MetaCommunications Reaffirms Commitment to Open Standards; Joins CIP4 and NGP
Company Appoints System Integration Expert to Lead JDF Initiatives
IOWA CITY, Iowa— July 21, 2005 – MetaCommunications, Inc., a leading developer of business management and workflow solutions for the graphic arts industry, today reaffirmed its commitment to open standards by announcing it has joined the International Cooperation for the Integration of Processes in Prepress, Press, and Postpress (CIP4), and the Networked Graphic Production (NGP) group. The company also announced that former Motorola Software Engineer Damon Deen has been appointed to spearhead its open standards product initiatives.
CIP4, the organization behind the Job Definition Format (JDF) for achieving comprehensive system integration, and NGP, the industry-wide initiative focused on building cross-vendor JDF integrations. These organizations are the two most preeminent bodies in the graphic arts industry focused on JDF. The JDF standard allows for the integration of commercial and planning applications into the technical workflow, ensuring portability between different platforms. MetaCommunications’ memberships and hiring of Deen corresponds to the company’s commitment to develop solutions built on open, interoperable standards that automate and streamline the entire production process.
“Our focus is on moving JDF upstream where content is being created. Making JDF part of the print parameters at the beginning of the process, having it built into the software architecture, is not only critical in order for metadata to travel with a job from start to finish, but it also allows for greater flexibility and scalability as additional systems are integrated into the process,” said Robert Long, Executive Vice President, MetaCommunications. “We have already made great strides with our JDF Solutions Framework for Virtual Ticket 6.0, which provides a graphical front-end for creating customizable electronic JDF job tickets that meet specific creative and production needs. By inviting Deen to join our team, we aim to further this mission by active participation in CIP4 and NGP, and continuing to integrate the JDF standard across our next generation workflow products.”
Deen holds broad experience in the development of software, web applications, and standards-based control system integration. Prior to joining MetaCommunications, Deen served as Software Engineering Manager at Motorola, Inc. where he led a team of developers that was instrumental in researching, prototyping and developing Motorola’s enterprise platform architecture, consumer GUI design and inter-process communication projects. Deen also served as Systems Engineer at Lantronix, Inc., a company acquired by Motorola in 2002. Deen holds a degree in Computer Engineering from Iowa State University.
About MetaCommunications’ JDF Solutions Framework
Developed specifically for printing, packaging, and graphic arts vendors and suppliers, the JDF Solutions Framework positions Virtual Ticket as the first graphical user interface-based solution for building a front-end to JDF by creating customizable job tickets without requiring extensive programming skills or long development cycles to implement. The JDF Solutions Framework enables Virtual Ticket to initiate JDF workflows and capture JDF generated output from JDF-enabled solutions, effectively driving the entire workflow process.
About MetaCommunications
MetaCommunications is a leading software developer of workgroup and enterprise business management and workflow solutions for the graphic arts industry. MetaCommunications’ products include Virtual Ticket 6.0, Job Manager 3.5 and Digital Storage Manager. These cross-platform products are customizable and scalable from five-user workgroups to hundreds of users in an enterprise environment. MetaCommunications has more than 750 installations of its software worldwide, helping some of the world’s top creative agencies, corporate marketing groups, printing and prepress firms, and publishers work more efficiently and profitably. MetaCommunications was founded in 1991 and is headquartered in Iowa City, Iowa. For more information, please visit http://www.meta-comm.com.
For more information, contact:
Mike Wilson
MetaCommunications
1210 S. Gilbert Street
Iowa City, IA 52240 USA
319-337-8599 x187
mwilson@meta-comm.com
© 2007 MetaCommunications, Inc. All rights reserved. MetaCommunications, the MetaCommunications logo, Approval Manager, Virtual Ticket, JDF Solutions Framework, Digital Storage Manager, and Job Manager are trademarks of MetaCommunications, Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of the individual companies and are respectfully acknowledged.