About a year ago, Extensis took over Font Reserve and promised the world the best features from Font Reserve would be integrated with the best of Suitcase X. Yet, a quick look at their web site reveals Suitcase and Font Reserve still live side-by-side. So, we asked Extensis about their plans and about their views on font management.

Extensis’ Martin Stein answered most of our questions. An expert in font management, Stein brings more than 10 years of international experience in product management and business development to Extensis. Prior to his hire at Extensis, he served as the Business Development Manager for Apple where he was responsible for channel development, major accounts and third-party contacts for the Design and Print market in Germany and Austria. He also received considerable experience in the publishing industry from his role as Editor-in-Chief of MACup and Creative Live magazines.  As such, Stein was responsible for all aspects of the MACup and Creative Live product lines and was instrumental in the implementation of new business development opportunities and strategic third-party relationships.

Stein’s most recent product management position was with Quark Germany where he was responsible for the QuarkDMS Ad Production product line. In his position at Quark, Stein researched the worldwide publishing and vertical markets for a five-year business plan on which he based Quark’s product roadmap. Stein currently serves as a senior product manager with Extensis, where he oversees the development of the company’s font management products - Suitcase and Font Reserve.

IT-Enquirer: When you took over Font Reserve, you said Suitcase and FR would merge in a sort of super font manager. What has become of those plans? Will you be releasing a super Suitcase shortly? If so, how will it look like, which new features will be in there?

Extensis: Actually, what we said was that we would integrate the best of the Suitcase and Font Reserve technologies into a single integrated font management product. That plan is currently being implemented. Specifically, we have completed a significant architectural review of both products, and decided on the overall architectural plan for the integrated product.

Development is underway. Without going in to details, the product will have the ease of use of the Suitcase product, while supporting the deeper technology provided by the Font Reserve product. It is too early at this time for us to discuss any release dates for the integrated products. In the meantime, we have two great font management solutions that we continue to be excited about, and we will continue to market and support both of these products.

IT-Enquirer: Which features in Suitcase are the most important for print publishers?

Extensis: We talk to a lot of print publishers and always get the feedback that they like Suitcase for a variety of reasons. Of course, everybody likes the instant font previews—yet there is much more. Print publishers must make sure that they are using the right fonts all the time, and ensure that the right fonts are always available in publishing applications such as QuarkXPress, Adobe InDesign and Illustrator. The plug-ins we deliver, with Suitcase, guarantee that Suitcase always activates the right fonts. With Suitcase, print publishers do not have to worry about using wrong fonts—especially when it comes to fonts with the same name.

Print publishers typically manage huge font libraries with thousands of fonts, as well as numerous customer-specific fonts. Suitcase makes it much easier to manage huge font libraries. Publishers like that they can group fonts according to font style, customer, or project, and just activate the fonts they need for their current job or project. This saves a lot of system resources and ensures that their computers continue to be fast and stable.

Suitcase also provides a great solution to the System Font problem.  Publishers are now able to override system fonts, such as the dFont based Helvetica in Mac OS X, with a more appropriate font format, such as PostScript.

Finally, print publishers like the new keyword feature we introduced with Suitcase X1. This feature helps them categorize their fonts according to their workflow needs.

IT-Enquirer: In Panther there is Font Book which will somewhat improve in Tiger. Do you think it can replace font managers like Suitcase?

Extensis: The FontBook version that Apple ships with Mac OS X Panther is a font manager for every day use. It does not replace a professional solution like Font Reserve or Suitcase. Many features, including server-based font management, font license management, font validation, font classifications, styles and keywords, auto-activation, managing system fonts and duplicate fonts, as well as the ability to manage very large libraries of fonts, are just a few of the reasons that set professional font management solutions apart.