London, England – 12th December, 2007:

Media Systems Limited has today announced that it has won a major contract to provide Express Newspapers with an advanced editorial solution. 

Express Newspapers, owned by Northern & Shell, publishes multiple titles both in the UK and abroad.  The daily newspapers (Daily Express, Daily Star) have an average daily sale approaching two million copies and on a Sunday their two Sunday titles sell around one and a half million copies. Many regional editions are produced, including highly localised versions for Scotland, Ireland and a weekly digest for the expatriate market in Europe. 

Included within the magazine titles is OK!, a hugely successful publication that also has a growing global presence, being published in Australia, Bulgaria, China, Greece, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Middle East, Philippines, Russia, Thailand, USA and soon to launch Spain, Germany, Turkey and Japan. They also have a growing presence on the Web with sites such as www.express.co.uk  and www.dailystar.co.uk . The Titles continue to show strong sales growth and Advertising share and will be further enhanced by the adoption of the new system.

As part of the ongoing process of providing the most effective tools for their Editorial users and improving the IT infrastructure, Express Newspapers identified a need to replace the existing system (QPS) and associated hardware, both server and client.  It offered an opportunity to move the entire Editorial operation into the digital age.  After a detailed pre-project phase that encapsulated their forward looking requirements and then evaluating several possible solutions Express Newspapers decided to implement Media Systems’ solution. 

The MSL solution combines Woodwing’s Smart Connection Enterprise (SCE) cross-media editorial system with Net Publish Enterprise, a very powerful CMS solution from Dutch Software together with a wire input system from FingerPost to provide a complete system.  The 700-user system will manage content and production for all Express newspaper and magazine titles.  The Express plans to roll out the system during 2008.

The 700 user system, to cover both their current and future needs, is to be supplied and installed by Media Systems, one of the leading suppliers to the UK publishing industry working in conjunction with Graphit, the most experienced WoodWing implementation house in Europe.  The Express already benefits from use of a MSL Advertising and Planning system and with the addition of the SCE system will have in place a highly integrated solution, one that will work alongside facets of the existing Production Control system as well as introducing a centralised CMS and other new functionality.

SCE is highly flexible and uses the latest proven technologies to provide a productive and scalable solution, one without platform or database dependencies, all encompassed within an open architecture. These factors were very important in helping to decide what system was most suitable to meet the ever changing demands of the modern publisher, the scale of the operation in terms of user numbers and multiplicity of sites dictating the need for an open, highly configurable yet robust solution.

Steve Draper, IT Director at the Express, said “We are convinced the WoodWing system will give us the kind of performance we are looking for.  It is a young, forward looking company which will work with us and Media Systems to develop a system tailored to our needs.

The flexible and open nature of the system was a key factor in the decision as was the fact that both Media Systems and Woodwing are prepared to work closely with us to ensure all of our needs are met.  

As we already have years of experience with Media Systems on our advertising system we are convinced this combination will produce a state-of-the-art system capable of developing our needs as they change over the years”.

Ian Bennett, the Managing Director of Media Systems said “We are delighted that Express Newspapers has bought our editorial solution.  As Steve says it provides an excellent foundation for their editorial needs going forward and also happens to be extremely cost effective.  At 700 seats it will be a very large installation.”