Editions   North America | Europe | Magazine

WhatTheyThink

Peter Camps, Founder & CEO departs Enfocus Software, New CEO Appointed

Press release from the issuing company

GHENT – MARCH 11, 2003 -- Enfocus Software, the internationally recognized pioneer of PDF-related technologies, announces that following a decade of technical and managerial achievements, Peter Camps will step down as CEO. Camps founded Enfocus in 1993 and his entrepreneurial expertise grew the firm into today’s market leader in PDF editing and preflight solutions. David van Driessche, who joined Enfocus in its infancy, has been appointed CEO, effective March 17, 2003. Decision Background Camps attributes his decision to his continuing, strong entrepreneurial inclination, and plans to take a year’s sabbatical to study computer sciences while determining his next move. “Deep down I am too much of an entrepreneur and individualist to know today exactly what the rest of my career will look like. I like to create solutions and enjoy the challenge of building a business from scratch. I feel that I have accomplished that with Enfocus and now would like to move on to new challenges.” “It gives me great joy to leave Enfocus in David’s capable hands,” Camps says of van Driessche, the first Enfocus employee and the executive most critical to product development and long term strategy, next to Camps himself. “The fact that David will take over made it somehow easier to let go of Enfocus — one of the toughest decisions in my career. Enfocus is a very technology driven company and David is the best person to continue this focus.” “For more than seven years, David has been leading the development and support team, and has been instrumental in building Enfocus into the company it is today.” Says van Driessche: “I feel privileged to have been able to grow with the company, and in particular, to have contributed in the product development area. With the extended development team we have in place today, I feel confident that Enfocus will continue to experience the same positive growth that it has always known. We are planning some important new product introductions later on this year that will have a significant impact on the market.” Maintaining the Mission Enfocus Software’s mission, from day one, has been to provide affordable tools for the standard file formats used in the Graphic Arts community for exchanging artwork. Camps and van Driessche, with the backing of parent company Artwork Systems, confirm that Enfocus will not stray from pursuing technical innovation and excellence in fulfilling that mission. Says Camps, “Over the years, we have been loyal to our original company objective by developing and offering superior PDF enhancement tools at a reasonable price.” Enfocus was an early supporter of the PDF file format. In 1997, Camps identified PDF as the future standard for file exchange. Ever since, he has been the driving force behind developing the necessary tools to bring a PDF file up to the same standard as a TIFF in terms of reliability and predictability. With van Driessche’s help, Enfocus has taken the PDF format beyond that standard, exploiting its robustness and flexibility to create solutions that set new standards in streamlining graphic arts workflows for unprecedented productivity. “This year Enfocus is celebrating its 10th anniversary, having grown considerably as a company in the number of employees, product releases and revenues achieved,” says Camps. “I take pride in seeing the level of success that the company has achieved today. It started of as a one-man band, but over the years we have established a great team of developers, support engineers, marketing experts, sales managers and we are still growing.” Guido Van der Schueren, Chairman of the Board at Artwork Systems concurs, reporting that revenues and profits have been increasing steadily since Artwork Systems acquired Enfocus in 2000. “We have been very pleased with the results achieved,” he says. Van der Schueren also emphasizes that Enfocus, while a wholly owned subsidiary of Artwork, will continue to remain an independent entity. “Obviously we are sorry to see Peter leave, but we respect his decision and have every confidence that David van Driessche will capably lead Enfocus to the next level of success, and we know that the independent structure only bolsters Enfocus’ capabilities.” In April 2000, Enfocus was acquired by Artwork Systems, a leading provider of prepress workflow systems for packaging and commercial applications, also based in Ghent, Belgium. At that time it was decided that Camps would continue to lead Enfocus at least for three years. Camps will stay on as co-CEO until the end of April. The present management team, having secured the growth of Enfocus during the last years, will remain in place.

WhatTheyThink is the official show daily media partner of drupa 2024. More info about drupa programs