New Atex leaders emphasize service more than product

Following its "protracted acquisition," the new executive team at Atex Publishing Systems Corp. has hit the road, spreading the message that new owner Sysdeco Group of Oslo, Norway, isn't out to kill the venerable supplier.

"There have been a number of misunderstandings," said J. Marlow Einelund, the former chairman of Sysdeco U.K. who has been named president and chief executive for all Atex operations in North and South America.

"Sysdeco certainly isn't dead, and Enterprise and SyPress aren't dead," he said, referring to the company's classified advertising front-end and the Finnish company -- now also part of Sysdeco -- that developed it.

Sysdeco's negotiations to buy Bedford, Mass.-based Atex from the group of European investors that bought it from Eastman Kodak Co. in 1992 did take longer than expected (see The Cole Papers, January 1995; February 1995; March 1995).

The deal was consummated in early April, whereupon Sysdeco announced that the Boston Globe had signed a $2.4 million joint development agreement with Atex to achieve the paper's goal of "full electronic pagination."

Two of the previous owners were Dutch companies, so under Norwegian and Dutch securities laws neither Sysdeco nor Atex executives were allowed to talk to the newspaper community at large. Securities laws limited chats to only two customers, and Sysdeco chose the Globe and the New York Times.

"There's been a dearth of information," said Jerry Riley, the company's new director of sales. "And some people filled the vacuum with worst-case scenarios, and we had to face worst-case scenarios from people you'd think were our long-time supporters."

Einelund is bullish on Atex.

"Based on the current business of Atex, we see its annual revenues in the $40-$50 million range," he said.

While on the road, Einelund is explaining the new management's plans for reorganizing the company, and product lines.

Einelund has revamped the company into three business units: custom, client/server and specials.

Reporting directly to Einelund will be Clive Segal, a Sysdeco employee and trusted Einelund associate who has become executive vice president and chief operating officer for the U.S. operation, and Allen Miller, a longtime Atex sales and marketing executive who has become vice president of sales and marketing in the Americas and is in charge of the client/server business unit.

Gary Young, formerly in charge of operations at Atex, became head of the custom business unit that includes more than 20 field engineers and support specialists. Wade Sendall, who had been a senior project manager at Atex, became the head of the specials business unit, which also has field engineering and application groups. Both men report to Segal.

Longtime Atex salesman Pete Lewis has been named director of client/server support and Cheri Birdsall has been named head of marketing. Along with Riley, the former western regional sales executive, they all report to Miller.

Einelund said "about 150" people currently work for Atex Americas. Though the number might drop to rejigger skills, he said he was comfortable with the company at that size.

Graham Shaw, who had been the most recent Atex chief executive, has been named head of the Sysdeco Media Group, which encompasses Atex, SyPress and ND Comtec, Sysdeco's previous publishing systems acquisition. Shaw will be headquartered in England.

Einelund, Shaw, SyPress Managing Director Markku Riipinen and Sysdeco Chief Executive Johs. Jamne make up the executive board of Sysdeco Media.

What products will Atex sell? Stand by. ...

"I think the whole concept of product is changing," said Einelund. "It has to do with the assembly-line way of thinking. A product is something you could say, 'This is it, it's packaged, it has a price, it's got guarantees.' This is becoming much, much more of a service industry."

Nonetheless, the new Atex chief did acknowledge the company would sell parts that could be called "product."

"Yes, there will be product -- like Enterprise and DewarView and maybe others. But much more than that, there will be a mix, where in the lifetime of a relationship between a vendor and a customer, maybe 80 percent of the money that will change hands will be for 'service.'"

Obviously, since Sysdeco concurrently purchased SyPress Oy, the developers of Enterprise, while buying Atex, the company is committed to developing and marketing that product.

But what was once merely a secondary line -- selling and integrating the DewarView Workgroup product from Dewar Information Systems Corp. of Westmont, Ill. -- has now become Atex's primary editorial offering.

"Deadline is a product that we have put a lot of effort into," Miller said, referring to the company's PC-based editorial front-end. "We have a significant contractual agreement in New Zealand; we are committed to deliver to that contractual agreement," he said.

However, "Deadline is not going to be a product in which we will actively invest developer resources," said Miller. "The product we are committed to on the editorial side of the house is DewarView, unequivocally."

In addition to Enterprise and DewarView, the new Atex management team plans to offer such familiar applications as Classified Pagination and Architect (display ad dummying); Quark XPress and Press2Go XTensions for editorial pagination; EdPage, Full Page Output, Image Services and Preference workstation software for J11 customers, and "special Atex system hardware."

Missing from the lineup are the Press2Go classified pagination products, which Atex had licensed from Press Computer Systems Ltd. of Albrighton, England.

Acknowledging that the PCS products "didn't pan out the way we wanted them to," Riley said that newspapers that had purchased the PCS XTensions would be offered the IBM RS/6000-based Classified Pagination product.

Alternatively, said Riley, "we will entertain integrating Managing Editor and some others," referring to the Classified Ad Layout System of Managing Editor Software Inc. of Jenkintown, Pa.

In a distinct change of theory from the previous management, Einelund understands that not all of newspapering's future lies with newsprint.

"Newspapers need to be redefined," he said. "They really need to go much more into the local marketplace. They need to be able to put their information out on on-line services, CD-ROMs, doing all the things people are talking about."

But, Einelund said, that must come from good technology.

"To really be able to handle the complexities of the database issues, what you need to make this work is an open systems environment and that takes skills," he said. "Those skills are what we will bring."

And to those who are worried about Atex being run by a foreign company?

"We have said officially that we, Sysdeco Group, want to move our headquarters to the U.S.," said Einelund.

-- dmc

From THE COLE PAPERS, May 1995, Copyright © 1995, All Rights Reserved.