Xplor Names 2008 Lifetime Achievement, Innovator and Technology Application Award Winners
LUTZ, FL—February 13, 2008—Xplor International, the worldwide electronic document systems association, today announced the recipients of its annual 2008 awards. The three Xplor Awards recognize the Innovator of the Year, Technology Application of the Year and individual Lifetime Achievement. The awards will be presented at Xplor’s opening ceremony on Tuesday, March 4, 2008 at the Xplor Document University, Global Conference and Exhibition in Boston, Massachusetts.
Lifetime Achievement Award—this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award, a new award formed in 2007, goes to Frank Delfer, executive vice president of technology and Chief Technology Officer of DST Output,
El Dorado Hills, California. Delfer’s career reflects a record of achievement, ingenuity and leadership within the digital document industry for nearly 31 years. His numerous accomplishments include leading the implementation of the transaction mail industry’s first manifest mailing system that has become commonplace in the 21st century, developing the industry’s first patented, integrated mailing system that preceded mainframe-to-mailbox technology as well as significant contributions to the development of 28 patented/patent pending applications for production process innovations for DST Output. In addition, Delfer served on numerous U.S. Postal Service committees and projects, co-founded the Major Mailers Association and developed the innovative Digital Press Technology (DPT) platform. Frank Delfer joins Brain Platte, whom Xplor’s Lifetime Achievement Award is named in honor of, formerly CTO of IBM and known as the father of AFP.
Innovator of the Year Award— each year, Xplor International recognizes an individual or organization in the Xplor community that has made a significant contribution to the electronic document systems industry. This year, the award is being presented to Crawford Technologies, Toronto, ON Canada. Crawford’s entry, Document Enhancer, provides corporations with the ability to perform post document re-engineering utilizing personnel who are expert in the documents they work with, not the Print Description Languages (PDLs) underlying them. Crawford’s deep understanding of the technologies surrounding mission-critical document processing and the strategic and business implications of information management led them to recognize the underserved need for corporations to re-engineer legacy print applications into new and advanced document processing systems. Previously, document re-engineering modifications were limited to hardcopy only.- With the increase in electronic delivery and the requirement to co-mingle multiple print streams, additional categories such as electronic and print stream can now feasible by staff with expertise in the document themselves.
Given the overwhelming number and quality of award submissions, honorable mentions in the Innovator of the Year Award category will also be given to both Trendset/Integrated System and X-Packs/DST Output.
Technology Application Award—Xplor also recognizes organizations for their imaginative application of current technology that establishes an industry’s direction. This year’s recipient, GMC Software Technology, is recognized for their implementation of PrintNet Software Suite with Oniya Shapira, a GMC customer. The application exploits the use of full-color transpromo printing for Cal’s (Israel Credit Cars Ltd.) credit card holders. Previously, Oniya Shapira was printing statements for Cal using pre-printed paper with black and white digital overprinting. Although the statements did include some marketing messages, personalization was limited. The new GMC and Oniya Shapira transpromo implementation now includes a full color, personalized, variable length credit card statement, relevant third-party messages as well as offerings from their loyalty program. The application produces approximately 8 million transpromo statement pages per month for Cal alone. In addition, with GMC PrintNet, Oniya Shapira has also moved a number of other transactional and promotional customers to the GMC color platform, including companies from the advertising, cosmetics, jewelry, fashion, automotive and vacation industries.
In addition to GMC Software Technology, Thomas Cook/Pitney Bowes and Suez Lyonnaise de Eau France/Data One France will also be recognized with honorable mentions in this category.
Award winners will be honored at Xplor’s Award Ceremony, Tuesday March 4, 2008 from 5:15 to 6:15 PM. In addition, the Xplorer of the Year Award and Chairman’s Award winner will also be recognized.
About Xplor International
Xplor International is a worldwide, not-for-profit professional association that consists of thousands of users and suppliers of the products and services that create, modify and deliver customized information using a wide variety of document technologies. The association provides educational products and programs for its members and the industry at large through conferences, meetings and annual events. Xplor International has its worldwide headquarters in Lutz, Florida with affiliated offices around the world. Further information is available at www.xplor.org.
