UPDATE: Saxotech Managed Hosting Offers Savings Before Payment

By: E&P Staff Tampa-based Saxotech today launched a program to allow media companies "to realize positive cash flow savings" through the use of its Managed Hosted Mediaware Center before making any payment. Pricing and payment terms are designed to eliminate uncertainty related to capital investments, according to Saxotech executives.

Under the program, "qualified media companies" will obtain implementation, hosting, support and use of Hosted Mediaware Center software through what Saxotech calls "pricing based on the measurable cost savings associated with its use."

Saxotech President and CEO Anders Christiansen said that qualified companies are those that, after discussions with Saxotech and examination of their processes, could expect to find areas where the program will work and where areas for savings can be identified.

Minimum customer commitment is 12 months, and payment terms will be structured to enable participants to realize savings from using the Mediaware Center before payments begin.

"We understand in today's economic environment media companies are under tremendous pressure to find additional efficiencies and to only invest in areas where they can realize a quick return on their investment," Christiansen said. "This program is designed to allow our customers to achieve both."

Despite the recession in general and newspaper companies' difficulties in particular, Saxotech Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Bill Gilmour added, "We believe some of the uncertainty in the market is abating, based on current economic indicators."

Gilmour said the system "can provide more than 25% productivity improvement in the newsroom." Over weeks, sometimes months, Saxotech consults with prospective customers, analyzing processes to find those efficiencies, according to Gilmour.

Built on Saxotech's scalable cloud environment and designed to support both digital and print channels, the Managed Hosted Mediaware Center reduces newsroom operating costs through modern workflow technology and managed hosting. Having provided managed hosting for more than 10 years, and now also utilizing the latest cloud-computing capabilities, the experience, said Gilmour, gave Saxotech the confidence to proceed with what it dubbed its "stimulus" program.

"We're turning the traditional investment model upside down," Gilmour remarked.

Training and implementation will be essentially unchanged for a cloud-computing environment, according to Gilmour. Implementation, he said, "would be relatively similar to the traditional kind," and training -- typically a mix of on- and off-site -- will be whatever works best for customer.