May 27, 2004 – Boston, MA and Appenzell, Switzerland – GMC Software AG today announced that commercial printer PLM Group has implemented GMC PrintNet T Triple Suite software to create stronger competitive advantages and offer greater flexibility for customers’ direct marketing needs. PLM Group is one of the fastest growing commercial printers in Canada. As a full service vendor for direct mailing customers, the PLM Group must provide excellence in every aspect of personalized marketing, and customers include the elite of Canadian business in such diversified industries as automotive, fast food, pharmaceutical, health care, communications and financial institutions, as well as advertising and marketing agencies. PLM has installed GMC PrintNet T document composition and customization software, as well as web proofing, design and layout modules to bring greater flexibility and customer service to their workflow. PLM relies on these solutions from GMC Software to keep them productive, efficient and competitive. The software increases opportunities to streamline workflow and improve turnaround for print-on-demand applications through online proofing, revision and job submission. "Our clients promote products in a very competitive environment, so solutions that enable them to be first to market and achieve cost reductions are the most valuable to us and our customers. Providing customers with superior service is another major goal, and PrintNet software brings powerful capabilities that help us achieve these objectives and more," said Rob Seccareccia, vice president of Digital Services. "PrintNet T is giving us more flexibilty with more capabilities, and we anticipate increasing operational efficiency as much as 25% with our new PrintNet tools." "We’re excited to have the opportunity to contribute to the success of a forward-thinking, fast-moving commercial print leader like the PLM Group," said Darryl R. Dobin, President, The Americas, GMC Software Technology, Inc. "This industry is highly demanding and competitive, and we’re confident in our ability to help PLM achieve their objectives with the high-value services and capabilities of the PrintNet suite. The decision to implement the GMC solutions will provide PLM the tools to help their customers get to market faster, drive new revenue opportunities, enhance customer and business communications, and accommodate additional flexibility and effectiveness of their operations." As a direct marketing leader, the variable messaging capabilities of PrintNet T are extremely important to PLM’s competitive position. PLM’s customers want to communicate in the marketplace in ever more sophisticated ways, including highly tailored documents with personalized messages and advanced, dynamically generated graphics. PrintNet T is one of the most innovative solutions on the market for creating personalized customer communication. PrintNet T document design and composition software is a single environment, all-in-one tool for layout creation, structured variable and fixed data processing, and high-speed printing of invoices, statements, direct mail and other data-driven applications. The WYSIWYG viewing makes it easier and faster for PLM staff to create documents compared to the time-consuming script-based development they used before. A significant advantage of the PrintNet platform for PLM is that the business is now able to support all the digital printing technologies in its operation with one software platform. The PostScript-driven print shop uses four Xerox 4180 cut sheet lasers, a Heidelberg Digimaster and a NexPress system for short run digital color and variable POD work, and now PrintNet can feed all the company’s digital print systems with just one version of an application. As result, PLM workflow is greatly simplified and streamlined, and the versatility lets PLM offer customers more choices for bringing their messages to market. The PrintNet T WebProof live data proofing and approval module gives PLM the ability to show clients a more convenient web proof, eliminating the problems they previously encountered with PDF and hardcopy proofs. WebProof is the only web-based proofing system that lets remote users create and proof sophisticated variable data documents. With this convenient tool, off-site clients can obtain the latest version of a production job, proof it using real data, and approve it for production, all using a standard web browser. Advanced job management capabilities provide a centralized way to track and manage document changes by person, when a change was made, and by version. Companies like PLM achieve significant time and cost savings by eliminating the need for courier services to deliver hardcopy proofs. Each document looks and works exactly the same way in the web-viewed proof as it will in actual production. As a result, the potential for costly errors in production runs is greatly reduced. PLM has already gained a significant advantage by setting up a new client to use a PrintNet T’s web based design module. This brings PrintNet capabilities to remote desktops, so users can perform their own document design, proofing and job submission to save time and reduce operational costs of long distance collaboration. Only one layout interface is needed to design, proof or modify a simple job. Print operations save time and streamline processes as they avoid the problems associated with receiving and converting documents created by customers in other environments.