ExScite

The Ultimate Herzka

Dani Herzka ( daniel@herzka.com ) has just completed a match-making deal between CreoScitex and Ultimate Technographics, incorporating the Ultimate imposition engine with CreoScitex Spire color servers, to enable automatic, post-RIP page assembly and imposition layouts on-the-fly during printing. “This has been an exciting project, which combines the best imposition software with the best color server,” added Daniel (Dani) Herzka, an industry consultant who has been closely involved in the project. “It has demonstrated how two companies can successfully work together to deliver a superior product for the benefit of their end users”.
Dani runs a successful consulting business from Long Island New York.

William Von Gonten joined the Sports Illustrated magazine

William Von Gonten pajamacat@earthlink.net has joined the Sports Illustrated magazine in NY (an AOL TimeWarner publication) as imaging specialist, after 3 years at STA.
As he registered to the ExScite Members dBase, William wrote: “ I have spent the last 5 yrs in state mental hospitals due to bad experiences with Dolev 100s. Sleep with sliced cucumber on my eyes to relieve blindness caused but defective barco monitors. 3 yrs with scitex were the best years of my life!!”

Alon, Spector @ Precise Software

Shimon Alon (alons@precisesoft.com ) is the CEO of Precise software since 1997. He joined Precise after 14 years at Scitex where he served in various management, sales, marketing, and customer support capacities. From 1995 to 1996, Shimon was in charge of the Graphic Art Division. From 1995 to 1996, Shimon was Scitex America CEO and earlier he was STE Managing Director and VP customer support.
Steve Spector spectors@aol.com joined Precise Boston office as Director, Business and Program Development. From ‘89 to ’94 Steve was at STA. Prior to joining Precise he was with Indigo and Polaroid Graphics in Boston.
Precise Software Solutions (Nasdaq: PRSE; www.precise.com), located in Savyon, Israel, with offices in Europe and the USA, is in the business of boosting business efficiency and profitability through IT infrastructure performance management in Oracle-based environments.

Rafi Holtzman in managing eBeam, a EFI company

Rafi Holtzman (raf@efi.com) in managing eBeam http://www.e-beam.com/ , an Electronic For Imaging [EFI] spin-off. eBeam is the electronic marker system that captures meeting notes and diagrams as you create them, so they can be viewed, saved, edited, shared, and printed using any Windows PC. It instantly transform any whiteboard into a powerful tool for capturing and sharing information. eBeam enhances teamwork, reduces travel costs, and makes meetings more effective — immediately. EFI is located in Foster City CA. Rafi was application engineer and product designer at Scitex in the 80’s.

The ExScite’s at Shira computers

Uzi Ish Horwitz

The ExScite Uzi Ish Horowitz, chairman of the board of Shira Computers, Ltd. www.shira.com appointed three new ExScite executives in its US office. Uzi was the Scitex COO for many years in the 70’s and 80’s.
Lazy Yanay joins as Corporate Vice President, Product Marketing. At Creo-Scitex he has held the position of Marketing Manager of the Printing Workflow Solutions Division.
Leigh Kimmelman joins. as VP, Product Marketing. At Creo-Scitex America where he was Product Marketing Manager of the Output Imaging Systems Division.
Shimon Orian returns to Shira, Inc., as VP, Customer Support. Shimon comes to Shira from Orset Corporation, a prepress integrator and longtime Shira dealer. Previously he worked for many years at Scitex in customer support. Shimon was part of Shira at its founding, and has had hands-on experience with nearly all Shira products ever since.
Shira is a developer of enhanced prepress and printing workflows. The company is a privately held with headquarter in Kfar Saba, Israel and offices in Woburn, MA.
For full story- read the ExScite News from 3/27/2001.

Shira Appoints Three New ExScite’s

ExScite Uzi Ish-Hurwitz, Shira’s Chairman, appoints Shimon Orian, Lazy Yanai and Leigh Kimmelman to top positions

Shira Appoints Three Exscite’s as Top Executives
Unprecedented global marketing opportunities demand Shira to position, strengthen and expand its worldwide product marketing and customer support

WOBURN, MASSACHUSETTS, USA and KFAR SABA, ISRAEL, FEBRUARY 15, 2001 – Shira, a key software solution provider for digital prepress and printing workflows, today announced three additional executives have been appointed to their expanding management team. These appointments are key components in establishing Shira’s strategy of worldwide growth, sales expansion and customer support.To see a full press release, click here: http://www.shira.co.il/PR_ThreeNewExecs.htm

Lazy Yanay joins Shira Computers, Ltd. as Corporate Vice President, Product Marketing. He will spearhead Shira’s worldwide product marketing. He comes to Shira from Creo-Scitex, where he held the position of Marketing Manager of the Printing Workflow Solutions Division and holds a B.A. from Tel Aviv University. Commenting on his new role, Yanay noted “Shira’s range of innovative products combined with its solid customer base and first-class reputation of its advanced technology for the printing industry, represents an unprecedented opportunity for us in the current marketplace. The industry was waiting for a web-based workflow system, and the eP2 product line is the ideal solution for this industry’s emerging need. Without a doubt, Shira put together a winning team, and has all the ingredients needed to achieve enormous success.”

Leigh Kimmelman has joined Shira, Inc. as Vice President, Product Marketing. Leigh will develop and implement product-marketing strategies in the United States, Canada and South America. He joins Shira from Creo-Scitex America where he was Product Marketing Manager of the Output Imaging Systems Division. Mr. Kimmelman is a graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology where he also serves as a guest lecturer. He is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and is the current co-chair of GRACOL (General Requirements for Applications in Offset Lithography).

Shimon Orian returns to Shira, Inc., as Vice President, Customer Support. He will strengthen Shira’s technical support team and enhance customer service. Shimon comes to Shira from Orset Corporation, a prepress integrator and longtime Shira dealer. Previously he worked for many years at Scitex in customer support and possesses a vast knowledge of digital prepress workflow. Shimon was part of Shira at its founding, and has had hands-on experience with nearly all Shira products ever since.

In addition to today’s appointments, this past December Joseph D. Pargola joined Shira, Inc. as Vice President of Sales. His focus is on the worldwide sales of Shira’s line of native PDF and TIFF/IT workflow products and the Web-based workflow solutions, eP2 Online^TM and eP2 Onsite^TM. He brings with him brings 20 years of printing industry sales experience. Most recently, he served as Vice President of Sales, Commercial Division at Collabria Inc. Prior to Collabria, Mr. Pargola served as National Sales Director, Indirect Channels at Scitex America.

Chairman, Uzi Ish-Hurwitz comments, “These executives bring many years of experience in prepress technology and marketing to Shira. The company is playing a major role in leading the path to digital web-based workflow solutions, and we are enthusiastic about the impressive blend of talent now joining our management team”.

About Shira
Shira is a recognized as a leading developer of enhanced prepress and printing workflows. Their classic products, including CEPStoPS, were instrumental in the transition to computer-to- plate. First announced at Drupa 2000, Shira’s eP2 Online^TM web-based workflow environment is presently in field-testing at a major US printer, and the eP2 PageXchange Workflow is soon to be released to several US sites. Their native PDF Workflow Tools, developed by AC&C HSH Group, a Shira company, were the first to allow a complete front-to-back native PDF prepress workflow and used in the printing and publishing industry for digital prepress. Shira’s products have been adopted by leading vendors to the industry, such as Heidelberg, CreoScitex, Agfa and Kodak.

Shira Computers Ltd. is a privately held company headquartered in Kfar Saba, Israel and its subsidiary, Shira, Inc., maintains offices in Woburn, Massachusetts. For additional information, please contact Shira at +972-9-764-6200, or in the United States at 781-376-4175. Visit their web site at www.shira.com.

Scitex investment folds: PrintLife closes

Another Scitex investment is folding. The Rehovot based PrintLife is closing up. Scitex may have to write off more than $4M.

PrintLife Closes Up –

Source: 3/16/01 “WhatTheyThink”

Boston based PrintLife has ceased operations, according to CEO Meg Weston.

Weston told WhatTheyThink that market

conditions overwhelmed the company. “Unfortunately, the capital markets

changed dramatically. We were unable to find new investment, and current

investors were unable to carry the company forward to profitability.”

Those current investors included Jafco Ventures, Israel Seed Partners, Apax

Partners, Scitex, Mitsubishi and DOR Ventures. PrintLife had just secured

$10 million in funding last fall. PrintLife developed a technology and

service that enabled users to send images from digital cameras over the

Internet, to be printed in high quality albums. The company patented

PhotoBook Publisher software which created bound, hardcover picture books

with customized page layouts, selected backgrounds and personal captions.

With print facilities in Japan and in the United States the company used

Indigo digital color printers exclusively.

In a letter posted at the company’s web site, Weston said Printlife

determined the unsettled economic environment and the recent volatility in

the digital imaging marketplace made it impossible to raise money.

The funding was to help support Printlife’s marketing and business

development efforts and maintain its manufacturing facilities in Japan and

the United States. According to a recent earnings statement, Scitex invested

$4.6 million in the company and owned 13.7% of its shares. We were unable to

confirm investment figures from other partners.

Printlife was led by former industry executives from Konica, Kodak, Fuji,

Indigo, and Polaroid.

If you log into www.printlife.com you’ll find this letter from the CEO:

To Printlife Friends,

Printlife announced today that it is discontinuing its operations. As of

March 7, 2001 the company will discontinue its marketing and manufacturing

in the US and Japan, and research and development in Israel.

Although the company has successfully launched its business in Japan and the

US, the tightened venture capital markets were not receptive to the ongoing

capital needs of the company. Printlife has found that the unsettled

economic environment coupled with the recent volatility in the digital

imaging marketplace made it impossible to raise the additional capital

necessary to sustain the business.

As employees of Printlife we are all tremendously disappointed. Come the end

of the day we all feel proud to have created a product that customers love

and launched it globally. Many people have believed in the product and the

vision, and dedicated tremendous effort, energy and resources in a short

period of time to make it a reality.

We want to thank all of our investors, suppliers, partners and other friends

for your help and support over this past year.

Meg Weston, President & CEO

Creo Israel fires half of its local staff

Creo Israel fired 40 of its Israeli employees, After earlier staff cuts, this leaves Creo with a workforce of 45, down considerably from its peak of over 100 employees. Creo is a sperate entity from CreoScitex in Herzlia (why?…)

Creo Israel fires half of its local staffSource: Ha’aretz, The Maker.com : 18.3.2001 | Eynav Ben Yehuda

Creo Israel last week fired 40 of its Israeli employees, TheMarker.com has learned. After earlier staff cuts, this leaves Creo with a workforce of 45, down considerably from its peak of over 100 employees.The company was forced to cut expenses due to market conditions, said Creo Israel CEO Eviatar Halevi. He says that most of the staff cuts were made from the firm’s R&D and administrative divisions. “We decided to narrow our focus to just two products, and stop the development of a third product. Instead, we will focus on developing a product that is more promising in terms of the current market conditions, and we will continue developing the next generation of this product. Our customers are aware of the change, and have faith in the company,” he added.

Creo Israel, which develops and produces direct laser imaging technologies for the printing industry, was founded in 1994 by Creo Products (Nasdaq:CREO). In July 2000, the firm completed a $13 million private placement, at a company valuation of $52 million, post-money.

Venture capital company Vertex Management Israel led the placement with $4 million. Other investors included Creo International, the Challenge fund and the Nomura bank.

Meltzer out, Rolant is in as CreoScitex Israel chief

Michael Rolant will assume the Israeli corner office (Just think how far they have come: this is the office where Efi Arazi used sit…)

Monday March 12, 8:31 am Eastern Time

Press Release

SOURCE: Creo Products Inc.

Creo Names New President of CreoScitex Israel

VANCOUVER, March 12 /PRNewswire/ – Creo Products Inc. (NASDAQ: CREO – news; TSE: CRE – news) announced today that Erez Meltzer decided to step down from his roles as Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President, Creo Products Inc. and President of CreoScitex Corporation Ltd (Israel), one of the company’s manufacturing and development operations. Creo does not intend to fill the Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President role at this time.

Michael Rolant, currently Vice President of Business Operations for CreoScitex, will be assuming the role of President, CreoScitex Corporation Ltd (Israel). Mr. Rolant has been with Creo for six years and has been responsible for a variety of areas including leading the global CreoScitex Customer Support group. Mr. Meltzer will assist Mr. Rolant with the transition over the next two months.

Erez Meltzer to resign?

Creo-Scitex CEO Erez Meltzer about to resign over disagreements with Creo management
Meltzer’s will follow three senior executives out of the company. A senior company source: Creo’s management is not suitable for Israel. Where is this big ship heading?

Creo-Scitex CEO Erez Meltzer about to resign over disagreements with Creo managementMeltzer’s will follow three senior executives out of the company. A senior company source: Creo’s management is not suitable for Israel.

The ExScite has learned that Creo-Scitex CEO Erez Meltzer is about to resign his position, due to sharp disagreements with the management of the Creo group over the group’s strategic direction. Meltzer was unavailable for response today. Meltzer’s resignation from Creo-Scitex, responsible for two thirds of Creo’s activity, comes after a number of senior executives left in recent months.

A senior Creo-Scitex source today said, “Creo’s management takes no interest in the really important things, such as increasing sales and entering new fields in full force. That is also the reason for the wave of resignations. There are many disagreements about strategy and the company management methods.

”I predict that the short-term financial results will not be affected. I don’t believe we will see a profit warning tomorrow morning, but management should also look further ahead than one or two years from now. The long-term decisions taken were mistakes. Add to this Creo’s corporate culture, which is not suited to Israel, and you’ll understand why a number of managers have left Creo-Scitex.”

Source: Published by Israel’s Business Arena on March 11, 2001, Avishai Ovadya 11.03.2001 17:57