COLE'S NEWSWIRE, Feb. 25, 1998

Feb. 25, 1998
Vol. 4, No. 8

The NEWSWIRE is a weekly distribution of information about the sales and installations of publishing technology and the latest news on new products developed by suppliers to the industry.

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APPLIED GRAPHICS TECHNOLOGIES INC.
New York-based AGT, a provider of color management services to newspapers, has announced it will merge with Devon Group Inc. Devon, which will be run as a wholly owned subsidiary, provides outsourcing services to retailers in the area of facilities management.

Under the accord, holders of Devon common stock will receive $30 in cash and a tax-free distribution of six-tenths of one share of AGT common stock for each Devon share. With AGT trading at about $50, the deal is worth about $440 million. The current Devon chairman, Marne Obernauer, will become vice chairman of AGT.

AGT is on the World-Wide Web at http://www.agt.com/.

AUGMENT SYSTEMS INC.
Atlanta-based Augment and Shira Computers Ltd. of Kfar Saba, Israel, have agreed to a cooperative marketing arrangement by which each company will market and support digital pre-press workflow products made by both companies.

Augment sells an advanced file server which uses Fibre Channel-Arbitrated Loop technology for high-speed data transfer. Shira develops workflow solutions running on Windows NT. The companies' target markets include electronic publishers, digital image processors and businesses relying on geographic information systems.

Augment is on the Web at (http://www.augment-systems.com). Shira is at (http://www.shira.com).

INTELLIGENT ENVIRONMENTS
USA TODAY has begun using custom software developed by Intelligent Environments of Burlington, Mass., to survey on-line readers in real time, displaying survey results in chart form shortly after survey questions are posted on USA TODAY Online http://www.usatoday.com/. The Quick Question area on the web site debuted Feb. 6, drawing more than 4000 responses about men's hockey at the Winter Olympics.

Intelligent Environments is on the Web at http://www.ieinc.com/.

LINOTYPE COLOR PUBLISHING SOLUTIONS
Linotype CPS, an image-processing device manufacturer based in Hauppauge, N.Y., has revamped its web site to provide more color technology information. The site, http://www.linocolor.com/, features information about the technology vendor, plus links to dozens of color technology organizations, educational institutions and vendors.

The site offers help with such issues as color correction, color basics and calibration. Links are provided to such sites as the University of California, San Diego, and a bibliography of color books, as well as to popular technology catalogs.

QUARK INC.
Denver-based Quark, maker of the page layout program Quark XPress, has announced the 500th installation of its workgroup publishing solution, Quark Publishing System. Belgium-based Hoste N.V. -- which publishes the national daily newspaper HET LAATSTE NIEUWS and the Antwerp-area daily DE NIEUWE GAZET (299k, morning) - employed the services of Rosco Holding BV subsidiary QSYS integrators to install 160 seats.

Quark is on the Web at http://www.quark.com/.

SEYBOLD SEMINARS
Seybold Seminars, the publishing technology conference and trade show organization based in Foster City, Calif., has announced two conferences, one in March, the other in September.

The Seybold Publishing Systems Conference will be March 19-20, part of Seybold Seminars New York/Publishing 98 at New York City's Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. The conference will explore design and publication management, production and media-independent publishing. Among the 40 planned sessions are ones examining "Controlling Color for Print," "PDF: The New Workflow Standard?," "CTP: New Technologies, New ROIs," "Digital Advertising Goes Mainstream," "Overcoming the Top 20 Digital Prepress Problems" and "Workflow: A Management Approach."

The Seybold/Cole Newspapers & New Media Seminar, to be held in conjunction with Seybold Seminars New York/Publishing 98, will be March 18. The session topics will include "Sidewalk scuffle," "Data mining and warehousing," "Beyond banners and liners" and "Suppliers on the hot seat."

To register, surf to http://www.seyboldseminars.com/ or call 888-800-8922 or 650-372-7072.

Next fall, Seybold plans a conference program at IPEX '98 Sept. 22-30 in Birmingham, England. The Seybold sessions, scheduled for Sept. 22-25, will address paper-based publishing, and media-independent information delivery.

For more information, visit http://www.seyboldseminars.com/ or http://www.ipex.org/.

SOFTWARE CONSULTING SERVICES
SCS, a publishing systems supplier based in Nazareth, Pa., has announced sales of its Good News editorial system to the DESERT SUN (44k, morning) of Palm Springs, Calif., and the WINCHESTER (Va.) STAR (22k, evening). SCS is exclusive U.S. distributor of GoodNews, which was developed by Tera Spa. of Italy. The editing and pagination system runs on Windows 95 and Windows NT clients, with Windows NT servers using Microsoft's SQL Server.

The DESERT SUN will have 88 reporter workstations when its installation is completed. The system will run on two Dell 4200 PowerEdge Pentium II servers with dual 300 megahertz processors, 384 megabytes of random access memory and 108 gigabyte of disk storage.

The STAR replaced a DOS-based system made by Dewar Information Systems Corp. with GoodNews in January. The installation includes dual Dell 4200 PowerEdge Pentium II servers with 192 megabytes of random access memory and 22 gigabytes of disk storage.

Both newspapers also are using TOPIC, Tera's Windows NT OPI server. SCS is on the Web at http://nscs.fast.net/.

UNISYS CORP.
Unisys, a global publishing solutions company with U.S. offices in Blue Bell, Pa., has announced that Philadelphia Newspapers Inc. will install Unisys systems at both the PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER (428k, morning) and PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS (175k, morning).

Replacing an Atex J-11 system, Unisys will install Hermes, its integrated editorial system; WireCenter, a communications management system, and DocCenter, a multimedia archiving system. The INQUIRER will have 617 editorial workstations, the DAILY NEWS, 131. Librarians will have 14 archive workstations.

The system will be supported by two Sun E5000 High Availability (HA) servers at the INQUIRER and two Sun E3000 HA servers at the DAILY NEWS. WireCenter and DocCenter will be powered by two Sun E3000 HA servers.

Unisys is on the Web at http://www.unisys.com/

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COLE'S NEWSWIRE is compiled by Pete Wetmore and distributed by The Cole Group, publishers of THE COLE PAPERS and NEWSINC., and consultants to newspapers and magazines worldwide. To receive more information about The Cole Group, send e-mail to: info@colegroup.com.

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