Seattle Bindery Newsletter: Issue #8. We welcome your comments.

1. Paper goings-on: Uncoated paper costs went up on 2-21-00. Coated stocks are holding to January increases. Mill orders are taking 6 to 8 weeks to deliver, but paper merchant inventory levels remain generally healthy. Global consolidation continues: Finland’s Stora agreed to buy Consolidated Papers of Wisconsin and Smurfit-Stone bought St. Laurent Paperboard in a deal
valued at $1 billion. (per Wall Street Journal and others)

2. Our new Moll folder-gluer is up and running like a champ. We also have the “bump and turn” and “final fold” units, further streamlining production. And the air suction pile feed mechanism ensures product moves through the equipment with the fewest possible contact points. These are the latest and greatest innovations in mechanical folding!

3. An update on printCafe.com. As I mentioned in my last newsletter, this dot-com burst onto the scene with all flags flying, including Programmed Solutions, Hagen OA, Creo, Prograph, and RR Donnelley. Last week we learned that Logic is now in the printCafe camp. That makes three-out-of-three shop floor production systems on the printCafe team. An aside: You may remember
that Donnelley forged an earlier alliance with Noosh. It appears everyone’s hedging their bets in this race.

4. Speaking of Programmed Solutions . . . we use it and know many of you do, too. The recent merger with printCafe has convinced us to attend the company’s annual users conference to be held June 4-7, 2000 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Although they have not said exactly what printCafe’s portion of the program will be yet, it’s a good bet there will be lots of questions from the floor.
I’ll keep you posted on more conference news.

5. Another tidbit from industry maven Kevin Keane: Repurposing content to multiple media will become increasingly important in our industry as clients take control of content and all its many uses, including the Internet, email, print, broadcast, CDs, direct mail, tradeshows, POP
displays, corporate intra- and extra-nets . . . all types of media we need to know as much about as we do printing.

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