- Atex (software)
Atex is a software company providing solutions to the global media industry and helped pioneer the switch of newspaper and magazine publishing from "hot lead" to "
cold type ", and in the process developed networked machines with communication capability ("Atex messaging") credited as a major predecessor of e-mail and instant messaging.Atex's software applications include Media Sales Advertising, Content Management, Circulation and Online Publishing.
Backed by the Norwegian investment company Kistefos AS, Atex currently employs around 600 people, almost all development and support resources. The company supports more than 800 print and online publishing organisations in more than 40 countries.
All Atex software solutions are now built using open standards, Web services, XML interchange methods, and a Service-Oriented Architecture.
History
Atex was founded in Massachusetts in 1973 by brothers Richard and Charles Ying and Douglas Drane, who served as its president.
The founders sold Atex to Kodak in the 1980s, and in an effort to focus on its core photographic businesses, Kodak later sold Atex to a private group of investors in the 1990s.
Atex publishing systems were installed at hundreds of publications around the world, including
The New York Times , Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and a host of major metropolitan daily newspapers, as well as such magazines asNewsweek ,Time magazine andU.S. News and World Report .In 2002 Atex merged with Media Command, a company formed through the acquisitions of Collier Jackson in the United States; Australia’s Cybergraphic which, along with Atex, provided the majority of publishing systems in Australasia; and Matrix, a UK-based developer of newspaper and magazine distribution software. At that time, the name changed to Atex Media Command, but in December 2004 the company decided that it was again to be called Atex. Atex alumni include Paul Brainerd, founder of
Aldus and creator of PageMaker, and John Hild and Dave Erickson, founders of XyQuest and creators ofXyWrite .In late 2006, backed by Norwegian investment firm Kistefos AS, Atex acquired the media business of Unisys Corporation, and in early 2007 acquired Mactive, an advertising systems developer.
In 2008 Atex acquired Polopoly, a Java based Web CMS.
External links
* [http://www.atex.com Atex official site]
John Hawkins: CEO of Atex
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
