Zaandam, The Netherlands (September 9, 2008) – Israel Hayom is one of the best-read and most popular free daily newspapers in the country, and when officials there made the decision this year to install a new editorial system, they were naturally a little apprehensive. All of those apprehensions disappeared, though, after they made the decision to install WoodWing Software's Smart Connection Enterprise.

With a daily circulation of about 255,000, Israel Hayom is rated as the second popular newspaper in Israel, achieving a 20.2% daily exposure rate in the first half of 2008.

Israel Hayom needed to make sure the new system would be powerful and flexible enough to handle their challenging workflow. They also needed to make sure their staff would be able to quickly master the operation of it, and it had to be seamlessly integrated into the newsroom.

"I have participated in most of the revolutions of the newspapers in Israel in the last 25 years, and this is the most exciting one. It is the start of a real interactive work in multi-channel publishing," said Ofer Braver, CEO of Netgo Ltd., WoodWing's Authorized Solution Partner in Israel. "In a country like Israel where hot news develops on an hourly basis, we are being challenged by strict deadlines and by many changes until the last minute. Smart Connection Enterprise enables us to deal with such requirements. I am grateful to Israel Hayom for the trust and the courage they had to be pioneers in this revolution. We had some big challenges with the issues of Hebrew and Right to Left writing, and with the help of WoodWing and some customization, we found it surprisingly simple to have a ME version of Enterprise."

With Netgo's assistance, WoodWing's Smart Connection Enterprise was installed at Israel Hayom, and officials at the newspaper are very pleased with the new system. "WoodWing can be proud," Braver said. "They have another very happy customer now."

Itay Farbshtein, the IT & data Systems Manager at Israel Hayom added, "WoodWing's system is open and flexible, and with Netgo's professional work and experience, we were able to smoothly implement an editorial system, along with an upgrade of our infrastructure and workflow. All this was done in a fairly short period of time and without interruptions to our day-to-day work. The system allows us to gain order and control within the various production processes. Thanks to Enterprise, we are now ready to continue with our process of growing, including reaching other media."

Chief Editor Amos Regev added that he was impressed by the system's speed and versatility. "We needed something that would be able to produce all the various parts of the paper and that would give us command and control during the paper production," he said. "We also needed a system that would be fast, flexible and simple. WoodWing's system has it all and is exactly the thing we needed."

"We are covering more and more regions at a high speed," said Jeroen Sonnemans, Managing Director of WoodWing Europe. "We're glad to welcome Israel Hayom as WoodWing's first customer in Israel, and we're confident we will soon expand our presence in this region."

WoodWing continues to broaden its worldwide presence in the newspaper market. In recent weeks, WoodWing has also gained new customers in Cambodia, Switzerland, Canada and the United States."