August 28th, 2008 – Gent, Belgium – In a production environment, the more hands that touch a job, the less profitable it becomes. This business principle is spurring increasing demand for workflow automation tools as margins in the printing industry diminish.

In cooperation with Crossroads -- an Enfocus-founded community that brings together vendors, integrators and users around the Switch automation platform -- Enfocus is driving a seminar series that will deliver both theoretical and very practical information on building a more automated publishing workflow. The free seminars will provide publishing professionals with concrete examples on the use of Enfocus Switch in corporate production environments and present a selection of other key products that are easily integrated with Switch. Each session will include stories from Switch users who will present their experiences and will be available for Q&A.

In addition to Enfocus, following Crossroads partners that have a configurator for Switch will introduce their products:

Alwan Color Expertise (color management and ink optimization); axaio software (enhancing PDF and PostScript output from Adobe InDesign and QuarkXpress); callas software (PDF-preflighting, -editing, -color conversion); Elpical (smart image optimization); Markzware (preflight solutions); PerfectProof (color management, proofing, large format printing). The free Crossroads Workflow Automation Seminars will be conducted on the following dates:

• September 30, London, The Hatton;
• October 1, Bristol, Novotel;
• October 2, Manchester, The Palace Hotel;

The New Switch 08

Enfocus Switch automates repetitive tasks, reduces the need for manual intervention, and at the same time enables automation for all participants in the production workflow -- even if they use separate and incompatible software. To transmit and route jobs automatically, a strong digital backbone is needed that can interface seamlessly with third-party systems. Enfocus Switch, which offers this capability, is the workflow automation technology which forms the basis of the Crossroads family of vendors.

At Drupa, Enfocus introduced Switch 08, a major upgrade for all products in the Switch family of automation-enabling software (the entry-level LightSwitch, mainstream FullSwitch and advanced PowerSwitch). The upgrade added significant new functionality while offering new workflow automation opportunities for ad agencies, publishers and printers alike.

With Switch 08, even in complex workflows, the job processing becomes more predictable and the implementation of job priorities promotes the fast-tracking of jobs. Switch 08 also optimizes the time it takes the first job to flow through the complete workflow, enabling more productive use of proofers, RIPs and imaging systems.

Crossroads is a multi-vendor platform for communicating about publishing automation solutions driven by Enfocus. Centered on the robust Switch automation technology, Crossroads pulls together a large ecosystem of software vendors offering automation products for publishing workflows. Crossroads targets the complete publishing workflow: it presents solutions for job reception, PDF creation and preflight, color correction, proofing, image manipulation and more. For more information, visit http://crossroads.enfocus.com.