New Contenders in the Editorial Systems Market - Impressed

For customers not needing a database-driven system
— that is, workgroups of a few users such as those that
produce most small magazines — there are some good
alternatives on the market now that weren’t there a few
years ago, when QPS was growing rapidly. These systems
— including Adobe’s Creative Suite Bridge products,
Managing Editor’s TruEdit and Woodwing’s Light
and Pro — aren’t within the scope of this article, but
they could be a factor in sales of systems to small users.
In addition, a few suppliers of newspaper systems
have taken aim at this market. They remain logical
competitors since it is probably easier for a newspaper
system to adapt to magazine production than vice
versa. One example is AMC (Atex Media Command),
which is now installing its Prestige editorial system for
magazine production. Among the AMC customers are
IPC (Europe’s largest magazine publisher), Reed Business
Publications, BBC Publications and Metropress,
in London, and VVA Kommunikation GmbH of Germany,
which will use it for cross-media publishing.
Baseview has had success at smaller magazines,
and Unisys has begun marketing its Hermes system to
large magazines.
Other newspapers move to keep pace. We’ve focused our
concluding comments so far on the QPS market, but
that doesn’t mean it is the only area of activity among
editorial systems. In fact, earlier in this article, we covered
some important developments in the newspaper
market, with a common theme of veteran companies
striving to keep pace with changing technology and
markets.
The most striking of those was the decision by Netlinx
to remake its editorial line after struggling — with
little success — to build a product line around its
CText and SII origins. The new editorial approach is
based on technology acquired from Seinet of Spain,
which already provides good support for XML and
Web publishing, as well as most of the other ingredients
needed in today’s market. Net-linx plans to take
the Seinet technology well beyond its current level.
Also seeking existing technology to bolster its
product line was Wilkenson Scoop, which abandoned
its own Web publishing program in favor of the Bombus
Headline system, which it is integrating with the
Scoop print capabilities to produce a sounder allaround
product.
Other companies whose news centered on enhancing
technical areas to enable advantages in the future
include Baseview, which has switched to a three-tiered
architecture with an SQL database for its IQue version
4 system; APT, which is rebuilding its Falcon editorial
system in line with modern architecture to streamline
future development efforts; Pongrass, which has
rewritten part of its code to make it easier to accommodate
future versions of third-party software; and
Unisys, which is in the late stages of its architectural
change and is building at the application level.
The bottom line. Where will Quark figure in the future?
Because Quark has been so tight-lipped about its strategy
the past couple of years, it’s impossible to know
what may be jujust around the corner. The company
certainly has plenty of resources to put behind new
developments (for more on Quark’s plans, see The
Seybold Report, Vol. 4, No. 3).
However, one thing appears certain: The era of
Quark’s domination is over, both in the QPS editorial
system market and the Xpress pagination market.
From here on, Quark will have to fight for whatever
market share it can get. Adobe has assured that in pagination,
and companies such as Modulo and Woodwing
(as well as Softcare and Van Gennep) are doing
the same with editorial systems. TSR
Editorial Systems
Adobe Systems
ph: (408) 536-6000
www.adobe.com
Agile Enterprise
ph: (603) 880-6440
www.agileenterprise.com
Atex Media Command
(AMC)
ph: (813) 739-1700
www.atex.com
Harris & Baseview
ph: (734) 662-5800
www.harrisbaseview.com
Managing Editor Inc. (MEI)
ph: (215) 886-5662
www.maned.com
Modulo Systems
ph; (617) 234-4414
www.modulosystems.com
Quark
ph: (303) 894-8888
www.quark.com
SoftCare
ph: (49-0) 4055-69500
www.k4publishingsystem.
com
Unisys Global Media
ph: (800) 874-8647 x678
www.unisys.com
Van Gennep
ph: (31-20) 679-6029
www.vangennep.com
WoodWing Sofware
ph: (31-75) 6143-400
www.woodwing.com
Volume 4, Number 13 • The Seybold Report • Analyzing Publishing Technologies 23