IT to promote the dissemination of information
(IT For Print)

Liu Xiaokun
President
Beijing Founder Electronics Co.，Ltd.

　　It is the most representative of the production of commonly used tools to represent a historical period, such as the Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, the era of steam. This mode of thinking used to review the 20th century, we find that in the past 100 years, human beings transfer from the electric age to the information age.

　　The scientific and technological revolution marked by the breakthrough of electronic information industry and the rapid development changed all aspects of human social life, the publication and printing industry was also baptised by the revolution, and has changed radically.

　　1. Information technology improved the production tools of the printing industry , and led to a technological revolution of the printing industry

　　Bi Sheng invented clay of moveable type in 11th century, as well as Gutenberg's invention of metal moveable type operation 400 years later , conduced the technological revolution of printing history, and made important contributions to the spread in the follow-up period of almost a thousand years.

　　In the 1970’s, A state-sponsored scientific and technological project, "Chinese Information Processing Project" started to become the birth of the Chinese Laser Phototypesetting . The system ivented by Pro. Wang Xuan compressesthe complexity of Chinese characters stroke information through a unique compression technology with high-rate compression and keep into the computer, imposes with computer , and outputs film with the computer-controlled laser Phototypesetting followed by platemaking , washs out  the traditional letterpress printing process. This technology triggered another technological revolution China's printing industry, promoted China's press and publishing industry, and and began the digitalization of the newspaper first.
 
　　From the imagesetter, Founder is on the renewal of the thinking of Professor Wang Xuan, "the development of computing technology is not only the international trend, but also the needs of the country" , develops new production tools for publishing and printing industry with other suppliers, during the supersession of the old tools, the productivity has been greatly enhanced.

　　The digital process of Chinese printing industry goes through the following stages:

　　- Remote Satellite Transmission took place the paper fax machines, implemented a single page description language via satellite transmission layout, the amount of information is only the 1 / 50 of traditional fax. The remote satellite transmission was applied quickly in the newspapering and expanded the newspaper circulation rapidly;

　　- Color electronic publishing system washed out the electronic color separation machine. It implemented digital screening and color management technology, increase output full-page graphic efficiency greatly , and applied in areas such as newspapers and magazines rapidly;

　　- News collecting and editing system realized computer management reporters interview, write, edit, modify, transfer, validation, until the imposition, and on this basis to develop an asset management system centre around database management , made the news production streamlining and automation, and the content can become a value-added digital assets;

　　- Digital workflow and CTP technology, is gradually to replace the Imagesetter , with JDF, workflow technology, to connect pre-press printing and finishing system from the different manufacturers automatically, realize the automatic workflow from orders to shipments;

　　The use of information technology  improves the production efficiency, it is said that the history of modern printing industry's technological progress, is resulted from information technology’s reform and application.

　　2. Information technology is changing the business form of publication and printing

　　The development of information technology not only improves the production of the publication printing industry tools, and more importantly is that it is changing the business forms of the industry.

　　Especially the development of Web2.0 has changed the mode the reader is just a passive to accept the information, a large number of blog and the podcasts, make ordinary people to be not only recipient but also publisher, interactive become one of the main features of the communication during this period. The information transmission mode that relies on editors to select content , then distribute the large-scale replication cannot meet the demand for personalized information, and a large number of personal led to the diversification of demand. Therefore, the decline in newspaper reading has resulted in the decrease of circulation and advertising revenue, more people turn up to the network to find information of interest to them. The new information technologies represented by E-paper has great impact on book publishing and printing.

　　The development of database technology, makes information structuring, fragmentation and intellectualization knowledge base, and provides on-demand information services through the Internet, such business forms has been a successful business model in a number of professional fields, especially in the field of academic journals .

　　There are several changes in business form deserved attention particularly:

　　(1) Digital Printing

　　The main characteristics of information demanding of the information age is diversification personalization and efficiency, and these features have been reflected in the printing business, runlength of printing switches from the longrun to the low-volume, multi-species and personalized, digital printing emerged and developed rapidly. Digital printing to make books sale mode from the printing- inventory- sale to print-on-demand business model. This kind of serve not only to apply in short- run printing such as government documents, business documents and commercial , and in the financial, telecommunications, insurance, securities, direct mail and other industry needs variable data printing. In recent years, TransPromo combined with advertising billing and business developed very fast in developed countries, In the face of a challenging economy, this is one of the bright spots. And personalized printing, such as personalized calendars, photo albums and so on, is a potential market for digital printing. On the image technology of digital printing, because of the speed, size and quality, inkjet has gradually become the mainstream technology. Founder as the owner completely independent intellectual property rights of the jet printing system leaps the digital printing technology to a new level in China, but also has laid a solid foundation for our high-end digital printing equipment industry.

　　(2) Web to Print

　　Web-to-Print/W2P is one of the most intuitive combination of information technology and printing technology. Web- to-Print is neithera printing technology, nor just a document exchange from web, at its core, Web-to-print is a form of e-commerce, a realization of network processing services through online systems, including  dealing with the affairs of create a personalized template, the document review and soft proofing, printing orders, payments, orders confirmation, and monitoring to the logistics process.

　　Web-to-Print changes the interaction between the printed documents and marketers, the greatest difference is the change in business model and marketing. Over time, the Web-to-Print will affect the marketing fundamentally, transform the print service providers to the market service providers. This situation has emerged in U.S. and European markets, the printing plants supply printing services, at the same time, they supply data management services, multimedia publishing, digital asset management, direct mail and one-on-one marketing services with digital printing and other information technology products, expands their business and become the market service provider.

　　(3) Suppliers are changing to the service provider

　　Generally speaking, suppliers in the printing industry provides specific products and service,  but the infiltration of the network has changed social behavior profoundly. In the face of new technologies and market opportunities customers will be at a loss, so the suppliers should try to guide the customers to apply new technologies to open up new markets. Counterparts abroad have been tried first, such as Océcreate digital newspaper network (DNN) for their digital printing equipment users to, has become a tache of global publishing, printing and distribution; HP’s MagCloud try personalized self-help magazine publishing. In China, Founder leads the consume digital photo merchandising with HP.

　　(4) e-book

　　The annual report of 2008 China's e-book released in " China Book Business Report" in April this year, showed that in sharp contrast with the stagnation, weak growth of books, e-books have maintained a high-speed growth in the variety, the number of transactions and sales, it’s becoming the new star of China book publishing industry.

　　PC, notebook, mobile phones, handheld readers, as well as special PSP, MP4, have become terminal of e-books. Especially the maturing of E-paper, many foreign and domestic companies have launched new e-paper readers technology products, which excellent in  energy saving, clarity, and big screen, the reading experience is superior than the previous product, the user of e-paper reading is increasing rapidly, this will strike the paper-based books is growing.

　　(5) Media integration

　　Media integration is neither a simple interaction or cooperation of different media , nor is it to replace the paper media with new media, but break the boundaries of different media in a main entity, organize different forms of the entire media content to a platform to plan and  production, and then to publish by the various media, in the process we need to build the entire media platform, and the integration of a variety of media culture.

　　In recent years, there are more and more interactive products and demand, this feature is not developed to meet the needs of the publication, but in the process of application it’s used for reference in the publication and printing industry and bring vital force to the industry. This is the way the information technology impacts on the publishing and printing industry. Founder called it Hybrid Publishing System, and spreads it in China.

　　For example, the authors publish part of the novel circumstances in the network, and write the follow-up according to the reaction of readers , and even co-create with readers; there are many examples of the paper printing of the popular free e-books online free of charge makes substantial profits , such as "Something about Ming Dynasty "; Time magazine recently announced Mine magazine subscription, readers of the magazine can select columns of interest, and then automatically assembled into a new magazine be provided in electronic version and traditional print magazine; new human-computer interaction technology will bring about a new print publication experience.. This "e paper interaction" model is a concrete manifestation of the media integration.

　　3. The future development of the printing industry, information technology is the main driving force

　　The review of the history of publish and printing industry and the description of the status, we would understand the information technology improve our industry, it changed the industry's production methods and business forms, and brought opportunities and challenges to the industry, it’s sure that IT will also have a profound impact on the future development of the industry.

　　Frank Romano predicted the development trend of the printing industry the next few years in the "Print week", in the case of  printing technologies:

　　- Commercial Printing: low production capacity of conventional printing equipment, workflow has not yet been fully applied, which have hindered the development of the printing enterprises. In order to rapidly increase productivity, and some printing plant should consider the need to use a new fully automated printer in place of two presses tradition. There are certain advantages of offset, but digital printing will make great progress in the short-run and variable data printing.

　　- Book Printing: the publisher will final choose the print-on-demand to reduce inventory and storage costs. Any titles will have printed version, as a digital printing can print just one copy, so if the book printer use of offset printing and digital printing at the same time the, they will be able to meet any demand from the shortest to the longest runlength. Republish book shifts to the book on-demand printing gradually, which requires hybrid application of long run and short run.

　　- Note Printing: With the electronic bill delivery and payment have been applied by more and more companies, check usage declined. With electronic bill, commercial note printing market is changing, note printing plants need for change. The integration of paper and labels will continue to deepen integration, we must attach importance to the development of RFID. RFID connects computers chips and antenna together by printing, produces electronic labels, and then affixed to the pallets and cartons. Note printing enterprises will have a significant opportunity if they mastered the basic skills of these factors.

　　- Newspaper Printing: the modern color newspaper printing press has been considerable development. But when the news can be gotten at any time and any place, the light color is not enough. Although classified advertising is more and more networking, print advertising is still a profitable market. To improve the effectiveness of your ads , you have to expand the door-to-door services and direct-mail market share. Publishers have also established online community for their readers.

　　- PackagePrinting: this market is dynamic, because the brand managers to find innovative packaging and design. And diversification of products, personalization also requires packaging & printing diversification and personalization, needs digital printing.

　　In general, all the printing technologies have the potential markets, only the digital printing, especially ink-jet digital printing will be the most unbelievable technology and have the widest market.

　　Judging from the publication printing industry, with the enhancement of personalized, interactive demand, newspapers, magazines and books will provide personalized products, cross-media publishing ,and digital printing will expend application.

　　Printing services company in the continuous improvement the level of equipment technology and product quality, should also pay attention to their own resources to develop new markets and concern about the use of information technology services to develop and enrich their role.

　　The trend of media integration not only expands the connotation of reproduction technology research, provides a broader platform for establishment of an information printing industry, but also builds a more high thresholds for information printing industry.

　　The interaction between technology and social demand is the driving force of historical development, the development of printing technology promote the human culture and civilization. Information technology has been adding a new vitality for the ancient art, and it will become the main driving force to the future of publish and printing industry.

　　Founder committed itself to information technology over the past decades, has written a glorious chapter in the history of publish and printing industry technological advancement in China. Founder will also continue to focus on information technology, and make greater contributions to the development of the publish and printing industry in the world.

[时间：2009-05-19  作者：Liu Xiaokun  来源：必胜网]