SAXOTECH to Deliver Proven Publishing Solution to Canada’s
Largest International Media Organization
Tampa Fla. – February 6 2008 – SAXOTECH announced today that Canwest Canada’s largest international media company has selected the company’s channel-agnostic content and workflow management solution for its publishing operations across its nationwide footprint of media properties. The SAXOTECH Mediaware CenterTM solution will be deployed across Canwest’s News Service online sites 13 daily newspapers including the National Post Calgary Herald Ottawa Citizen and the Vancouver Sun as well as across the company’s community daily and weekly papers.
The SAXOTECH system will enable each news organization to plan and share content with other entities within Canwest in a creative and collaborative production environment.
“The implementation of the SAXOTECH Mediaware Center will aggregate our digital assets; provide efficient tools for publishing to print and digital channels; reduce our total cost of production; provide a platform for new products and cost-saving options and immediately put tangible tools in the hands of our people to ensure the work they do adds value to the content creation process ” said Edward Brouwer chief information officer Canwest.
Technology Solution Confirmed in July 2007 Proof of Concept Pilot
A successful proof of concept pilot was completed in July 2007. As part of the pilot three independent news producing entities and Canwest News Services worked together in a collaborative environment to produce three unique newspaper products for print and digital distribution. The proof of concept utilized a common database to create and share content and to produce localized print and online editions.
SAXOTECH’s Mediaware Center dramatically streamlined the workflow for content production and page creation with output to the regionally unique sites. Content sharing and publishing to multiple channels was attained in a high-performance networked solution.
The installation of this new enterprise content system will extend to everyone involved in the content planning creation editing and production process throughout the entire group. In addition Canwest Editorial Services will use the Mediaware Center to provide page production services which will allow them to optimize the page production process.
Canwest News Service (CNS) a Canwest-owned news agency will use the solution to organize and distribute content – all generated within the same system – for internal and external content syndication.
“We are pleased to be working with Canwest on this transformational project ” said Anders Christiansen chief executive officer SAXOTECH. “They have a clear vision forward with the goal of maintaining editorial independence while leveraging the tacit knowledge of the entire group. Technologies that simplify and improve the process of publishing today and well into the future are crucial to addressing the demands from a constantly changing news audience.”
“Today’s successful media companies recognize it is no longer enough to aggregate and deliver information and entertainment we must also engage in conversations with our audience ” said Brouwer. “We are conversation starters participators and facilitators. We are the gathering place to share stories about the people in the communities in which we live. This focus on two-way interaction on dialogue over monologue on exchange over delivery must be reflected in our internal systems and processes.”
About the SAXOTECH Mediaware Center
The SAXOTECH Mediaware Center is a highly configurable centralized multi-channel solution that will enable Canwest to efficiently produce and share news and information in a streamlined and collaborative environment. Canwest will implement SAXOTECH’s integrated solution for all content creation providing one touch publishing functions for their print and mult-media products allowing Canwest to realize significant efficiencies in the production of editorial products throughout all operations.
About Canwest
Canwest Global Communications Corp. (www.canwest.com) (TSX: CGS and CGS.A ) is Canada s largest international media company. In addition to owning the Global Television Network Canwest is Canada s largest publisher of paid English language daily newspapers and owns operates and/or holds substantial interests in conventional television out-of-home advertising specialty cable channels web sites and radio stations in Canada New Zealand Australia Turkey Indonesia Singapore the United Kingdom and the United States.
About SAXOTECH
SAXOTECH is a software development and systems implementation company founded in 1993 to exclusively serve the media industry. Our scalable easy-to-implement solutions are used to plan create edit and publish news for multiple channels and are backed by world-class customer support. Today SAXOTECH’s software products are used by more than 450 news organizations around the world. For more information on SAXOTECH please visit our Web site at www.saxotech.com.