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DAX: Connection People

Over the past six years, Digital Art Exchange (DAX) has built a reputation in the industry as being a company that knows all about connectivity. DAX has helped commercial printers navigate the uncharted waters of building a network infrastructure and choosing the most productive online applications to help them take advantage of digital workflow technologies.

Martijn van Steeg, COO of DAX, recently sat down with Printing Impressions' Caroline Miller to talk about the hurdles that printers must still clear before they can implement a totally digital workflow, as well as the benefits of going digital.

PI: What is the largest obstacle the graphic arts community has yet to clear with regard to adopting a digital workflow?

van Steeg: The largest hurdle is the current confusion in the marketplace. Everyone has been bombarded by different solutions, and it's hard to decide what you should pick and choose.

People in the printing industry look at the bottom line. Printers move toward a new technology when they think that it makes sense from a return-on-investment standpoint. When there is confusion around a technology, you don't make that investment because you first want to know what you really need and with whom who you should work.

A TrendWatch study from a year ago reported that just over 10 percent of printers use their Internet connection for anything more than brochureware or e-mail. Many printers still don't have the infrastructure to take advantage of solutions such as soft proofing, digital asset management and file transfers. So, it's obviously an untapped market.

PI: How is DAX helping printers sort out the confusion surrounding all of the different solutions available in the marketplace?

van Steeg: To help alleviate some of that confusion, we started PrintPlanet.com, which is an e-community of discussion forums. The forums are purely educational and are free to all qualified members within the industry. Launching PrintPlanet was a very successful move for us; we currently have over 25,000 subscribers. For those subscribers who are looking at implementing these technologies, PrintPlanet is a great resource of information in terms of following the discussion or even participating by posting a question.

The forums also allow end users—who are actually using these technologies—to discuss the problems that they have with all these different kinds of technologies, as well as to share strategies and solutions. They are basically educating themselves. We found that this is actually one of the most effective ways to approach the market.

PrintPlanet enables DAX, as well as other companies on the forum, to see what the problems are from the people who actually use these technologies. At DAX, we can monitor the PrintPlanet discussions, anticipate and follow trends, and then build our products around what the market needs today—instead of just coming up with a solution and trying to push it in a marketplace that might not really need or welcome that solution.

PI: How will the Internet and digital workflow technologies impact the printer?

van Steeg: Digital workflow technologies will impact the printer more and more every day. It's very important for a printing company to understand that they can gain more cost-efficiencies from a digital workflow.

But, DAX doesn't believe that printers have to fully change their entire business immediately. Rather, I think the move toward a digital workflow will be slower than most people anticipate. Printers do need to take a look, however, and determine what kinds of steps that they have to take today.

PI: Can you expand a little more about what printers might want to consider as they head down this road?

van Steeg: Printers need to understand what a network can do for them, and then what they need to apply to their businesses to make it happen. DAX wants to help printers establish their digital workflow.

We talk to printers and try to find out their needs. Are they interested in digital asset management? Do they want to offer soft or remote proofing? We advise printers on what kind of Internet strategy they would need including what type of bandwidth they should purchase to achieve individualized initiatives.

DAX understands the printer's workflow. Everyone at DAX comes from the graphic arts community. The telecommunications companies have no idea about each printer's specific workflow and what this workflow means to their productivity.

PI: There is much discussion around T-1 connections and DSL. Can you expand on what a T-1 connection is and why it's important for printers to consider?

van Steeg: T1 and DSL are two different telecom technologies that offer high bandwidth (broadband) and thus the ability to move large volumes of data in a short time. The printing industry deals with large data files, for example high resolution images, and has a need for broadband. Most people refer with "T1 or DSL connection" as the connection to the Internet. The T1 access to the Internet is the most robust and reliable solution. DSL is more attractive from a price point, but lacks the wide availability the T1 has. For a lot of companies T1 (or a fractional T1) is the only broadband solution available at their location. DAX offers multiple T1 and DSL solutions. We encourage our customers to look at DAX DSL and we can tell you if it is available or not at your location.

Once you start pushing large files over the Internet, it becomes important which provider you choose. There are issues around security, the quality of the providers' network (backbone) and sharing access to the backbone. The market has split the Internet providers into different tiers. Tier 1 providers have networks that are much more robust (less downtime), and are not overutilized like the Tier 2 and 3 providers. If you deal with mission critical data, it is highly recommended to work with a Tier 1 provider.

There is of course a price difference, but I guess you get what you pay for. DAX only works with Tier 1 providers and fully addresses issues like security and workflow integration. We offer products that can scale with your business, workflow needs and budget.

PI: What can we expect from DAX in the future?

van Steeg: DAX will keep our strong focus on providing our managed Internet services to the industry, in conjunction with expanding our best-of-class graphic arts applications. In the first quarter, we will be rolling out our third generation file transfer product with Hilgraeve called DAX Information Transfer or DAX-IT .

This service was created with security as the main focus in development. This product is extremely interactive, intuitive, user-friendly, customizable and more secure than FTP with up to three layers of encryption.

We are very excited about announcing this new product and, with Hilgraeve, it will be out to market within the first quarter of next year. We are also garnering tremendous response for our VPN product, a private network that also provides customers Internet access with reliability, security and high-performance all in one package.

PI: What effect do you think the Internet will have on the printing industry?

van Steeg: The impact is going to be very big. The graphic arts industry, in general, still has a lot of inefficiencies. The Internet can be of benefit by removing these inefficiencies and improving quality and speed.

We are just at the beginning of what is going to happen; no one can tell you exactly how it is going to impact the industry. DAX truly believes that the Internet will have a major impact, and it will positively change the way that people work.

Briefs

Steve Soames has been appointed vice president, online supply chain, for ImageX.com. In his new position, Soames will oversee the development and integration of paper and graphic arts supplies into ImageX.com's graphic arts services.

PrintNation has announced a partnership with Yahoo! Under the terms of the agreement, PrintNation will offer printing-related content, supplies and equipment at Yahoo!'s new business-to-business marketplace. Yahoo!'s new business-to-business marketplace is an extensive product directory that connects business consumers to B2B merchants via the Internet.

Mail-Well has partnered with printCafe in order to offer its customers a fully integrated e-commerce solution. Two Mail-Well Mid-Atlantic Print Group companies—John D. Lucas Printing and French Bray—have launched new e-commerce Websites. Their customers can design, order, estimate and check job status, as well as collaborate with all those involved in a print job.

Printable.com has announced the addition of Bradford Giles as vice president of strategic development and Charles Gehman as chief technology officer. Both men come to Printable from Digital Art Exchange (DAX), where Giles was president and Gehman was vice president of technology.

PrintPlanet.com has added Shopping Galaxy to its Website. It was created to offer subscribers a selection of graphic arts-specific products and supplies from vendors who become Shopping Galaxy distribution partners through strategic alliances with PrintPlanet.com.

Jean Grall, a former managing director at Salomon Smith Barney and Merrill Lynch, has been appointed chairman and CEO of Digital Art Exchange (DAX). Grall will work closely with DAX COO Martijn van Steeg. In other company news, DAX has announced that it has received an additional round of funding to accommodate strategic growth initiatives.

httprint.com has announced a global alliance with Coyle Print Group, Chicago. The two companies will jointly market their services in an effort to expand both companies' presence in the printing industry, as well as offer additional service to clients. Under the agreement, httprint will provide Coyle with an e-commerce platform and private label branded Website.

WAM!NET announced that it has completed the acquisition of is.com, a privately owned, Eagan, MN-based provider of e-commerce services. The acquisition strengthens WAM!NET's professional services capabilities, including network and storage infrastructure, business process and workflow solutions, as well as e-commerce system development and implementation.

Four51 has unveiled its new Supplier Partnership program, which helps manufacturers and suppliers promote e-solutions to their independent distributors. The program partners Four51 with manufacturers looking to reap e-procurement's benefits without sacrificing distributor relationships or disrupting their operations with complex technology installation projects.