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Coyote love: Net-Linx InSiight has Adobe InCopy set to look like an old-style VDT; the frames on the left show several resources like a world clock and a dictionary. |
Waltzing with elephants:
new products stoke net-linx
LAS VEGAS -- Ron Stephens is stoked.
"We have the products, but the customers haven't moved over yet," said Stephens, the vice president of sales at net-linx Publishing Solutions. "We're at the end of our development process and ready to implement."
Nonetheless, he acknowledged his preparedness to be patient: "Working with newspapers is like waltzing with elephants: you may get to dance, but you rarely get to lead."
The Bakersfield Californian, which signed for nxAdvertising V3 and CRM and AdCommerce New Media Extensions last October, was the first site to commit to the new approach.
The new architecture is based on Sun's server-side J2EE (Java Enterprise Edition, second release) platform, which uses open source software (including Sun's Open Office, which can be downloaded for free from the Sun web site) and runs on both Macintoshes and Windows, offers multiple database support, scalability, reliability, and perhaps most importantly, legacy data integration.
Another advantage of J2EE is that it can represent savings in IT support since there will be a bigger pool of qualified techs to draw from.
One big idea behind the J2EE solution is the replacement of the 20-year old client/server architectural model with component-based architecture. J2EE also implements one of the things which always made predecessor company System Integrators Inc. such a hit -- the notion of non-stop servers as a platform choice.
And it provides competitive add-ons instead of forcing replacement of existing systems since it is designed "to offer communication and processing services to any external application domain, either legacy, current or future."
J2EE also provides the opportunity to choose "best-of-breed" products, since the platform has been adopted by leading software and hardware developers including IBM, HP and Oracle. In the new architecture, clients are browser-based; for example, ad sales folks can take ads on their PDAs out in the field. Sacramento's net-linx says it's the only company offering newspapers a total J2EE environment and "other companies are only doing components," said Stephens. "That puts net-linx two to three years ahead."
The first really new product the company has offered in the brief time since it has gathered the former SII, CompuText and CText products under one umbrella is the J2EE-based nxEdge, billed as "an advanced graphics creation and workflow management system designed to efficiently create a wide variety of display advertising."
NxEdge integrates with Adobe's InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop as well as Quark XPress and other design software. Supervisors get real-time reporting and the ability to assign jobs, as well as a window into current job status, ad history and current work load for each member of the production staff.
The latter function allows supervisors to easily reassign work to keep the workload balanced throughout the production cycle. NxEdge also includes easy retrieval, viewing, checking and accept-or-reject for completed ads by reviewers. The product also provides a graphics library for logos and other graphic components which can be cataloged and indexed to speed up ad design and creation.
Net-linx has also designed an "embracement strategy" for its current System/77 customers, which allows newspapers to choose to upgrade to NonStop Himalaya servers, as well as adding InDesign or Quark XPress pagination, adding dynamic web publishing, adding digital asset management to the workflow, replacing Lasr, adding assignment management, Windows-based graphic workflow, and introducing EPS Color Composite graphic workflow.
Some of this thinking is reflected in other product notes from the booth: both nxAdvertising and nxInsiight (editorial content management) are XML-based now. NxAdvertising features some special tools like PersonalShopper, myInbox, myClasssified and AdContact to facilitate interactions between your advertisers and consumers, each of which produces a fee for your newspaper.
Flexibility was the key word on the editorial side (products combine with off-the-shelf software from Adobe, Microsoft, Woodwing and Quark), where (Lotus Domino-based, browser-enabled) NxNews can be coupled with Insiight or with a third-party pagination and/or Internet publishing channel -- even digital TV; it also includes its own version of one of this year's most demonstrated features, an editorial agenda manager, nxAgenda for planning "news diaries."
NxFusion can provide a web channel for virtually any editorial system, including nxNews and System/77. NxMediaStore (the net-linx relational-database archive solution) supports all major image formats, performs free text searching using a combination of file and index contents and generating thumbnail and web-ready versions of files to enhance web production.
Net-linx currently has 130 folks in the newspaper division and 40 are full-time support people with expertise in SII (which represents the largest portion of the customer base), CText and CompuText products. But cross-training is also underway to provide greater depth of coverage, said Stephens. "We're continuing to support old products now," said Stephens, "but developing the new products which are important for the industry."
-- L. Carol Christopher, e-mail: lcc@colepapers.net
Net-Linx Publishing Solutions,
(916) 830-2400,
e-mail: info@net-linx.com.
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