Atex lays off 15 percent of workforce

In a reaction to a shrinking Year 2000 fix-it market, Atex Media Solutions Inc. of Bedford, Mass., laid off 15 percent of its workforce -- what many observers suggest was 70 people worldwide, 30 of them at its headquarters -- in late October.

"We've done a bulk of service-intensive business that won't be there next year," said Karen Weltchek, president and chief executive in early November. She refused to specify the number of people laid off, but did confirm that 15 percent of the workforce was affected.

"It's just a matter of [having] more people than we need," said Weltchek, who has been in charge of the venerable system supplier since July. "The outlook for next year is good, but there will be a higher ratio of software to service."

Weltchek said that the company believed that its Y2K customers were in good stead. "We don't feel that we've put at risk the Y2K remediation projects. We wouldn't do anything rash," she said.

The new chief executive said that the layoffs weren't targeted at any "one place or product" and acknowledged that even the development of the new Omnex editorial management system (see The Cole Papers, August 1999) was "not untouched." Nonetheless, she said the Omnex project was "trying to fill engineering ranks" to get the product finished and into the market.

Though Weltchek refused to confirm specific employees let go, sources indicate that sales executives Ron Stephens and Frank Scholes -- both longtime fixtures in the industry -- were among those who left the company.

Two weeks after the layoffs, Mark Reyna was appointed vice president of sales for North American operations. Reyna had been director of sales at Applix, a developer of Internet-based customer relationship management and business/customer analytic software products; he has no newspaper systems background.

"Omnex is potentially a multimedia product and we'll have to sell to a different constituency," said Weltchek. "It will be sold at multiple levels and to some degree, it's a corporate decision."

-- dmc

Atex Media Solutions Inc.,
(781) 275-2323,
e-mail: info@atex.com;

Cascade to merge with catalog supplier

Cascade Systems Inc., a company built on the ashes of two leading suppliers to the newspaper industry -- Xenotron and Hyphen -- has signed a letter of intent to merge with Pindar Systems Inc., a division of Pindar plc of London, a privately held graphic arts and digital media company with revenues in excess of £50 million ($US80.6 million). The merger is expected to be completed in January.

Pindar Systems, started in 1994, has been called "the solid leader in the market for comprehensive catalog publishing systems." The company has offices in Chicago and York, United Kingdom and is said to employ 80 people.

Cascade, based in Acton, Mass., was started in 1992 in suburban London by Richard Patterson, an engineer responsible for many innovations in display ad layout technology while at Xenotron and who also pretty much single-handedly developed the PostScript clone market while at Hyphen. In 1994 Patterson's business merged with a U.S. company called Advanced Prepress Systems Inc., which was started in 1992 by another Xenotron-Hyphen refugee, Malcolm McGrory. Later that year Adobe Ventures and venture capitalist Hambrecht & Quist Group invested $1 million. Patterson was forced out of the company in 1996 and early this year McGrory was named vice-chairman of the board and executive vice president, while at the same time the venture capital companies invested an additional $6 million.

Cascade announced in October that it would acquire MidSystem Technology Ltd., a United Kingdom-based supplier of workflow management technology; Cascade had been a leading reseller of MidSystem products. Cascade is now reported to have about 140 employees.

Since both companies are privately held, no financial details of the merger have been made public, except a notation that the transaction was an all-stock deal. Bob Angelo, chief executive of Cascade, is expected to be the head of the new business, which may have a new name as well. Chris Hodges, the former managing director of MidSystem, is expected to be in charge of engineering, while Paul O'Sullivan, the chief executive of Pindar Systems, will likely run the combined sales and marketing operation.

Cascade has been moving away from the newspaper industry over the last few years, focusing on database technologies that can be used in retail environments and in e-commerce. Pindar Systems, a small division in the 1000-person print and graphic arts business, has specialized in catalog production technology. The combined company, it should be assumed, will focus on on-line catalogs.

Pindar's North America customers include Office Depot, W.W. Grainger and VWR Scientific; Cascade's newspaper customers include the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times and the Boston Globe, while its retail customers include Circuit City, Saks Inc. and Ikea.

-- dmc

Cascade Systems Inc.,
(978) 795-7000,
e-mail: info@cascadenet.com,

Pindar Systems Inc.,
(312) 828-0590,
e-mail:us.sales@pindar.com.

Bit bucket ...

"I came from DuPont, where we were trying to put Suns in front of everybody. It was like banging my head against the wall and it felt so good to stop."
-- Former DuPont executive in 1994, who found work elsewhere.

"Think of The Cole Papers as a head-on collision between a journalism review and a computer magazine. If you pick through the wreckage, there will be elements of both in every issue."
-- From the back page of Vol. 1, No. 1, dated Winter 1989.

New media mavens: At TheStreet.com in New York, Jonathan Krim has been named executive editor; most recently, Krim was assistant managing editor of the San Jose Mercury News. Also new at TheStreet.com: David Dietz, longtime San Francisco investigative reporter and editor; previously Dietz was with the Chronicle and served twice as the business editor of the Examiner. ... At the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Debra Alward has been named director of new media; previously she had been assistant to the editor. ... At Times Mirror Interactive of Los Angeles and Baltimore, Ross Settles has been named vice president for new business and product development; previously he had been vice president of marketing for The Sun. Prior to joining The Sun, Settles was publisher at the Open Media Research Institute, a European news and information service. ...

Vendor viability: At AdOne of New York, William Marcum Jr. has been named regional general manager, based in Longview, Wash. Previously, Marcum was with Longview's Daily News, the Daily Tidings of Ashland, Ore., the Albany (Ore.) Democrat-Herald and Washington's Yakima Herald-Republic. ... At Atex Media Solutions Inc. of Bedford, Mass., Jose Quintana has been named senior vice president and chief financial officer; previously Quintana was CFO at Miti, and has worked at EDS and Prime Computer. ... At Baseview Products Inc. of Ann Arbor, Mich., Steve Trombino has been named director of marketing; previously Trombino served as manager of marketing communications at Applied Dynamics International. ... At CNI Corp. of Milford, N.H., Tom Stencavage has been named a senior network engineer. Previously, Stencavage was with United Parcel Service and Systems Integrators. Also at CNI, James Traub has been name a senior systems engineer; in earlier lives, Traub was with Heidelberg USA, Baseview and Atex Media Solutions. Lastly at CNI, Michelle Rose has been named a systems engineer. Rose has 18 years of newspaper experience with the Times Herald in Port Huron, Mich. ... At Edgil Associates Inc. of Chelmsford, Mass., Melanie Goodridge has been named senior sales executive; most recently Goodridge worked at ebix.com. Also at Edgil, Doug Shepherd has been named customer support engineer; previously, Shepherd was a senior client support representative for M&I Data Services. ... At Managing Editor Inc. of Jenkintown, Pa., Alejandro Navarro has been named market development associate for Latin America; previously Navarro was with Dalai Software in Monterrey, Mexico. ... At System Integrators Ltd. of Thatcham, Berkshire, United Kingdom, Chris Kidd has been named country manager. Previously, Kidd was with Turning Point Technologies, Apple UK and Atex. ... At Syntellect Inc. of Phoenix, Anthony Carollo has been named chief executive; he had been Syntellect's interim CEO since May. Carollo has been with Xantel Corp., Fujitsu Business Communication Systems Inc. and Rolm Corp. ... At Tera U.S. Inc. of Bedford, N.H., Tim Kacprowicz has been named managing director. Previously, Kacprowicz was with Konica Graphic Systems, Atex, Gerber Systems and Graphic Enterprises. ... At Tribune Media Services of Chicago, Lora Ottenbacher has been named interactive sales coordinator. Most recently, Ottenbacher was a research associate at TMS and before that was with Ameritech Capital. ...

Confabs: The Graphic Arts Technical Foundation's Color Management Conference, will be Dec. 5-7 in Tampa, Fla. For more information, phone: (412) 741-6860 or send e-mail to info@gatf.org. ... The Kodak DCS Photography Workshop will be Dec. 9-10 at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, N.Y. Douglas Ford Rea will teach the workshop. For more information, send e-mail to dct1020@rit.edu or call (716) 475-7090, Ext. 815. ... Also from RIT, the Adobe Acrobat 4 Workflow Workshop will be Dec. 16-17 in Rochester. Instructors are Frank Romano and Peter Muir. For the scoop, send e-mail to krptpd@
rit.edu or call the number above. ... Macworld Expo is in San Francisco, Jan. 4-8. For more information, call (781) 551-9800. ... CES, the consumer technology show, is Jan. 6-9, in Las Vegas. For more information, call (703) 907-7605. ... The Newspaper Association of America's SuperConference, with sessions in pre-press, post-press, health and safety and press and materials, is Jan. 23-28 in Miami Beach, Fla. For information, call (703) 902-1766 or send e-mail to baldj@naa.org. ... #

From THE COLE PAPERS, December 1999, Copyright © 1999, All Rights Reserved.