Editions   North America | Europe | Magazine

WhatTheyThink

Agfa: Industry Leading Distributed Computing System Bulks Up

Press release from the issuing company

GRAPH EXPO (Booth #4041), Chicago, Illinois – September 28, 2003 – Agfa announced today several productivity–boosting enhancements to :Salient, the industry leading distributed computing solution. :Salient is the cornerstone of any fully operational Graphic Enterprise, combining a tightly-integrated hardware solution with workflow to help make printing environments more productive. The newest version of :Salient, being shown and demonstrated at Graph Expo, now offers seamless integration with :Delano, :ApogeeX and Agfa's new Digital Asset Management solution, :Arcadia. It also includes dynamic archiving to DVD, which helps to make The Graphic Enterprise more productive. With dynamic archiving, customer job data is collected and stored on a single DVD, increasing productivity by giving users the ability to easily store files and making quick reprints simple to retrieve and work with later. "With Salient, we increased our production from 4,400 plates per month to almost 30,000 plates per month without adding any additional staff," said Joe Ryan, prepress manager, Quebecor (Dubuque, Iowa). Each high-availability :Salient system can be installed in about three hours and, unlike other competitive systems, requires very little maintenance. ":Salient performed well beyond our expectations. We are definitely looking at an increase in profits," said Corey Nettles, Democrat Printing and Lithographing (Little Rock, Arkansas). :Salient is available in three configurations, depending on the size of The Graphic Enterprise: LE for 4-up environments SE for mid-production environments SSE for high volume environments "Working with our customers, we have been able to show that printers running :Apogee workflow on :Salient have seen production rates increase 50-70 percent," said Agfa's Chris LaFontaine, product manager, systems integration, North America. "Agfa understands The Graphic Enterprise and :Salient provides the rock-solid foundation for a profitable workflow."