Report Analyses Quark Publishing System 7, Smart Connection Enterprise, and K4
IT-Enquirer just released the results of an in-depth report comparing the three most important editorial workflow and management systems —QPS 7, Smart Connection Enterprise, and Softcare K4 — focusing in particular on productivity, ease-of-use, ease-of-management, and efficiency. The aim of the report was to ascertain how the three systems compare in different editorial environments, and how easily they integrate with third-party solutions.
The report is available as a free PDF download to Subscribers. Registration is free.
The report finds that the open source based Smart Connection Enterprise has superior integration with Adobe InDesign and Adobe InCopy, thus enabling users to learn the system with virtually no training. It finds that K4 is relatively similar in nature to Smart Connection Enterprise, although it is more difficult to set up and manage, and is built on a proprietary database.
Canto Cumulus Integrates with Quark Publishing System 7
Canto and Quark announced an integration between the Canto Cumulus digital asset management system and the newly announced Quark Publishing System (QPS) 7.
New capabilities for QPS 7 work groups include XMP and IPTC legacy and core metadata searching to find any image, text element or other asset. In addition, the full text contents of documents created in QuarkXPress, QuarkCopyDesk or even Microsoft Word are now searchable. Combined, these features make it easier than ever for QPS 7 users to find any file the moment they need it.
QPS 7 Already Supported by Quark Partners
“QPS 7 represents a huge step forward and will be extremely well received by our customers as it now supports both QuarkXPress 7, QuarkCopyDesk 7 and contains a powerful new web editor,” said Max Lyth, technical director at UK system integrator, Automatrix, who have been supplying and integrating QPS solutions for the past decade.
“The new and enhanced features of QPS 7 will enable customers to benefit from greater collaboration even within diverse or extended workgroups. As QPS 7 is based on an open standards-based architecture, it is now easier for systems integrators and other software developers, to integrate and connect seamlessly with existing business systems and complimentary publishing solutions.”
Quark Publishing System 7
Quark announced the release of Quark Publishing System 7, its next generation collaborative workflow system. QPS 7 debuts to set a new standard in collaborative workflow systems, leveraging 15 years of workgroup publishing experience. This release introduces a host of new and enhanced features aimed at streamlining editorial and creative workflow processes while improving production. QPS 7 has been completely re-engineered using proven open standards such as a true Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) based on the Spring Framework Java/J2EE, making it one of the most advanced publishing systems available today for newspapers, magazines and corporate publishers.
“QPS 7 is an evolution not to say a revolution because it is what we have anticipated for some time. We finally have the opportunity of integrating Quark Publishing System 7 with the other existing systems via its open architecture. For Groupe Express-Expansion, it is extremely beneficial from both a technical and functional perspective.” said Thierry Berard, IT Manager Groupe Express-Expansion (Paris, France).
WoodWing Software introduced Smart Newspapers
At IfraExpo 2007 in Vienna, Austria, WoodWing Software has introduced Smart Newspapers — an integrated solution for the newspaper industry that utilizes state-of-the-art convergence technology. Smart Newspapers embodies WoodWing’s vision for the future of news publishing, offering tools to create a “blended media” experience.
“We’re calling this concept ‘blended media’, because newspapers today can’t just rely on the printed page to tell their story,” said Erik Schut, President of WoodWing Software. “They have to use all forms of media — print, Web, video and audio — to reach their audience. This goes much further than XML export-based cross-media publishing, which it has done for the last few years. With blended media, each medium is contributing to the complete experience, allowing people to move back and forth between these media in a completely natural way. Smart Newspapers will provide the tools to make this blended media concept a reality.”
Cumulus Integration with Adobe CS3
Canto will demonstrate its Cumulus CS Companion product for the first time at Apple Expo today in the booth of Canto partner Idea7. Cumulus CS Companion is poised to substantially increase work group productivity by enabling users of Adobe Creative Suite 3 applications to take advantage of the asset search and management power of the Cumulus digital asset management system, without ever leaving their Adobe Creative Suite 3 applications.
Alwan Color Expertise partners with Gradual Software
Alwan Color Expertise, world leader in standardization and implementation of colour management, announces a partnership with Gradual Software to integrate Alwan’s preflighting, standardization and CMYK Optimizer colour technology within the SWITCH product line from Gradual. The agreement offers users a combined technical solution that delivers advanced automation and file optimization.
Creative Manager Pro 8.4.4 Optimized For Apple’s iPhone, iPod Touch And Ready For Leopard
As a web-based product, Creative Manager Pro’s Ad Agency software was had little to change to have it work with the iPhone and iPod Touch. As the lightest computers running the Mac OS, the iPhone and iPod Touch are the perfect tools for the Ad Agency manager who needs to check on the work of the team. By using the integrated Safari browser of the iPhone and iPod Touch, clients of Creative Manager Pro can easily review the status of projects and contact clients on the go. Designers and other staff can also enter timesheets anywhere they can get use the iPhone and iPod Touch.
As always with Creative Manager Inc.’s products, no installation or conversion are necessary, and all updates are at no cost to users of Creative Project Manager and Creative Manager Pro. All client logins and vendor logins are always free.
At IFRA Adobe Faces Some Stiff Competition From Quark
October is IFRA month. On October 8, all important players in the media industry will be present in Vienna. Desktop publishing and graphic design industry suppliers and service providers will do their best to convince the audience of the superiority of their products and services. This year, IFRA made me think about the evolution in publishing, how it has all grown to become cross-media and open, how integration between applications and workgroup collaboration are now the buzzwords, and how two of the industry giants will soon be fighting over the customer’s attention.
I couldn’t help think about the way Adobe has evolved and how Quark is re-inventing itself. Oh, and how so many names have disappeared: Macromedia, Aldus, ALAP… In short, I was thinking about how the industry changed into what it is today.
Gradual Software releases major upgrade to entire SWITCH product line
By: Erik Vlietinck
August 31, 2007
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Gradual Software released SWITCH 07, a major upgrade to the complete SWITCH product line (the entry-level LightSWITCH, mainstream FullSWITCH and advanced PowerSWITCH). The upgrade features substantial user experience improvements, extends built-in automation capabilities and provides support for automating many additional third-party vendor applications. SWITCH 07 is a payable upgrade for existing customers.
“The SWITCH products have been installed in hundreds of companies over the last year,” says Peter Camps, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Gradual Software. “Our users provided us with valuable feedback on their additional requirements and we’re very pleased to provide an answer for them with SWITCH 07.” The SWITCH 07 product family is available immediately and a fully-functional evaluation version can be downloaded from the Gradual website at http://www.gradual.com.
SWITCH’s existing success is based on its ability to easily build new flows and tweak existing ones. SWITCH 07 takes a technical leap forward by making it even easier to build and maintain flows. New improvements include better ways to organize and identify flows, the ability to lock flows down to protect them from tampering, and user interface enhancements throughout SWITCH designer.
Crossroads: a cross-vendor communication platform for publishing automation
By: Erik Vlietinck
August 31, 2007
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Gradual Software, a European specialist in publishing automation solutions, announced the launch of Crossroads. Based on the SWITCH automation technology, Crossroads is a communication platform that draws together a large ecosystem of software vendors offering automation products for publishing workflows.
The objective of Crossroads is to present users with solid information on solutions that combine products from various vendors, in cooperation with those vendors and with the user community at large. Crossroads will take a concrete presence in a variety of ways, such as a web site and a user forum, and it will also be present at selected trade shows and industry events.
Creative Manager Pro 8.5 Adds Support For Leopard
By: Erik Vlietinck
August 29, 2007
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Creative Manager Inc. (http://www.Creative-Manager.com), provider of Creative Manager Pro software, has announced version 8.5 of its flagship product, Creative Manager Pro, to be released in early October.
Creative Manager Pro’s complete set of financial reports are being completely rebuilt. many of the new features have been rebuilt in Flash, giving the financial system improvements in speed unattainable otherwise.
“We’re close to our clients - we understand their business and we feel their pain,” boasts Ron Ause, Creative Manager’s director of marketing. “When our right-brained creative friends tell us that they need better left-brain tools to manage their business, We Listen! When our clients say that they need something, we’re there!”
Some highlights of the new release include:
- Every report will be viewed on screen with options to send the report to Excel format or to PDF format.
- Like its smaller single-user cousins, Creative Manager Pro will enable the user to drill down from every number in the financials to the transaction list below it, with a further drill down to the actual transaction (PO, Vendor invoice, client invoice ,etc.) This is no small feat for enterprise level software.
- Complete support for multi-company and multi project financial statement formats is being added.
- The ability to cut financial reports by company, office, department, AE, Project, etc. will be greatly simplified.
- Allocation of overhead (by hours, by billings, and by labor costs) will be expanded to include new options.
- User definable financial reporting columns.
- Flash based company financial budgets by client, department, and company wide.
As always with Creative Manager Inc.’s products, no installation or conversion are necessary, and all updates are at no cost to users of Creative Project Manager and Creative Manager Pro. All client logins and vendor logins are always free. Further details of this month’s update may be found at http://Creative-Manager.com/PressRls_070612a.asp
“Understanding and living life in a creative business is not as simple as it seems. Yet most programmers think that they can simply do some research and offer a program for sale. As simple as it sounds, listening to our clients is what we do best,” said Ause.
Creative Manager Pro continues to invest, adding new features that work with Apple’s latest Tiger Mac OS X and future Leopard Unix-based Operating System and Microsoft Windows.
When asked about the new upgrade, Ause said, “Our Auto-Updater allows us to deploy updates to our hosted sites, and even to our clients’ servers at any time. Have you ever had a software issue that took only a couple of hours to fix? This attention to detail, and the fact that our competitors take months (even years!) to get to their list, has caught the attention of industry, and has helped us grow through word-of-mouth. Like last month’s update, this update is also based on user input. Because ‘We’re Always Listening!’” Ause said.
