Atex Supports Second Asian Launch

By: E&P Staff Atex, Reading, England, and Melbourne, Australia, has supported the launch of a second daily in Southeast Asia this summer.

After several months of preparations, including installation of Atex editorial management and digital asset management solutions, Sinar Harian, a new compact newspaper published by Kumpulan Karangkraf Sdn Bhd, is available in the northeastern Malaysian states of Kelantan and Terengganu.

The launch went off "without a hitch," with remote printing 250 miles from the paper's editorial headquarters at Shah Alam, Selangor, Edward Jerden, Atex regional systems analyst based in Kuala Lumpur, said in a statement "When necessary we were able to assist Karangkraf's dedicated staff on-site, but mostly we assisted by providing real-time remote support," he added.

A five-day regional tab running to 48 pages, Sinar Harian is the first daily newspaper from Karangkraf, which has 32 weekly and monthly publications, the largest number of Bahasa-language magazines in Malaysia, as well as a printing subsidiary.

Because Atex's open architecture enabled integration of a MobileReporter module, "stories and images are sent remotely directly to the editorial system," said Karangkraf IT Manager Syahril Azhar. Equipped with an HP iPaq Messenger, PDA handphone, bluetooth keyboard and digital camera, reporters transmit news as it happens through a GPRS connection to headquarters. Stories and pictures are edited immediately and placed on pages through the Atex editorial system.

"The management team can even monitor the newspaper's production as things happen at our remote Pengkalan Chepa site," Azhar said

Citing deadline monitoring, design and editorial collaboration, versioning, auditing, archiving, and Web publishing, Karangkraf Executive Director Syamil Fahim Bin Mohd Fahim said, "it won't be long before our magazine publishing division also begins using Atex."

Last month, the Brunei Times launched with turnkey multimedia editorial and advertising systems from Atex, which also supplied the new paper?s production team.