News

Creo Expands Newspaper Prepress Solution through Acquisition of Leading
Production Workflow System

IfraExpo 2003 Leipzig, Germany (October 13, 2003) ?
Creo Inc. (NASDAQ: CREO; TSX: CRE) announces
that it has reached an agreement to purchase the IntelliNet NewsFlow production
workflow system product line and the integrated PressSite press control
interface for newspapers from HiT Internet
Technologies SpA of Affi, Italy, a leading developer of technology for the
publishing industry.

?Newspaper publishers and printers around the world rely on IntelliNet NewsFlow
to produce their publications without fail every issue,? says Neil McLean,
director of the Creo Newspaper Market. IntelliNet NewsFlow is used by many of
the world?s largest newspapers in more than 700 installations in 32 countries.
?Creo recognized the potential in IntelliNet to further extend and enhance our
workflow products to meet the needs of the newspaper of tomorrow, providing a
path for all current customers,? adds Mr. McLean.

?We are confident in the ability of Creo to support the customer base of
IntelliNet as well as to extend the features to serve those customers into the
future,? said Mos

Speculation over Scitex sale According to reports in the Israeli business press Scitex痴 holding company IDB has received an offer for the ink-jet printing specialist. A report in themarker.com claims that a non-Israeli investor is after Scitex Digital Printing (SDP), the firm痴 high-speed ink-jet over printer and press manufacturer.
Sources close to Scitex Digital Printing suggested that EFI or Xerox might be the firms making the offer. Both have a relationship with the firm, EFI to develop a front-end to drive its VersaMark digital colour press and Xerox to sell the VersaMark. No one from Scitex or IDB were available for comment.
There are changes at IDB that mean it is considering the options for Scitex, which has been singled out by IDB痴 recently appointed management as part of its cost-cutting measures. IDB holds almost 40% of Scitex痴 stock through its divisions Clal Industries & Investments and Discount Investment Corporation. Scitex・financial performance, particularly in its wide-format and ink-jet technology division Scitex Vision, has been poor.
SDP has been the group痴 cash cow. Write-downs on its holding in Creo have also been hitting its parent痴 profits, although Scitex recently sold half its remaining share of Creo leaving it with 6.6% of the pre-press giant. Scitex changed top management following the revamp at IDB. SDP president and chief executive Nachum Shamir now fills that role at Scitex as well having replaced Yeoshua Agassi last week. IDB staff have also taken up three positions on Scitex痴 board, including Discount Investment chief executive Ami Erel replacing former Clal chief executive Meir Shannie as chairman.

Creo Inc. announced on June 5th 2003 that Scitex Corporation Ltd. sold 3 million common shares of Creo today through the facilities of the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) in an arranged sale to various financial institutions. Scitex continues to hold 3.25 million of the original 13.25 million Creo shares acquired in April 2000 in exchange for its digital preprint and print-on-demand assets.
In November 2001, Scitex divested 7.0 million shares. The remaining Scitex shareholding of 3.25 million common shares represents approximately 6.5 percent of the outstanding Creo shares.

Although not posted yet on their web site, we at ExScite have heard that Creo has appointed a new VP of sales.
Patrick Morrisey, straight from a 3 month engagement as Sales director of Great lakes region is now in charge.

Vancouver, BC, Canada – Creo Inc. announces that Creo Middle East and Africa is consolidating its activities with those of Creo Europe, effective April 1, 2003. By combining the two organizations, Creo can make greater use of the existing infrastructure of Creo Europe in Waterloo, Belgium. To reflect this change, the operation has been renamed Creo EMEA S.A. The subsidiary will distribute Creo solutions throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
“We will be able to apply the well-developed methodology we have in our Waterloo facilities,” explains Alon Lumbroso, managing director, Creo EMEA. “We also look forward to better sharing of knowledge between the regions.” The change is not expected to impact the total number of employees, and cost savings are expected to balance the minor costs of consolidation.

XMPie, a Scitex spin-off founded in 2000 by the ExScite’s Jacob Aizikowitz, Israel Roth, and Reuven Sherwin. XMPie’s products enable combining electronic and print ad campaign management software
The company main share holders Scitex (19.4%) and Jerusalem Venture Partners have invested $4M so far and a $5-7M round is underway. The company has 26 employees in Netanya and 7 in the US.
In an interview with Globes, Jacob Aizikowitz (in the picture) said: “Toward the end of my time at Scitex, everyone was talking about personalized digital printing. … about ‘external personalization’, i.e. personalized content via the Internet for each surfer and customer, Internet people talk about personalization, and print people talk about personalizati