Ashland NY – Printing Industries of America presented HIFLEX, the global technology leader of Web2Print and MIS Solutions for Print, the coveted InterTech Award for the second time. With a long history of identifying printing industry innovations, InterTech, now in its 32nd anniversary was established to identify never used technologies having a major impact and benefit on the printing industry. The focus of InterTech is on enhancing productivity and profitability for print and to elevate attention to technological innovations that achieve this goal with significance and a lasting effect over the next five to ten years.

Gary E. Marron, HIFLEX President & CEO was on hand to receive the award at the annual InterTech Awards Gala held at the Chicago Marriott during Graph Expo 2010. Mr. Marron commented “We are deeply pleased and honored to receive this award. The InterTech Awards competition demonstrates the significance of HIFLEX technology, innovation and leadership to the industry. We look forward to providing our customers with the advanced tools Webshop offers that will help them enter into the on-line arena for both open and closed storefronts. The new Webshop platform presents our customers with substantial new opportunities to market and sell business-to-business configurations, addressing the most demanding requirements of functionality, flexibility and speed for launching sites used by corporate clients.
 
HIFLEX won the 2010 InterTech Award for the innovation of combining HIFLEX Webshop with the ‘Drupal’ Open Source Content Management System (CMS) and for Webshop’s core JDF back-end that enables print-buyers to dynamically create and order hundreds of thousands of print products directly on-line and with zero administrative costs. This is a huge departure from traditional ‘article-based’ Web2Print ordering systems. InterTech Award Judges referred to Webshop as a “Game-Changing and Mind-Shifting Innovation”. HIFLEX is the only MIS and Web2Print provider to win the award in its 32 year history and now for the second time. HIFLEX won InterTech in 2008 for it’s use of JDF, ‘lights-out’ automation and Web2Print/MIS integration.
The panel of judges represented by 15-20 industry executives responsible for making buying decisions regarding technology for their printing establishments overwhelmingly agreed that the Webshop-Drupal combination makes it much easier to do business on-line, benefiting printers of all sizes with the easier and faster deployment of Web2Print storefronts.

HIFLEX’s Webshop-Drupal combination also allows its customers to leverage the thousands of Drupal community programmers and users who have also used Drupal to create their own unique and custom on-line storefronts. Drupal is the world’s most popular global Content Management System. The Drupal community is comprised of storefront programmers in about every major city in the world, making the bundled HIFLEX solution well supported, local to a printer’s business and most importantly, its customers. Much like Apple iPhone Apps, thousands of Drupal Apps are instantly available, such as the Google Analytics module, SEO apps, chat room apps and hundreds more, making configuring easy, simple and fast. “Custom and on-a-dime-without-a-fleet-of-programmers” commented one of the InterTech Judges. Another Judge surmised “The use of open source is a pioneering move for the industry”. Another stated “Selecting HIFLEX is a vote for the support of open source platforms”.

HIFLEX-Drupal Open Source Strategy
“The strategy behind the Webshop-Drupal combination provides HIFLEX Web2Print Customers autonomy and speed when creating multiple, custom branded, on-line sites. We want our customers to be able to respond to the needs of their customers faster than any other solution and it’s working remarkably well.” comments Gary E. Marron. He goes on to say “HIFLEX Users configuring and building their storefronts are able to search and tap into other user’s storefront experiences and configuration ideas for doing business on-line. HIFLEX users are able to build their sites more economically with custom functionality and without reinventing the wheel. This translates to making money much faster with HIFLEX Web2Print Solutions.”

The Webshop-Drupal Solution ensures that is users stay ahead of the curve rather than falling behind as is prevalent with proprietary systems. Search Engine Optimization or ‘SEO’ refers to a site’s ability to remain the top choice when people search the web for on-line print providers. Because Webshop is a Drupal Plug-in, all of the mechanisms are already there and immediately available to Webshop users for SEO and the many other apps crucial to staying ahead of the curve.

HIFLEX Webshop Web2Print System
To review the functionality of HIFLEX’s Award Winning ‘Webshop’ Web2Print System go to www.bestprint24.com/us  HIFLEX Webshop is the world’s only completely dynamic on-line ordering solution. For a demonstration or more information about HIFLEX Web2Print or MIS Products, please visit their website at www.hiflex.com or call HIFLEX Corporation of North America at 518-734-5400 and ask to speak to a sales representative.