Gert Says

a rather irreverent discusssion

 

Seybold San Francisco 2003

It was a quieter time this year but not an empty one. In fact I was able to spend some great in depth time with people explaining very sophisticated programs. The people from MediaLive, the group running Seybold, were emphasizing the seminar part of the conference name this year and I think they succeeded. There weren't any knock your socks off displays, but some good hard thinking.

What I especially appreciated was the coming together of the various components that we have been discussing here. Even if there were not mergers, there was good partnering which only reinforced each other's products quite effectively.

For example Epson's new flat bed scanner Expression is now being bundled with two software products, Silverfast's scanner software and Monaco's color management software. Coupled with the scanner display was a Monaco booth where you could go learn exactly what that software bundle was doing. Actually the Monaco people gave the clearest explanation of what is color management that I have heard. Being bundled with the scanner and of course your epson printer you can calibrate your input, display and output really, I mean really , simply. You would hardly even know your were doing "COLOR MANAGEMENT".

eMotion, a DAM, is teaming up with equilibrium to use their Mediarich server as part of their DAM delivery. There were several DAMs and Content Management software products that I have begun to offer image servers as part of their program. Many are using Adobe's graphic server. Basically the image server allows a conventional information manager to quickly display an image an to deliver it in any desired format and size.

The other interesting trend was greater attention to the user interface. eMotions was using natural language and allowing you to develop a thesaurus of similar terms. They were clearly conscious that their users were no longer the information managers of a company, but rather the entire company. They needed to become part of the workflow. Artesia too reflected this approach. They are using drag and drop, including into desktop publishing documents. Documentum is also joining the workflow march with their AIS program. It allows you to "save to" the AIS, just like you would save it to your folder. The mere process of saving enters your file into the system. At saving you can add meta data, Very clean, but the interface is not as "comfortable" as Artesia's.

Interestingly, however , while they are "borrowing" from the image managers approach to workflow, both still maintain the protection of a good database. With Artesia, you will always download a copy of a file, never the original and save a new version. In Documentum you can "check out" an original file and no one else can work on it until you check it back in.

Two new products. Well one is rather old, just not promoted. Canvas 9 which ACDSystems has now acquired, is incredible. It does everything. It lists a features comparison that required five tables: Production tools Illustration & Precision Drawing Text & Typography Web Production Image editing The other product was a Web based DAM that includes Adobes Graphics Server. It is called Image Portal 2.5 by Netxposure. As a web based DAM, your users can access your collection through a web browser. With the Graphic Server they can also modify and download a copy of the image in format and size that they require. They provide a hosted version for those who don't want to make the total investment.

At Seybold there were some new product announcements. QuarkXPress 6 has a content manager component which allowed for improved collaboration ( another hot buzz word). In trying to steal PDF thunder, it allows you comment on a file and pass it on.

There was also an interesting discussion on copyright and protection between Dean Marks, Warner Bros.,; Joe Kraus, DigitalComsumer.org; and Tim O'Reilly, O'Reilly Publishing. Most of the discussion was about the music industry and software, which was not exactly on target, but interesting. Brewster Kahle, Internet Archive and Nolan Bushnell, uWink INk closed the session with a talk on the Future of Innovation. Nolan Bushnell, who has lived it all, was fascinating, but Brewster version of the future applies much more to us and I will write more about it, For now I will end with the Internet Archives' motto " Universal Access to all human knowledge."

10/15/03

 

 
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