Quick world tour: Adobe compatible editorial and production systems

Doris32.  What is Doris32?  After spending a good amount of time reviewing in depth several InCopy & InDesign compatible editorial and production systems being sold in the US, I thought I would at least have had it somewhere on the radar.  Doris32 from AnyGraaf (www.anygraaf.com) is from Finland and does, in fact, have a US presence.  I have to admit that finding Doris32 has unnerved me a little.  I had a sense that many editorial and production systems had been developed in Europe, and in fact had studied several of them.  But I never actively tried to get a full picture.  If it took this long to discover Doris32, then what else is out there?  I decided to update my file.

Apparently, every single western European country has a need to produce its own editorial and production system.  But does every country need to produce two publishing systems?   Van Gennep’s PlanSystem3 (www.vangennep.com), distributed in the US by QuadSystems (www.quadsystems.com) and Woodwing’s Smart Connection Enterprise (www.woodwing.com) are only 10 miles away from each other in greater Amsterdam.  Germany has the well known K4 system by Softcare (www.softcare.de), distributed in the US by Managing Editor, Inc. (www.maned.com).  Denmark sports larger newspaper-centric technologies: CCI Europe’s CCI NewsGate (www.ccieurope.com), and SaxoTech’s Saxotech Editorial (www.saxotech.com).  Spain has Xtent by Seinet (www.seinet.es).  The UK has newspaper and media oriented systems, like Prestige by Atex (www.atex.com), and Adapt, by Press Computer Systems (www.presscomputers.com).  Not to be outdone, the UK has a third company, KnowledgeView (www.knowledgeview.com), which has incorporated K4 into RapidBrowser.  Italy has news focused Method by EidosMedia (www.eidosmedia.com). Sweden has Scoop Edit by Scoop (www.scoop.se), which is also sold in the US.  The variety is dazzling.

The US has systems as well, including Modulo Systems’ Concerto (www.modulosystems.com), and new transplant from Australia: Typefi’s Publish (www.typefi.com).  But generally, the US has more established news oriented systems, like Unisys’ Hermes (www.unisys.com), Digital Technology International (DTI)’s PageSpeed and SpeedWriter (www.dtint.com), Harris & Baseview’s Newsjaz (www.harrisbaseview.com), nxEditorial from net-linx (www.nxps.com), and ATS’ MediaDesk (www.atsusa.com).

There are others too, such as Sansui Software, based in India (and also sold in the US), which has a newspaper oriented system called Smartnews (www.sansuisoftware.com).   And there must be more out there.  It is not always easy to find these systems – we’ll just have to keep looking.

This brief survey captures many of the readily identifiable “systems” (or branded system components) and the companies that make them by country of origin – but doesn’t do much other classification.  There are several other integrators and solutions providers that will develop highly customized systems, but they are not listed here.  Of course each system has its own unique features and capabilities, level of product maturity, segment focus, business viability, cost, support capabilities, architectures, integration requirements (from easy-to-deploy to significant development required) and so on.  Some systems include InDesign and InCopy as a small component of a much larger system, as with many of the newspaper systems, while some are built more specifically around InDesign and InCopy.  Some companies have been in the space for decades and some have just released their first system.  The conclusion?  We have no lack of variety. 

Further information on Adobe approved integrators and solutions providers can be found at: http://www.adobe.com/products/incopy/integrated.html