COLE'S NEWSWIRE, Oct. 6, 1999

Oct. 6, 1999
Vol. 5, No. 42

COLE'S 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.

To be removed from this list, send a blank e-mail message to: newswire-stop@colegroup.com. These missives are archived on the World-Wide Web at http://colegroup.com/NW/NW/.

To submit material for consideration, please deliver ASCII text electronically to news@colegroup.com.

THE COLE PAPERS
Apple Computer Corp. iCEO Steve Jobs turned the Seybold Seminars into an AppleFest, report correspondents George Powell and L. Carol Christopher in the October issue of THE COLE PAPERS. Powell walks the aisles of Seybold San Francisco's annual trade show, while Christopher listens to the speakers at the conference. Also in the October issue, Correspondent Steven E. Brier takes a look at how newspapers and their suppliers adapt to the changes that Microsoft has wrought to its ubiquitous word processing application, Word.

In the September issue, Powell -- a 13-year user of the popular Quark XPress page layout application -- takes a beta version of InDesign through its paces and comes out impressed. Correspondent Marion J. Love profiles three former newsroom workers who have gone over to the "Dark Side" -- they have gone to work for system supply firms. Christopher takes a look at how system suppliers are responding to the problem of providing mechanisms for the public to enter classified advertising orders and text over the World-Wide Web, and Editor & Publisher David M. Cole gives his thoughts on the recent raft of mergers, acquisitions and new operating conditions at a score of publishing system suppliers.

THE COLE PAPERS is published by The Cole Group, purveyors of intelligence about newspapers, technology, journalism and publishing, including NEWSINC., COLE'S NOTES and this newswire. The Cole Group is on the Web at http://colegroup.com/.

DIGITAL ART EXCHANGE INC.
DAX, a Boston-based provider of Internet services to the graphic arts industry, introduced DAX Transmit, a new iteration of DAX FTP software with added functions such as a graphic preview window, favorites list and drag-and-drop folder transmissions.

DAX Transmit's favorites list is a "speed dial" feature with which users program their most often used sites to simplify job transmission. Transmit's accounting features include tracking destination transfer times, transfer durations and files sent and received.

Standard with each DAX iSeries and DAX Transport products, additional DAX Transmit clients may be purchased in five and ten packs for $200 and $350.

DAX Transmit runs on the Macintosh OS and can be used to access servers both from DAX and other suppliers. It is compatible with Windows NT, Sun, SGI and most other computers that operate as FTP servers.

DAX is on the Web at http://www.dax-it.com/.

EDGIL ASSOCIATES INC.
Edgil, the Chelmsford, Mass.-based supplier of business automation tools for newspapers, has installed its WebCentral system at PrimeNetix Inc. to power cablecars.com, a portal for New England auto dealers.

PrimeNetix, a major automotive ad agency in the region, will use WebCentral to publish multiple automotive dealer inventories, complete with logos and images, on a single hosted the web site.

Dealers retain their brand identity by utilizing their own domain name and interfacing with the central site. Using WebCentral's shopping cart feature, consumers are able to combine saved results from several dealers, then fill out contact information to respond to each auto dealer's ad, simplified by submitting only one e-mail response through the system.

Edgil is on the Web at http://www.edgil.com/. PrimeNetix is at http://cablecars.com/.

GEAC PUBLISHING SYSTEMS
Geac, a supplier of circulation and other business systems based in Tampa, Fla., plans to combine for the first time exhibits for its three product lines at IFRA '99 in Amsterdam.

Collier-Jackson, Cybergraphic and Matrix will offer products from editorial to web to advertising and delivery, all based on Microsoft NT/SQL Server and Windows.

The company said it is focusing on integrating the capabilities of Cybergraphic's Genera Advertising suite with the back-end functionality of Collier-Jackson's VisionShift Advertising system.

Meanwhile, its Canadian-based parent, Geac Computer Corp. Ltd., has completed its acquisition of JBA Holdings to form what it called one of the world's largest application software businesses. The combined annualized revenue of more than C$1.3 billion, more than 30,000 customers and 6,000 employees make it the fourth largest supplier in the sector worldwide, after SAP, Oracle and Peoplesoft, Geac said.

Geac is on the Web at http://www.publishingsystems.geac.com/ and its corporate parent is at http://www.geac.com/.

NORTH PLAINS SYSTEMS
This Canadian provider of digital asset management systems, based Toronto, introduced the latest version of TeleScope Pro. New features include check-in and check-out version control, messaging, grouping and expanded searching capabilities.

TeleScope Pro includes an application plug-in, or I-Piece, that supports the Quark XPress 4.0 format, allowing users to import, generate robust extended views for and tie together art files placed in XPress documents. When previewing Quark documents, the I-Piece also provides multi-page previews in one-up or two-up layout, with links between the previews and the placed art files.

North Plains is on the Web at http://www.northplains.com/.

POWERADZ.COM
PowerAdz, an Internet hosting provider and software developer based in Renssalaer, N.Y., has added the 430,000-daily circulation NEW YORK POST and several other newspapers to its more than 900 participants.

Using PowerAdz.com technology, newspapers provide aggregated local classifieds, auctions, telephone directories, community and editorial content to their readers.

The POST is the second largest newspaper to partner with PowerAdz.com, and it uses two of its products, AdQuest3D for its on-line classifieds and CarCast for its on-line car buying services.

Other new affiliates include the Newspaper Agency Corp. of Salt Lake City, serving the 125,000-daily SALT LAKE TRIBUNE and DESERET NEWS, which will use CareerGold, ThinkHomes, AdQuestSUPER and CarCast products.

Media General Inc., a Richmond, Va.-based media company with 21 newspapers in Virginia, North Carolina and Florida, also recently signed.

PowerAdz is on the Web at http://www.poweradz.com/.

REAL MEDIA
Real Media, a New York-based provider of on-line advertising services and technology to newspapers and other media, recently added 20 new Latin American web sites to its network including InfoSel in Mexico, Universo in Brazil, La Nacion and El Clarin in Argentina.

In all, Real Media represents 32 sites in Central and South America, serving over 500 million ad impressions each month.

Real Media is on the Web at http://www.realmedia.com/.

TRENDWATCH
TrendWatch, a monitor of trends in the graphic arts industry based in Harrisville, R.I., has noted that the Internet is raising the stakes in three recurrent business challenges among creative professionals, as measured in its Creative #7 (Summer 1999) report.

Two out of three creative professionals say "keeping up with technology" is their No. One challenge, with "deciding where their business should go in the future" vies at 61 percent and "finding qualified employees" follows at 45 percent.

What keeps these long-time challenges fresh is Internet urgency: Not only is the technology new, but employees who can make it dance are so very hard to find.

The major challenges creative pros are facing:

Keeping up with technology changes in the next 12 months is noted by 66 percent.

Of those who intend to purchase web page creation software, 73 percent are challenged by adapting to new technologies, which is significantly higher than all respondents.

Of creative pros that bought media asset management software, 70 percent say that finding new employees is a major challenge for them (again much higher than typical respondents).

TrendWatch is partnering with The Cole Group to produce the TrendWatch/Cole Group Newspapers surveys, a five-year research project to determine the buying trends in newspaper capital equipment and consumables. The Cole Group, publishers of this newswire, has released COLE'S NOTES -- TRENDWATCH NEWSPAPERS 1998.

For more information, visit TrendWatch on the Web at http://www.trendwatch.com/.

X-RITE INC.
X-Rite, a supplier of color management tools, has declared a third-quarter cash dividend of 2 1/2 cents per share on its common stock.

The dividend is payable Nov. 15; X-Rite reported 21,209,238 shares outstanding Oct. 4.

Headquartered in Grandville, Mich., X-Rite, along with Labsphere, its New Hampshire subsidiary, maintains offices in Massachusetts, California, Germany, England, Hong Kong, the Czech Republic, France and Japan.

X-Rite is on the Web at http://www.x-rite.com/.

-- 30 --

This issue of COLE'S NEWSWIRE was compiled by Marion J. Love. It is 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.

Copyright (c) 1999, The Cole Group. All Rights Reserved. This transmission may not be copied, archived or retransmitted without the express written permission of The Cole Group. If you are not a subscriber to COLE'S NEWSWIRE, you have received this transmission illegally.

The Cole Group, P.O. Box 3426, Daly City, Calif. USA 94015-0426. V: (650) 994-2100; F: (650) 994-2108; I: info@colegroup.com.