German publishing house GONG Verlag has commissioned SNAP Innovation to move production of their magazines to a production workflow using Adobe Creative Suite and SoftCare’s K4 Publishing System. The contract was signed in December 2004. This installation replaces a workflow built on the Quark Publishing System (QPS) and QuarkXPress.

GONG is one of the biggest German magazine publishing houses, publishing titles ranging from TV channel publications and the market˜s leading animal magazine, to women’s titles, crossword puzzle and novel magazines. Some of the best-known magazines are TV direkt, Gong, BILD + FUNK, die aktuelle, die 2 and EIN HERZ für TIERE. Only recently, three magazines (SUPER TV, nur TV and Aquarium) were licensed by other publishers. All in all, 28 registered titles at the German magazine association are published at GONG.

SNAP Innovation was founded in February 1996 and today employs 20 people. From its start, SNAP Innovation has concentrated its activity on client/server technology and data-processing in the print-media industry. SNAP focuses on the development and sales of client/server database technology, specializing in inter- and intranet systems. Today SNAP works with a number of prominent national and international companies all over Europe and in the United States. SoftCare (Germany), Merlin (Germany), AO International (Belgium), Sinedita (Italy) and Vertical Systems (Sweden) are among them. Together with its partners, SNAP has provided solutions for customers such as Apple Computer, Cisco, Sun Microsystems and ITS Travel. In the publishing area, companies and newspapers such as publishing group Milchstrasse, KircherBurkhardt Berlin, De Lloyd N.V. (Antwerp), Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung, Leipziger Volkszeitung, Schwäbische Zeitung and Kölner Express rely on SNAP solutions.

Implementation of the new system began in January 2005. The assignment comprises the supply and integration of Dataplan’s page planning system JournalDesigner in addition to K4 Publishing System, as well as SNAP e@sypaper for archiving and automatic ePaper production. An interface to the commercial system VM (Verlagsmanager) of muellerPrange GmbH & Co.KG allows GONG Verlag to integrate commercial data with the technical workflow for the first time.

Edwin Örtel, IT manager at GONG Verlag explains the reasons for replacing QPS with K4: “This new solution responds perfectly to our needs concerning modern production. The technology provides a database-driven production with seamless and transparent integration of the entire publishing process from ad management to content syndication. We expect a high level of improvement as the integration of ads, editorial, graphic, repro and content syndication departments leads to significant cost savings. Thanks to the system’s modular composition the changes can take place gradually. The product strategy is clearly communicated by the suppliers and is based on international computing standards while the licensing policy meets publishers˜ needs.”

Since 1999, the K4 Publishing System has been successfully deployed at magazines, newspapers and other sites such as German publishing group Milchstrasse, FOCUS, Playboy, Capital, Time Out New York and Metro Newspapers with more than 60 systems sold.

K4 supports a transparent and secure production workflow for individual workgroups or entire publishing enterprises. K4 offers full support for template-based, text-driven and layout-driven workflows, simultaneous workflow between layout and editorial, workflow routing, status tracking, remote access and much more. K4 provides workflow capabilities for images and ads, as well as for other file types such as word processing or spreadsheet files. One of the hallmarks of K4 is its open SQL interface, enabling other systems such as asset management or automated prepress to be linked to K4 within the enterprise. Articles are stored in XML format and can be easily repurposed for use on the Web. K4 has been successfully implemented at magazine, newspaper and book publishing sites ranging in size from less than 10 to more than 250 users.