K4 conquers important Asian market: New Straits Times Press (Malaysia) Berhad are producing with SoftCare K4

Malaysian Sales Partner Papyrus Media to Exhibit at Publish Asia in Macao together with SoftCare and CoreMedia

Hamburg/Kuala Lumpur, March 20, 2008 - Malaysia’s largest newspaper publishing house, New Straits Times Press Berhad, will publish three daily magazine sections of its newspapers using the SoftCare K4 Publishing System. The publishing house announced that the layout production of its popular tabloids, “News Straits Times” and “Harian Metro”, as well as the “Berita Harian” newspaper has almost been converted to Adobe InDesign and SoftCare K4. Alltogether those publications reach more than 2,6 million enthusiastic Malaysian readers per day. Papyrus Media, SoftCare‘s official K4 integrator for Malaysia, is in charge of implementing the software. In April Papyrus Media and SoftCare will present the K4 Publishing System to the Asian publishing industry at the Publish Asia tradeshow in Macao, China at Booth 10a. Also on board: CoreMedia, SoftCare’s technology partner for cross-media publishing. CoreMedia's CMS and K4 offer an integrated solution for multi channel publishing that has already gained a lot of interest at the CeBIT in Germany earlier this spring.

SoftCare K4 is increasingly gaining ground in global markets: “Papyrus Media is a competent and reliable local contact partner for Asian publishers who are interested in a professional publishing solution,” says Birgit Rosenthal, Director of Business Development at SoftCare. The recent purchase of New Straits Times Press Berhad supports this statement: the traditional Malaysian publishing house bought 70 K4 seats. K4 won out over competitive products, because it was especially easy to integrate into the publisher‘s existing IT infrastructure. For example, they are using K4 Drop Folders to automatize check-in to the system for their existing customized text and picture files and an ad planning system. Another reason was that relatively few training sessions were required to prepare the employees for the new system.

“As the number of Adobe InDesign users at New Straits Times Press grows, organizing the users’ work has proved to be an arduous task,” said Abdul Rahman Hashim, Head of IT at New Straits Time Press. “We found K4 most convincing, since it allows us to manage all InDesign documents in a central database. At the same time, the documents are available to editors without access to InDesign and can be proof-read by freelancers outside New Straits Times Press via the K4 Web Editor. The K4 XML Exporter makes it especially easy to export layouts and repurpose them for the internet or for the magazines’ archives,” adds Abdul Rahman. Papyrus Media supports the publisher during the entire conversion process: The Malaysian integrator company has fed all existing InDesign documents into the system, assisted with the setup of a logical workflow for all publications, and has trained the staff on the new system. As the first publication of New Straits Times Press (Malaysia) Berhad the lifestyle magazine “Harian Metro” is expecting to have entirely switched to K4 by the end of March.

About SoftCare

SoftCare was founded in 1990 and is a leading developer of workflow solutions for the publishing industry, helping magazine, newspaper and book publishers work more efficiently. The integrated publishing solution SoftCare K4 combines powerful working processes with verifiable time and cost benefits for users and is regarded as a standard product within the industry. The SoftCare K2 workgroup system provides an excellent base product for people entering the world of professional publishing. The system is ideal for small workgroups that want to combine creative know-how with economical processes. Simple and secure use as well as flexibility and stability are just some of the decisive benefits for the user. SoftCare K4 has been successfully implemented at sites ranging from 10 to more than 1,000 users. Both solutions support Mac OS X and Windows clients in mixed-platform environments, as well as all current server platforms. SoftCare teams up with trained System Integrators across the globe to ensure high-quality service and support for the system on a local level. Additional information can be found at www.softcare.de

About Papyrus Media Sdn Bhd.

A group of experienced IT experts, providing Information Technology solutions, services, outsourcing and support to clients throughout the Asia Pacific & Middle Eastern Region. Headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Papyrus Media services include hardware and software development, installation and customization, digital publishing solutions, imaging & archiving solutions, digital signage and narrowcasting, web, new media development, design services and printing. Papyrus Media has an excellent support team combining extensive publishing and new media technology expertise. Papyrus Media is an authorized system integrator for SoftCare K4 and SoftCare K2 in Asia. More information can be found at www.papyrus-media.com.