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For Immediate Release. For More Information,
Contact: William K. Smythe
703/264-7200
e-mail ksmythe@npes.org
Interoperable implementation of JDF
standard to link e-commerce & print management systems
Sixteen print management system and e-commerce companies have
announced plans to form a community to define a "best
practice" common and open communications interface between
their products. This interoperability project has been named
PrintTalkä .
The PrintTalkä implementation will
support use of the broadly published, proposed Job Definition
Format (JDF) standard and Commercial eXtensible Markup Language (cXML).
As part of the group’s activities, it will seek to have its work
recognized as an implementation of the proposed JDF standard. The
PrintTalk interface specification will be distributed free of any
license fees or royalties, in order to address the need for
end-to-end connectivity in the printing industry.
At this point, participating companies include
GraphiTech Computer Systems, Avanti
Computer Systems, Cirqit.com, Collabria, Inc., Graphic Arts IT,
httprint, Impresse, MediaFlex.com,
Noosh, Inc., Parsec Corporation, Press-tige Software,
Printable.com, printChannel.com, Profit Control Systems,
Streamline Solutions and Wam!Net. NPES
encourages other companies to join the group and help them
implement the JDF standard.
The PrintTalkä group has selected
NPES, the Association for Suppliers of Printing, Publishing and
Converting Technologies to organize the group’s activity and
develop by-laws and formalized operational procedures. NPES will
act as Secretariat for the group. PrintTalkä
does not currently intend to operate as a standards body, but
instead will function as a community of concerned vendors focused
on implementing interoperable systems.
According to acting Chairman of the PrintTalkä
group Steve Hallberg, President of Parsec, "the goal of
PrintTalkä is to drive the rapid and
consistent adoption of broadly published and open standards. This
will enable secure electronic commerce and application integration
between e-commerce companies that assist print buyers in
specifying, ordering and tracking their printing, and companies
whose software manages and tracks the print manufacturing
process."
"There is currently no open-architecture
implementation that addresses the need to easily exchange data in
a secure manner between companies that buy and sell printed
materials over the Internet," said William K. Smythe, Vice
President of NPES and Administrator of the group. "The
PrintTalkä interface using JDF will
address this demand, and NPES is excited about assisting these
companies to further the evolution of e-commerce solutions for the
printing, publishing and converting industries."
NPES is a U.S. trade association representing more than 425
companies engaged in manufacturing and importing for sale or
distribution of machinery, equipment, systems, software and
supplies used in every printing, publishing and converting process
from desktop design and image generation and processing to
multiple output options and targeted dissemination systems.
Information about NPES, its programs and its member companies is
available on the Association web site at http://www.npes.org.
In addition to PrintTalkä , the
Association serves as secretariat to the following standards
activities: The American National Standards Institute accredited
B65Committee, charged with the development of safety standards for
printing and finishing equipment; the ANSI accredited Committee
for Graphic Arts Technologies Standards (CGATS) to support and
foster graphic arts standards activities and the develop technical
standards where no applicable developer is available; the U.S.
Technical Advisory Group to the International Organization for
Standardization's Technical Committee 130, Graphic Technology,
responsible for coordinating the U.S. position and participation
in the international standards activities of the ISO's TC 130.
NPES also administers the International Color Consortium, an
organization with nearly 75 members devoted to developing a
specification to enable different computer platforms and devices
to translate color definition information into a standard color
interchange space so that the receiving device can interpret that
data into the appropriate color.
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