John,
From recent volume it looks those that were getting out have ended their selling. Today's news release on e-commerce supports your comments exactly. I'll post it here for anyone's info . . and comment.
GROUP WEST SYSTEMS LTD. ANNOUNCES E-COMMERCE PUBLISHING TOOLS FOR NEWSPAPER AND MAGAZINE PRODUCTION
BURNABY, BRITISH COLUMBIA - May 27, 1999, Group West Systems Ltd. (TSE:GPW) announced today the release of an e-commerce product targeted at the publishing industry. This new product, WebPub Lite, is targeted at newspaper and magazine publishers with a circulation of 20,000 to 50,000 daily. WebPub Lite will process a classified ad request, generate a cost estimate and submit the ad to the newspaper or magazine for publication in print and on the Web in seconds from anywhere with internet access. Users can then view the ads on the publisher's web site as well as access them through the printed media.
Jan McDonald, General Manager of the publishing business unit of Group West explains, “by combining print and e-commerce, publishers can now expand their market quickly and easily and make their content available to millions of online subscribers through popular search engines such as Yahoo, Microsoft Explorer, and Netscape.”
Group West will offer this product as an outsource service to the publishing industry where the customer will merely subscribe to the service hosted on a Group West server. This is the first in a series of e-commerce products that Group West plans to make available to the publishing industry over the internet. Bill Ste. Marie, President and CEO of Group West, stated, “we are not only delivering e-commerce solutions to the marketplace, we are delivering them over the internet.” WebPub Lite is a subset of the WebPub Internet Classified System installed in major daily newspapers throughout North America.
Founded in 1976, Group West is in the business of supplying computer technology products and services to commercial organizations and government agencies located primarily in North America. The company currently employs over 140 professionals in Canada and the United States to deliver these products and services to its customer base. The company engages in three major areas of business: system integration services, midrange outsourcing, and hardware and software sales.
Murray |
