Cary Sherburne:  Hi, Cary Sherburne, Senior Editor at WhatTheyThink.com and I'm here with John Lacagnia, President and CEO of South Print Holdings.  And John is a finalist for WhatTheyThink Second Annual Print CEO of the Year Contest, second year in a row.  Congratulations.

John Lacagnia: Thank you very much. I’m humbled again.

Cary Sherburne:  You know this year we had a field of 44 nominees and so it’s quite an achievement to get into the top five, so really congratulations.

John Lacagnia: Thank you, thank you very much.

Cary Sherburne:  And you know last year I think we talked a little bit more about ColorCentric but you’ve done some new things since then that South Print Holdings is the umbrella company for.  So if you could just give us a little, you know insight into the companies and what are some of the achievements that qualified you for the award.

John Lacagnia:  Okay, well I think, well I think you may be familiar with ColorCentric which is in the basically ultra-short run for photo books, photo products and publishing and we spun off a company we named Printer Net.  Printer Net is a basically a software company that licenses software in workflow, manufacturing workflow, to actually mimic what ColorCentric does.  So we license our software globally.  We now have, I won’t mention any names because we don’t want to have press releases, but we do have Printer Net partners in Canada, France, Brazil, New Zealand and we just recently signed China.  So we’re talking to someone in Japan and Holland.  So the Printer Net business we feel is a very, actually a very needed business to expand digital production globally.

Cary Sherburne:  And so cause ColorCentric and you’ve done – we’ve known each other since the 80s.

John Lacagnia:  I know it.  EVP, Entire.

Cary Sherburne:  Entire, yes.  So you know kind of going through the whole, all those years, and you’ve got a lot of experience in digital and automation of workflow and so on, so that’s the kind of thing that you’re – the platform that you built ColorCentric, that’s the kind of thing that you’re licensing.

John Lacagnia:  Exactly.  Our experience goes back to 85 with Entire designing rips, post rip interpreters and EDP.

Cary Sherburne:  I think you connected DOCU/TEXT before Xerox did.

John Lacagnia: We did.  Well, we connected pre-DOCU/TEXT with some high speed engines.  Correct.

Cary Sherburne:  Yeah.

John Lacagnia:  So our experience really is in optimizing the workflow for basically for ultra-short run.  We were into longer runs; longer meaning 150.  Now, you know, one off, I mean last year I think we produced over three million books and our average print run is 1.8.  

Cary Sherburne:  1.8 okay, that’s been consistent for the last couple years.

John Lacagnia:  Correct, correct.  So we want to sort of give that benefit through licensing to other printers who we believe really may need this technology because the e-book as changed the landscape a lot.  Virtual inventories are important as opposed to even low inventories.  I think zero inventories now because of the uncertainty that e-books brings to the marketplace.  So virtual inventory with a delivery within in 48 hours we believe is going to be a very good model.  That and, of course, inkjet is coming online so we’ll be interfacing with inkjets shortly.

Cary Sherburne: And you don’t want to say with whom?

John Lacagnia:  No I can’t yet.  We do interface with all of the printers as you know.  But inkjet is relatively new in the marketplace.  We think we have a large account that needs the inkjet so, on the Printer Net side.  So it’s been really fun actually, Carrie, because dealing with printers who know where they want to go but they really can’t get there from here, it’s been nice to know we can actually help somebody do that. 

Cary Sherburne:  Now when you talked about all the different countries where Printer Net is beginning to penetrate, you didn’t mention the US.  

John Lacagnia:  Well that’s the next one.  Actually, we are talking to a large printer who probably will be incorporating Printer Net.  

Cary Sherburne:  Good.

John Lacagnia:  We’re covering the US here with our location in Rochester New York and Portland Oregon now.  So ColorCentric has a two of our own locations so we have it covered.  But we’re finding a lot of interest in the US as well as overseas. 

Cary Sherburne:  So this is your sixth or seventh company?

John Lacagnia: I think it’s six.  I have lost count. I’m not going to count anymore.  It’s my last.  That’s what I said last time.  

Cary Sherburne:  Okay, that was before Printer Net, so.

John Lacagnia: That was before Printer Net, right.

Cary Sherburne:  Well again congratulations for this award and well, well deserved and we’ll see you next year probably.

John Lacagnia: I hope so.

Cary Sherburne: In the top five, maybe the top one; you never know.

John Lacagnia: Well I really appreciate it.  I really am honored by this so thank you very much.

Cary Sherburne: Well congratulations again.

John Lacagnia: Thank you