New Contenders in the Editorial Systems Market - Impressed

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Also on the sales front, Pongrass announced an OEM agreement with Icanon Associates of Hatfield, Pa., allowing Icanon to integrate Pongrass’s editorial and advertising products with its own Newzware Business Software suite for newspapers. Icanon will market the Pongrass products under the Newzware brand. Icanon’s first sale was of an advertising system to the Sun Chronicle in Attleboro, Mass. Baseview revamps architecture around SQL. Harris and Baseview unveiled a new Editorial Server for the Baseview IQue system that will enable it to address the needs of larger newspapers. It is built on an SQL database (initially open-source MySQL, but later supporting Oracle and MS SQL) running under Windows or Mac OS X. Baseview has been using Faircom’s C-Tree database technology with IQue version 3. The new Version 4 employs a three-tier architecture comprising a database server, a JBoss application server and clients. The business logic has been abstracted into the application server. Administrative components for the database and application server are written in Java to run under Windows and Mac OS X, as well as various other versions of Unix. The company said it has been “making great use of the open-source software community in the last two years.” The new IQue system supports multiple publications and multiple platforms within the same newsroom. Both Xpress and InDesign can be used for pagination, integrated with Baseview’s own NewsEdit- Pro IQue editing program (we understand that Copy- Desk and InCopy will be supported at a future time). Administrators can log in to configure the server from remote Windows or Macintosh computers. The search engine the system employs supports proximity searches and wildcards. A hot-backup option uses two IQue Editorial Servers to write data concurrently to both servers. If the main server fails, the backup server automatically takes control. Magazine customer for Hermes. Unisys has upgraded the system at the Santa Rosa (Calif.) Press Democrat to Hermes 10, Release Edition 1, where it will produce a slick, perfect-bound wine magazine, making it the first U.S. magazine customer for Unisys. One interesting sidelight is that the magazine is produced using InDesign composition, while the daily newspaper uses Hermes composition. Unisys keeps adding to the Hermes feature set. A new item at Nexpo was an extension to News Gathering Manager that enables wire-service content and email text and attachments to be searched for specific content, which can then be placed automatically in InCopy files or on InDesign pages. In addition, text elements entering the system can be formatted on the fly using the Hermes Text Processor. Functions that can be performed include the transformation of data, such as to expand abbreviations or swap the order of items, which can be useful in producing sports data, where local teams or players can be brought to greater prominence. Tansa upgrades proofing tool, opens U.S. office. Tansa, the Norwegian developer of an innovative proofing and hyphenation system, announced the release of a major upgrade to its product and the opening of an office in the U.S., reflecting the company’s view that the U.S. market is ready for its technology. As before, it proofreads phrases rather than single words, so it can check not only the spelling, but also the usage of words and the style of writing. In so doing, it checks documents against multiple dictionaries and sets of style rules customized specifically for a customer’s organization. The new version, called Tansa System 3, has been completely rewritten to provide better performance, the ability to scale to larger configurations and additional user benefits. To better communicate between clients and servers, including over greater distances, System 3 is based on XML and Web Services. A new SDK (software developers toolkit) provides a new way of dealing with clients, making it possible to work with nearly any system. Among the new developments is support for InDesign and InCopy for its proofing system (in addition to Word, CopyDesk and Xpress). The new version also opens the way for new future options, such as the ability to support plug-ins for additional services. Among the user benefits are a new client interface with adjustable windows, page dividers and new shortcut keys. For the administrator, an improved tool enhances language support and offers an easier means of adding corrections and new words to custom dictionaries. Tansa said it has about 200 customers totaling Editorial Systems Tansa System 3 for Word. In proofreading this Word document, Tansa found 17 errors, some of which were ordinary spelling mistakes and others used the multiple-word function to identify problems. In the highlighted entry, although “Madelein” is one possible spelling of this name, when used with “K. Albright” the spelling needs to be “Madeleine.” Volume 4, Number 13 • The Seybold Report • Analyzing Publishing Technologies 21
Editorial Systems about 6,000 seats worldwide, configured with systems from CCI, Scoop, Enator and others. In the U.S., where Tansa has reseller agreements with AMC (Atex), Saxotech and Unisys, it has six customers (all using Saxotech systems). Its new U.S. office is in Lakewood Ranch, Fla. The director of operations is Robert Laszlo, formerly with Saxotech. Conclusion: Editorial System Market in Transition For most of the history of electronic magazine production, shopping for an editorial system hasn’t involved very many choices. The market has been dominated by two dynasties. First there was Atex, which parlayed its early work with U.S. News & World Report into a booming business serving more than 700 customers producing an impressive array of magazine titles, as well as newspapers. But when Atex failed to adapt to desktop technology in the 1980s, its empire started to crumble as customers wanting new technology slowly drifted elsewhere. (Atex reports that 10 of the old J-11 systems are still in use.) As Atex’s market slipped away, there were many alternatives for newspaper customers, but there weren’t many suppliers targeting magazines, which opened the way for Quark to extend its line from the single-user Xpress product to the multiterminal Quark Publishing System. Quark, which offered the attraction of a status-based workflow feeding the familiar Xpress pagination engine, built up its own dynasty that rivaled For most of the history of electronic magazine production, shopping for an editorial system hasn’t involved very many choices. Atex’s in number of systems in use. Twelve years after the launch of the Quark system (renamed QPS Classic), the industry appears ready for another transition. Not unlike Atex, Quark has jeopardized its position by relying far too long on old technology. In fact, the “new” QPS Classic 3 still looks a lot like earlier QPS systems with its proprietary database, its lack of a browser interface for reporters and other personnel, and its inability to communicate data easily with the outside world. Quark has an answer to most of the shortcomings of QPS Classic in its “upgrade” system, QPS Enterprise, which is based on newer technology but has a price tag to match its Enterprise label. So far, very few customers have chosen to upgrade QPS Classic systems to the Enterprise level. (Quark declines to disclose the number of Enterprise customers it has.) Why can’t Quark update its architecture with a “new-generation” QPS Classic to compete with the new breed of systems of today? Maybe it can. And maybe it is already doing so. At least, Quark reportedly has another alternative on the drawing board, the QPS Plus midlevel system mentioned two years ago as part of the company’s overall strategy. However, until Quark discloses a launch schedule and the system’s specifications, the industry will remain skeptical. As one integrator told us, “Quark has been spinning this for two years now… They could build it, but who would buy it?… And it would severely undercut their new flagship product, QPS Enterprise, so why would they bother?” Meanwhile, time is being lost now that Modulo, Woodwing and others have attractive products to offer to QPS owners desperate for an upgrade, as well as to other customers. InDesign: the other issue. Although QPS Classic’s outdated architecture has presented companies such as Modulo, Softcare, Van Gennep, Baseview and Woodwing with great opportunities, there is another issue facing Quark: the fact that nearly every multiuser system marketed for magazine or newspaper use offers InCopy and InDesign either as the only choice or as an alternative to CopyDesk and Xpress. Since it’s difficult to imagine Quark supporting InDesign, Quark faces the unenviable task of trying to convince its customers that all they need are CopyDesk and Xpress. Who will have the next dynasty? With new systems on the market and being put into production use, and with additional suppliers eagerly eyeing the QPS upgrade market, will any of these modern systems gain the upper hand and build the next dynasty? Or will a few suppliers divide the market in much the way that the newspaper market has been split among myriad suppliers? It’s too soon to make a prediction, but Modulo and Woodwing have brought new options to the market, with important strengths. Modulo has some key advantages, including its long experience with the QPS base, which provides a good entrée for reaching new prospects, and its ability to offer QPS customers the choice of Xpress or InDesign, which allows them to start with a Quark system and ease into InDesign later. Modulo also has its deal with Quasar for interactive remote composition, among other capabilities, which hasn’t been demonstrated publicly yet but might turn out to be significant. Woodwing, which has already recouped much of its development costs through sales of Smart Connection Light and Pro systems, has a huge price advantage and an architecture that supports an ease of customization that will appeal to certain customers. Woodwing also has a unique system for remote composition using actual InDesign files. Also to its advantage is its long experience working with Adobe software. The accompanying table shows the key features of these new systems as well as other competitors in the magazine market. 22 October 6, 2004 • The Seybold Report • Analyzing Publishing Technologies
Page 1 and 2: Editorial Systems New Contenders in
Page 3 and 4: Editorial Systems Browser client fo
Page 5 and 6: Editorial Systems Article property
Page 7 and 8: Editorial Systems Smart Connection
Page 9 and 10: Editorial Systems Database-Driven S
Page 11 and 12: Editorial Systems NxEditorial’s X
Page 13 and 14: Editorial Systems 3 views of an art
Page 15: Editorial Systems InDesign and Xpre

New Contenders in the Editorial Systems Market - Impressed

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?