TEAMS Becomes Artesia

Venture capital may favor flashy Internet ventures, but a newspaper-company business unit managed to draw one funding firm’s attention.

Private-equity firm Warburg Pincus Ventures provided a $25 million equity commitment to form Artesia Technologies from TEAMS, a business unit of Thomson Corp., parent of Thomson Newspapers. The move had the support of the business unit’s senior management.

A developer of digital-asset management technology, TEAMS recently installed an archiving system at The Washington Post (TechNews, March/April 1999, p. 24). The newly formed Rockville, Md., company plans to create a departmental-level version of its enterprise-wide digital-asset management system, and market products for the corporate, publishing, entertainment and financial sectors.

"The digital-asset management market we have helped to establish has taken off, and we are now positioned to drive its evolution," says Artesia CEO Chris Veator. "With...strong backing from Warburg Pincus Ventures, we plan to leverage our publishing and information-industry experience to take digital-asset management to a much wider audience."

Feeders For Thought Designed to increase the number of feeding stations on an inserting machine without altering its jacket or delivery configuration, Kansa Corp.’s new Multi-Feeder operates at speeds of up to 15,000 cycles per hour. The feeder can handle products ranging in size from 4-by-6 inches to 12-by-16 inches. It accumulates products on top of each other, delivering a single package to the inserter. Kansa, based in Emporia, Kan., says the system can be placed perpendicular to the inserting machine to avoid altering the jacket or delivery stations. A master unit with two feeders can be expanded to up to eight.

1 in 5 Million (dpi, That Is)

You think you have it tough printing an 85-to-100 line screen? Try printing a 1,110 line screen. Commercial printer Faust Printing of Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., managed to squeeze nearly

5 million halftone dots per square inch into this four-color process poster. By means of contrast, the unaided eye stops discerning individual dots at around 300 lines or 360,000 dots per square inch. The poster was a finalist in the Printing Industries of America’s first-ever "They Say It Couldn’t Be Done" awards.

InDesign Arrives Adobe Systems Inc.’s new page-design program finally hit shelves not with a bang or a whimper, but with deep discounts to owners of rival Quark Inc.’s ‘XPress software. As a standalone piece of shrinkwrapped software, the San Jose company’s InDesign retails for $739, or $299 for ‘XPress owners. Users of complementary Adobe products, including Photoshop and PageMaker, also qualify for the discount. A number of newspaper suppliers have already integrated InDesign into their own offerings.

NICC Acquires CNN; Beta Tests

As an NAA Communications Bureau Inc. subsidiary prepares to launch an Internet-based advertising-placement and -processing service, it acquired an existing player in the space.

NAA’s for-profit Newspaper Industry Communications Center has acquired the Complete Newspaper Network. A subsidiary of the California Newspaper Publishers Association, CNN has provided one-order, one-bill service for multiple newspapers since 1992.

CNN has supplied processing services to another NAA affiliate, the national-advertising sales focused Newspaper National Network, since the beginning of the year. Once NICC launches early next year, CNN will serve as its West Coast entry point. In the meantime, it will continue to serve existing clients.

NICC is an Internet transaction system to make multimarket newspaper advertising buys easier for advertisers, agencies and third parties. For more information, visit www.naa.org/nicc.

M. Blake Barker was named NICC’s president and general manager. Group managing director of NTL National Consumer Services, he previously worked for USA Today and Gannett from 1990 to 1997. James King, formerly with Washington Post-Newsweek Business Information, was named vice president of information technology, and Charles Feeney, a founding member of USA Today, was named vice president and controller.

The system has begun beta testing at 14 sites. New York City sites include BBDO, Grey Advertising/ Mediacom and Newspaper National Network.

Elsewhere, participants include The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle; Austin Kelley Advertising in Atlanta; The Boston Globe; Dillard Department Stores in Little Rock; Houston Chronicle; the Manassas (Va.) Journal Messenger;

the News-Press in Fort Myers, Fla.; Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, Harrisburg; The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News; Potomac News, Woodbridge, Va.; and The Tribune, Mesa, Ariz.

Flexo, Web Cuts, Commercial Printing Drive Press Buys Flexography, web-width reductions and commercial-printing accommodations drove early-fall press-installation decisions. The Wichita Eagle announced a $27.6 million project to replace its letterpress/ flexo combination with a new Colormax II flexo press from KBA North America Inc. Web Press Division of York, Pa. The shaftless press will be configured in one line with 10 units, each including five stacked couples to increase web-lead flexibility. The press also includes 14 core-tension reels and three folders. "The shaftless press will increase production speeds by 40 percent, increase color capacity from four to 32 pages daily, and provide significant quality improvements," says Kevin Desmond, vice president of operations. Part of a larger modification of the Eagle’s existing facility, installation will take about 36 months to complete. In order to expand its offsite commercial and newspaper-printing capacity, The Denver Post ordered a 32-unit Mercury press from Heidelberg Web Systems Inc. of Dover, N.H. It will be used to print the national edition of The New York Times and for other commercial work in a new facility to be completed early next year. The 45,000 copy-per-hour press will be configured with eight four-high towers and a Tele-Color II remote ink-key control system/pre-press gateway. It will include two JF-35 combination folders, as well as a press-control system featuring modem-based diagnostics allowing the press to communicate directly with Heidelberg technicians. Frank Dixon, the paper’s vice president of operations, cited "the flexibility we needed in terms of dual commercial and newspaper capabilities." Goss Graphic Systems of Westmont, Ill., announced contracts with The Boston Globe and Investor’s Business Daily. The Globe will reduce its web width to 50 inches on seven of its eight Goss Metroliner and MetroColor presses, including four at its Morrissey Boulevard plant and three at its Billerica, Mass., facility. The move marks the 15th newspaper web-width conversion shepherded by Goss. Los Angeles-based IBD ordered a five-unit addition for its 13-unit Goss Urbanite press to increase color-advertising capacity. The addition will include a new two-unit stacked Urbanite arrangement at one end of the press line and three new single units to be stacked at the other. The upgraded press will include 18 Urbanite units, arranged in a two-high configuration, and a folder. IBD also recently entered a six-year agreement with the Dayton Daily News to print a regional edition at the Ohio paper’s new Print Technology Center.

TechNews Volume 5, Number 6: November/December 1999

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