Newsweek swaps Atex for Agile

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, June 1, 1996 by Jennifer Sucov

Being technologically au courant is arguably the most important factor in today's publishing environment. But to reap the benefits of new editorial, layout, prepress and printing technologies, publishers have to weigh the rewards against the risks inherent in being the first to invest in and adopt new systems. The changes occurring at Newsweek--where outdated Atex systems are being replaced with a new PC-based workgroup solution--reveal an organization that is simultaneously one of the last to give up an old technology, and the first to adopt a new one.

After a 20-year relationship with Atex, Newsweek is finally joining the desktop publishing revolution. While others, like rival Time, made the leap a few years back, Newsweek held on to the green-screened copyfitting system and fought the migration to the desktop.

The system's proprietary software and hardware became expensive to maintain, and production was ineffficient, according to Angelo Rivello, senior vice president, manufacturing and worldwide distribution. With the old workflow, layouts were created in QuarkXPress, but editors and reporters still used Atex machines to generate copy to fit. In effect, layouts were duplicated, creating twice the work. The prepress segment of the workflow was equally redundant: An additional black plate of Atex-generated text was output separately from the Quark file.

Three years ago, Rivello and his team (Joe Stiner, director, editorial systems, Joe gingham, associate director, editorial systems and Mark Whitaker, managing editor) began investigating the alternatives. "We looked at Dewar, P.Ink, QPS, Atex and ATS, but none of them could do everything we wanted," says gingham. The main goal was to find a system that would support Newsweek's 300-plus seats in one workgroup.

Quark Publishing System (QPS) from Denver-based Quark Inc., for example, is used by many in the industry, including rival Time, but because of limited seat capacity, Newsweek decided to pass.

"With QPS, we would have had to divide into workgroups," says Whitaker. "We didn't want to change the paradigm based on the limitations of technology. That would be like the tail wagging the dog."

Finally, Rivello settled on Agile Enterprise, Inc. Made up of many former Atex engineers, the Nashua, New Hampshire-based company incorporated three years ago. Newsweek is its first magazine client. Team-Base: Special Edition is a PC-based workgroup publishing system (a Mac version is scheduled to be released soon) that uses Microsoft Word as the text editor, QuarkXPress as the page layout program and Microsoft Excel as the directory tool. TeamBase also incorporates a non-relational database called WorkBase.

What this means, according to Agile president Frank Rizzo, is that publishers do not have to give up any level of customization. "We make a bunch of other people's software work as if it were all put together by one team," says Rizzo who wants to bring the best of Atex (workflow) and the best of desktop (graphics) together. "We knew what was the baby and what was the bath water," he says.

The massive overhaul, scheduled to be completed by the end of the summer, involves replacing approximately 300 Atex terminals with 120 MHz Pentium PCs, setting up two 133 MHz Pentium servers, licensing and installing Agile's software (which Rizzo estimates at $5,000 per seat), purchasing the off-the-shelf software, and training the New York City-based editorial staff and bureau staffs.

Rivello, who would only estimate the cost of the transition at several million dollars, says that financially, the project is on target. Staffers may wince at having to learn a new system, but gingham reports that training is going well.

So far, Agile seems to have met all of Newsweek's needs. Critics question whether, because of the high level of customization required, Newsweek will be the first and last Agile customer. Rizzo, however, says other publishers can benefit from the magazine's example and invites them to examine the system firsthand. "Newsweek isn't an anomaly in terms of customization. They got to go first," he says, "but 98 percent of Newsweek's customization will work for everyone."

Adds Rivello: "My biggest fear is that [Stiner] and [Bingham] will be asked to make too many speeches [about Agile]. They've got a job to do."