Tim Elliott, executive director, WAM!NET Global Marketing, is responsible for all marketing and communications activities for the company worldwide. He brings more than 19 years experience to WAM!NET, having held numerous roles in the Graphic Arts industry, including significant expertise in the industry-wide migration to digital workflows.

Since joining WAM!NET in 1998, Elliott has led the company’s marketing efforts to the graphic arts industry and, more recently, was appointed European Marketing Director. He assumed his current position in April 2001.

Prior to WAM!NET, Elliott held several sales and marketing positions during a 12-year career at the Eastman Kodak Company. While there, he was responsible for marketing Kodak’s digital proofing systems, thermal computer-to-plate media, dry imagesetting systems and color management software for printing & graphic arts applications. Elliott also served as National Account Manager and Market Segment Manager for Prepress.

Elliott is affiliated with the International Prepress Association, the Graphic Communication Association and the National Printing Equipment and Supply Association. He has spoken at Seybold Seminars, the IPA Management Conference, and to numerous other trade groups.

A California native, Elliott earned a BA degree in Information & Communications Studies from the California State University at Chico. He also holds an MBA from the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh.

You have made it clear that other industry segments like the entertainment industry will be focused on. Obviously, the need for content management and FTP products go beyond the graphic arts industry. Is WAM!NET still targeting the graphic arts industry?

Six years ago, WAM!NET was launched with the goal of helping printers, prepress companies, advertising agencies, publishers and corporate clients realize the many benefits of fully digital print production workflows. This market continues to represent our largest base of end users and provides significant opportunity for future growth. Today, 11 of the 20 largest U.S. publishers, 18 of the 20 largest U.S. ad agencies, 12 of the 20 largest U.S. retailers, 16 of the 20 largest U.S. printers, and 34 Fortune 100 corporations use WAM!NET services. Additionally, we have extended our global IT platform by adding robust data storage, application and professional services to customer segments ranging from government agencies, film studios, and post-production agencies, to broadcasters and healthcare organizations.

Not only have we continued to focus on our printing and publishing customers, we have built a digital platform that allows the communities of interest across each of our target market segments to realize significant benefits: reduced costs, increased reliability and productivity, improved time-to-market and new revenue opportunities. WAM!NET has and will take the necessary steps to deliver value to markets that not only demand such benefits, but serve to drive utilization of our global platform as we build a profitable growth company.

As stated earlier, regardless of market, the workflows associated with the production and distribution of digital content often involves collaboration among the client and their communities of interest. Through WAM!NET, these communities can collaborate efficiently and cost-effectively within a completely digital platform. This is the premise behind our overall business model.

Is it fair to say the graphic arts industry will grow much slower in adoption of WAM!NET type services than other industry segments?

WAM!NET expects to see continued strong adoption of its services within the graphic arts segment. Customers see the value in achieving secure, seamless connectivity between their entire supply chains within a fully digital workflow, as compared to traditional analog systems such as the use of physical couriers. Given the ever-increasing time and cost pressures on their businesses, not to mention the large capital investments required to build proprietary systems, we simply do not see a decline in demand for fully managed digital connectivity in the near-term.

Are companies comfortable with WAM!NET having access and, in some cases, physical on-site access to their data?

WAM!NET delivers storage solutions to customers based upon their specific workflow needs, including specified speed and access rights requirements. Our centralized, remote storage service allows customers to specify and provide their communities of interest with access to their libraries of files and assets regardless of location while, at the same time, maintaining full access to and control of their data.

As with our other service offerings, customers consume and pay for storage services on a subscription or pay-per-use transactional basis. Further, we’ve engineered our storage services with customer convenience in mind, in that, storage can be deployed with a standard WAM!NET interface or any third-party, XML-compatible application, such as asset management or file backup software. Storage interfaces include a basic WorkSpace interface, which allows files to be organized in a simple directory-like folder, and a WAM!BASE interface, which enables files to be indexed with key words.

Tell us about your global positioning and market share.

With more than 17,800 customers in 19 countries, WAM!NET is among the fastest growing IT services providers in the world. We have established operations in North America, Europe, and the Asia / Pacific Rim. Strategically, we are transitioning from our start-up model of aggressive market share acquisition to driving our growth by focusing on delivering increased value to our installed base of customers and their workflow partners. Today, more than 2,000 customers access WAM!NET services through dedicated connections and customer premise equipment (the WAM!NET "Purple Box"). Another 15,000 customers access WAM!NET services through a secure, managed Internet portal. This resulting global digital community brings tremendous business advantages to our customers.

The Navy deal really leap-frogged WAM!NET into stardom. It was and is a huge deal. Specifically, what are you doing in your Government Services business?

WAM!NET launched its Government Services business in 2000. In doing so, we achieved several milestones:

- In June, we received approval to sell on the General Services Administration (GSA) Schedule for Electronic Commerce Services, launching our formal effort to market and sell WAM!NET’s e-services to the government marketplace.

- In October, the GSA selected WAM!NET to host on a 7x24x365 basis the Federal agency’s e-commerce auction platform – GSAAuctions.gov – allowing the GSA to drive improved efficiency, extended geographic reach and increased revenue for Federal surplus auctions.

- Also in October, WAM!NET announced that it, along with prime contractor Electronic Data Systems, was awarded the $6.9 billion Navy and Marine Corps intranet contract -- the largest Federal information technology contract in history. Under the contract, WAM!NET and its partners will build and manage a new, global networked platform to provide voice, video and data services to the Navy and Marine Corps across 300 bases and more than 360,000 seats.

These wins represent significant business to WAM!NET and lay the foundation for additional growth in the government sector. Overall, our efforts in graphic arts, government, entertainment, healthcare and professional services support our business strategy of diversification. The end result is a financially stable WAM!NET that is in an even better position support our initial and largest market – graphic arts.

How do you keep retention with current accounts?

Strategically, we are transitioning from our start-up model of aggressive market share acquisition to driving our growth by focusing on delivering increased value to our large installed base of customers and their workflow partners. This model supports those customers who want to extend the value of WAM!NET’s global IT services platform to their business partners, allowing them to form highly efficient, collaborative digital workflows without incurring additional costs.

Inherent in this approach is an increased focus on supporting our current customers and helping them to solve complex workflow challenges. Witness the launch of our Professional Services business in November 2000. Today, we bring the ability to support customers’ networking, data storage, hosting, e-business strategy and systems development needs across our target markets. Our largest customers are very supportive of our efforts.

(See Part One) Thank you very much Tim for sharing with our members. WAM!NET has always been very up-front with communication to our community.