- Newspaper Technologies, Digital Data Publishing (integration) and CCI Europe, for example -- sell directly to newspapers.

Like their U.S. counterparts, some of the overseas/foreign/alien/non-U.S. suppliers provide their services exclusively to newspapers -- Mactive, Newspaper Technologies, Publishing Connections, Pongrass and SAXoTech, for example.

Others, such as CCI, Zebra and CoDesCo, serve a wider range of publishers, from Yellow Pages to catalogs to newsletters, although they are not restricted to what is referred to as the "ink-on-pulp model" in the cliché du jour.

NEXPO isn't all-American
These suppliers find NEXPO a useful opportunity for doing business with non-U.S. customers as well. Many reported interest in their products from potential customers located in Japan, Australia, Europe, Latin America, Canada, India and southeast Asia.

Werner Elhauge, administrative director at SAXoTech, divides these prospects into two categories.

The first comprises potential customers, with whom conversation encompasses "some very interesting discussion ... varying from an initial introduction to our software, to quotations and negotiations."

The second group comprises potential distributors, Elhauge said: "We found a pronounced interest in distributing our software on several international markets like France, Belgium, the Netherlands, U.K., Mexico. These companies are already working within the pre-press industry, and several of them are most competent to perform the job, since they have a profound knowledge of the business."

Attending NEXPO before setting up shop in the United States was not unusual among those with whom we spoke. Impressions of NEXPO among these suppliers tend to be mostly enthusiastic, although one first-timer who had been to both MacWorld and Seybold shows noted that he found NEXPO "small and slow."

On the enthusiastic end of things, Mactive President Göran Aulin said, "It is fantastic, that in one single conference, [we can] meet so many people from so many papers sharing the same background.

"In Europe we meet many people, but they have very different backgrounds and come from different cultures with different languages, etc."

And CCI beamingly notes that "NEXPO is by far the best place for CCI to meet our potential customers in the U.S. (like IFRA in Europe)."

Dalai, which had a 20-by-30-foot booth last year, slimmed down its booth this year after finding out that only 400 of last year's NEXPO attendees were from Latin America, and thus could "attend visitors in a hotel suite."

"We decided to go to the New Media section because of the nature of our products this year," said Heriberto Garcia, a director of the company.

"People started to visit our booth and the number of Latin American people exceeded our expectations. But the real surprise was the visit of several American papers like the Washington Post -- several visits from this paper, about six visits with a total of 16 persons from different departments -- Chicago Tribune, El Tiempo De Colombia and other companies that found our Intranet for Newspapers [product] very attractive and practical," Garcia said.

"Some of our customers, like El Comercio in Quito, saw the system and decided to migrate all of their existing systems to the Intranet (they have QPS at this moment) based on the deep demonstration that we made exclusively for them; we will start installation in July.

"People came with a 'I definitely want to see what you have,' 'People told me to visit your booth,' and so on," Garcia said. "In conclusion, the show was extraordinary."

Learning experience
NEXPO (and ANPA/Tec before it) has always been a place for newspaper folks to learn about technology -- both from each other and from suppliers. Equally important, it has been a venue for suppliers to learn about their marketplace.

Mactive expected to take back a lot of knowledge, but particularly about selling techniques. It will use this knowledge to further develop some parts of the system for the benefit of European newspapers as well.

What Americans can learn about themselves from suppliers acculturated to different newspapering and technological traditions ultimately may be as important as the technology they offer us.

SAXoTech clearly recognizes that there's more to successful newspaper technology than hot dog technology.

"To do the best job we can as a supplier to the U.S. newspapers (or newspapers from any other place in the world), we need to understand the production processes and the needs in the newspapers of today," said SAXoTech's Elhauge.

"Tradition and unions often dictate the workflow of newspapers. As traditions and union questions are very hard to change or resolve, it is often more fruitful to design the editorial software so the workflow can be set up, so it follows the current tradition to the extent that it is desirable for the users to do so," Elhauge said.

"SAXoTech has become very good at that in our part of the world. However, without constant cooperation on product localization with the newspapers in each market, we cannot stay at the forefront of the development of the needs in editorial production."

A CoDesCo executive noted that "Europeans operate differently and their expectations are very different. U.S. papers are more interested in a complete, off-the-shelf product and less interested in a customized system than they are here in Europe. We need to better understand the reasoning behind this trend."

Customers from different regions of the world approach NEXPO with different frames of reference, Dalai's Garcia pointed out.

"We have learned from American newspapers that the buying cycle is completely different from the cycle that a traditional Latin paper has," Garcia said. "For example, a Latin paper visits the show to see what is available and nice, but American papers proactively seek something very specific.

"American papers use directories and listings of companies; some Latin papers do it, but the majority just navigate and discover. Thats what we learned and we will use this knowledge; it is definitely a very powerful distinction."

One of the harsher lessons to be learned, however, is summed up by Mactive's Aulin, who faces ample competition in the advertising systems arena:

"The biggest hurdle we have is to get established in the U.S. -- to overcome the suspicions about a non-U.S. vendor."

-- L. Carol Christopher

CCI Europe Inc.,
(770) 419-1588,
e-mail: edeasley@mindspring.com;
CoDesCo,
(011) {49} 071-300130;
Cybergraphic Inc.,
(617) 221-0077;
Dalai,
(011) {52} 365-4077;
Informatel,
(514) 975-9000;
Innovative Systems Design Inc.,
(514) 696-3877;
Mactive Inc.,
(407) 254-5559;
Newspaper Technologies Inc.,
(403) 234-0230;
Pongrass Newspaper Systems,
(011) {61} 9369-3111;
Publishing Connections Inc.,
(301) 951-1014;
Quantum 2000 Systems,
(972) 501-9766;
SAXoTECH,
(011) {45} 8163100;
Zebra Software Solutions Ltd.,
(011) {972} 2 568-7799.

See also: Profiles in courage

From THE COLE PAPERS, July 1997, Copyright © 1997, All Rights Reserved.