Wednesday February 10, 7:45 am Eastern Time
Company Press Release
Czech Republic's Mlada fronta DNES Newspaper Selects Unisys Publishing Solutions
BLUE BELL, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 10, 1999--Unisys Corporation today announced an agreement to provide Mlada fronta DNES, the largest-circulation daily newspaper in the Czech Republic, with the Unisys Publishing Solutions Hermes, WireCenter and DocCenter for newspaper production and information integration.
Based in Prague and published by the MAFRA a.s. group, Mlada fronta DNES is distributed nationwide, with an average daily circulation of 450,000 copies.
Based on client/server technology, the Unisys Publishing Solutions will provide Mlada fronta DNES with a highly integrated and flexible publishing system that will give journalists, editors and production staff better control over the entire production process for the newspaper's 11 regional editions.
The system permits exceptional editorial flexibility, so print deadlines can be postponed to incorporate late-breaking news, enabling the paper to deliver more timely and comprehensive news coverage.
''We expect the Unisys Publishing Solutions, above all Hermes, to revolutionize our newspaper,'' said Roman Gallo, Deputy Chief Editor of MAFRA. ''Hermes will totally change the style of newspaper production, speeding up and simplifying information access from every workstation. Most importantly, the switch to fully digitalized production will enable us to begin development programs that we could only dream about with the old publishing system.''
Under the terms of the contract, Unisys will install Hermes and WireCenter on a total of 300 workstations at the newspaper, distributed among the Prague head office and regional offices.
Hermes will use an Oracle8 Enterprise Edition database to ensure superior performance and data security in a mission-critical environment. The solution will be powered by dual Sun E4500 high availability servers. A third Sun E3500 server will support the DocCenter multimedia electronic archive.
''MAFRA has selected Unisys to provide Mlada Fronta DNES' new editorial system because Unisys has demonstrated that its suite of publishing solutions best fits the company's ideas of how to support newspaper production with leading-edge information technology,'' said Ivan Ulc, Unisys Information Services Manager for the Czech Republic.
''The system is also flexible enough to effect organizational re-engineering. MAFRA visited a number of newspapers around the world before deciding that implementing the Unisys solutions at Mlada fronta DNES is the best choice. As the first Unisys publishing system sold in Central and Eastern Europe, this represents a great opportunity.''
Unisys Publishing Solutions
Unisys provides one of the most comprehensive newspaper publishing solutions available with a complete editorial, electronic pagination and archiving system. The solutions run on several server platforms with mainstream databases and use PCs as clients with applications running in Windows 95 and NT.
Unisys systems integration expertise and capabilities allow the integration of existing proprietary and off-the-shelf specialty packages with the Unisys Publishing Solutions.
In the publishing industry for over 20 years, Unisys has experienced significant growth in its publishing systems business, with 70% of the new clients signed in the last three years.
Unisys success in the publishing market is based on the unique approach the company brings to the industry -- combining the strengths of a leading-edge solution with technology and systems integration services to offer newspapers a total solution from a single source.
Over 100 newspapers in 11 countries around the world have selected the Unisys Publishing Solutions.
Among them are the News International Group, which includes the UK's The Sun, The Times of London, The Sunday Times, News of the World and other titles; Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung; Italy's La Stampa; Spain's La Vanguardia and El Mundo Deportivo; France's La Provence; and Newsday and the New York Daily News in the U.S.
For more information, access the Unisys Publishing Solutions home page at: unisys.com
About Mlada fronta DNES
Mlada fronta DNES is based in Prague with regional bureaux in another 10 towns through the Czech Republic. Originally state-owned, the newspaper was privatized after the Velvet Revolution in 1989 and since 1992 has been published by MAFRA a.s. For more information about Mlada fronta DNES, consult their online edition on the World Wide Web at idnes.cz
About Unisys
Unisys (NYSE:UIS - news) is more than 33,000 employees helping customers in 100 countries apply information technology to solve their business problems.
Unisys solutions are based on a broad portfolio of global information services including systems integration, outsourcing, ''repeatable'' application solutions, consulting, network integration, remote network management, and multivendor maintenance and support, coupled with enterprise-class servers and associated middleware, software and storage.
Repeatable solutions are focused on key vertical markets including financial services, transportation, telecommunications, government, publishing and other commercial markets.
Headquartered in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, in the Greater Philadelphia area, Unisys had 1998 annual revenue of $7.2 billion. Access the Unisys home page on the World Wide Web -- unisys.com -- for further information.
Unisys is a registered trademark of Unisys Corporation. Hermes is a trademark licensed to Unisys Corporation. All other brands and products referenced herein are acknowledged to be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.
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