By: Jim Rosenberg Through what is termed an umbrella agreement with CCI Europe, Knight Ridder of San Jose, Calif., selected the Danish developer's CCI NewsDesk system for use at all its newspapers' newsrooms.
Announced today, the deal with the country's second-largest newspaper group (34 dailies in 30 markets) is CCI's second large sale this year in the U.S. It follows a decision by The New York Times Co. to install NewsDesk at its flagship, as well as
The Boston Globe and
Telegram & Gazette, Worcester, Mass.
Other CCI users include the Tribune Co., Gannett Co. Inc.'s
USA Today and
Arizona Republic in Phoenix,
The Washington Post, and
The Seattle Times. Knight Ridder already runs CCI systems at the
Charlotte (N.C.)
Observer, The Miami Herald (pagination for a System Integrators Inc./net-linx front end), and the
San Jose Mercury News. "Obviously, we're happy with the decision," remarked Dave Bauer, technology vice president at the
Merc, the group's first CCI site.
KR still has some other SII and Atex sites. Its largest Atex user, Philadelphia Newspapers Inc., converted to a Unisys system in 1998.
Knight Ridder chose NewsDesk as a common platform to "maximize our journalistic resources, both staff and content, as well as system administration," Steve Hanna said in a prepared statement. The group's technology vice president added that the system offered the required combination of functionality and maturity.
Though a roll-out has yet to be scheduled, implementation at three papers was approved for this year, beginning with
The Kansas City Star, one of the largest users of a DISC System IV, an early PC-based front end from the former Dewar Information Systems Corp. (acquired by a former Atex parent company seven years ago). KR's
Fort Worth Star-Telegram, (a former Capital Cities/Disney daily, like the
Star), is another large Dewar site.
CCI said the software Knight Ridder will get "is flexible and offers limited customization" to create a Knight Ridder "best practices" system tailored to its newspapers. Not a full CustomLine CCI system, the "best practices" system will start with a quick-to-install BaseLine orientation but will specify Knight Ridder integations as needed, according to CCI Area Sales Manager Glenn Reinemund. Hanna was travelling and others at Knight Ridder did not immediately return calls for comment.
CCI said it reduced its system's total cost of ownership by storing images in new ways, making system configuration easier, developing new methods to configure work flow, and creating a new interface for its LayoutChamp pagination.
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