■ASIA FORUM
Information Report Vol.5, No.3
From February 6 through 8, 2002, PAGE 2002 was successfully held at the largest scale ever before in terms of the number of exhibitors, 132, and exhibition booths, 678, in spite of a decline in the total number of visitors to 72,230, which could be attributable to a variety of factors existing in Japan.
What attracted a great deal of attention during the show was the 'Special Technologies Exhibition,' where visitors were able to have a close look at devices that are expected to compete or combine with printing media in the future, including electronic paper, display products, and mobile and virtual technologies. These devices were also discussed as the subjects of the keynote speeches. With 37 innovative digital businesses ready to show their expertise, the 'IT Solution Partners Center' was an even greater success than last year.
A total of 134 speakers, the largest number ever, contributed to the conferences and seminars which attracted 2,089 people in total during the three-day event. The Joint Event, the concurrent exhibit jointly held by 17 organizations was also bustling with a larger crowd than the previous year, which amounted to 1,300.
PAGE is increasingly taken as an opportunity for communication rather than a mere prepress technology showcase.
■ PAGE as a communication opportunity
（A）Joint Event
The Joint Event is held in an effort to provide the space where a broader range of organizations engaged in graphic arts and information technology can host seminars, symposia and other events. From the Digital Content Association of Japan to the World Wide Web Consortium, groups from a variety of fields have participated in the Joint Event. In particular, seminars such as 'A guide to recent developments in OpenType ' by the Japan Publishing Consortium (JPC), 'How to use proofreading symbols' and 'Rules for typesetting' by Japan Editors School, and 'To establish color management for digital documents and the standard colors for magazine ads' by the Japan Magazine Publishers Association drew so large an audience that some had to remain standing during these sessions. While their success may be attributable to a number of reasons including the choice of timely themes and the advertisement effort by each organization, an important factor here is that JAGAT maintains its position as the venue provider. This is why these organizations can hold an event from a viewpoint completely different from that of the conferences and seminars hosted by JAGAT. This nature of the Joint Event has a significant meaning as well as possibilities. We hope to continue supporting the Joint Event as one of the major features of PAGE.
（B）IT Solution Partners Center
The number of exhibitors in this years IT Solution Partners Center reached 37, a 50% increase from the previous year. Unlike regular product-oriented displays, this section is provided as a meeting place where a wide range of digital business operators, including printing companies, explain and offer their services to visitors who are involved with printing.
In one of the two areas in Exhibition Hall A, two thirds of the floor was filled with small booths, each surrounded by a flock of people, set up along a maze of passages. As lively as a market, this place was full of excitement greater than any other exhibition rooms at the venue. This state may be closest to what a trade show should be like in the first place. Whether it is a manufacturer or a printer, a participating business tries to attract attention to its solution, either a product or a system development service, while a visitor finds a service to meet his business needs and speaks directly with its provider's staff. Then, if both parties find common ground, they can start discussing specific business.
In many trade shows, including PAGE, exhibitors heavy focus on how to gather a larger crowd has resulted in a competition for how to stand out by setting up a huge booth showcasing as many products as possible. However, there is no reason to conclude this is the ideal of the trade show. It is true that festive mood is important to a show, but other approaches may be worth a try.
（C)Special Technologies Exhibition
What was interesting in terms of seeking for a model of the trade show was the Special Technologies Exhibition, a section that made its first appearance this year. In this exhibit, cutting-edge technologies that were not directly related to printing, such as those for display media, networks, and cyber space, were shown. This event, which was collaborated with the keynote speeches, intended to give visitors an opportunity to look at devices that were expected to compete or combine with printing media in the future.
Among them, the focus of attention was electronic paper. Toppan Printing exhibited their E Ink technology while Fuji Xerox exhibited their photo-addressable electronic paper. Either of them is a film-like flexible medium which is instantly writable, erasable and re-writable while providing ease of attachment/detachment. Their demonstrations were very interesting, though it was not clear how these technologies could be applied in practice. In fact, even the exhibitors were encouraging the visitors to suggest new ideas about the use of their invention, and this is what a technology exhibition is really for. The situation resembles when the DTP technology emerged; it was aggressive designers that first found it 'interesting' and jumped at it quicker than anybody else, whereas the majority of the printing industry declared the technology useless for printing.
Every project for the Joint Event does not always prove successful, just like every business talks held at the IT Solution Partners Center do not necessarily lead to a deal on the spot. Technological forecast is difficult, so nobody knows how the exhibited technologies will develop in the future. Even when taking these uncertainties into account, our approaches through PAGE seem essential as they provide the opportunity to facilitate communication and to allow people concerned to think about what a trade show should be like.
■ Issues of interest throughout conferences and seminars
Based on the theme for PAGE2002, &qout;Challenges to printing,&qout; keynote speeches were made to discuss future prospects of the electronic media and devices displayed in the Special Technologies Exhibition. The morning conferences were devoted to general description of them, whereas the afternoon conferences focused on specific issues. During the session on electronic paper, the subject that also attracted a lot of attention in the exhibition part, the conference room was packed with people. The on-demand printing session was popular as well, in which how the on-demand technology would find applications in offices and homes was discussed, rather than the current on-demand business trends. When sessions on the second and third days were not as lively as those on the first day, the sessions on OpenType and &qout;The final process and flow before output&qout; for PDF/1bit TIFF both had an audience of more than 50 people.
Among seminars, three sessions on XML as well as the sessions on CMS and 'DTPtoDB' gathered a sizable crowd, whereas seminars on Web-based production, which was, in practice, supposed to be the topic of the greatest interest of the day, did not gather as many people as expected.
Looking at which subjects were more popular than others tells us which fields are drawing more attention. To sum up, while visitors showed a keen interest in future technologies regardless of the field, they accepted very limited topics when it came to deployment and operation of current technologies. In other words, understandably enough, visitors were not here to obtain information easily available through reference books, the Web and other media. This means sessions to provide information that are exclusively available through PAGE and its conferences are asked for. Subjects for conferences and seminars should be further refined with a view to attracting a larger crowd.
A conference is held, however, not for gathering audience but for discussing topics important to those who attend, whether the attendance is large or small. Thus what ultimately matters is the content.
A summary of each session will be published as it becomes available through this journal as well as &qout;Printers Circle,&qout; the JAGATs Web site and other media. Opinions and comments from those who visited PAGE are welcome so that we can reflect them into our future events.
■ Major focuses of attention in the exhibition
（A)OS X, OpenType and InDesign
As Morisawa announced release of its OpenType font package, Fontworks and Iwata Engineering said they were also planning release of similar products in 2002. There seems to be no doubt that font developers will begin supporting OpenType in this year.
The demonstration of Adobe InDesign was so popular that passersby found it difficult to go through the crowd in front of the booth. However, it is said the product has not been widely introduced to printing businesses so far.
The 'Next-generation DTP solution seminar pavilion,' a showcase of applications supporting Mac OS X, which was probably the first approach of this kind in Japan, did not seem to be receiving many visitors.
The major disadvantage for Mac OS is that the leading applications have yet to support OS X, and the output systems are not yet fully developed. In addition, once the DTP process is established as part of the production system, the company cannot easily change its operating system and applications. Businesses believe they should make a decision considering how to secure stability and productivity of the entire workflow and not depend on the capability of the operating or application system itself. Appealing what kind of new capabilities the new OS can provide or what kind of additional functions the new version of the application can offer is not enough to draw attention of todays printing firms.
Nevertheless, Apple Computer remains aggressive. What Apple calls the 'next-generation DTP' indicates new infrastructure provided by the OS such as Unicode-based text processing, output of host fonts by supporting OpenType, layout capability at the OS level, although all of these are enabled only through compatible applications. Despite of the response from the printing industry, it is worthy of remark that Apple Computer as the operating system developer is directed toward the Japanese DTP market with such enthusiasm. We hope their effort is successfully communicated to users.
（B)Proofing, electronic data transfer, etc.
Other popular exhibitions among visitors included those on proofing and on-demand solutions. In the booth of Fuji Xerox, which was titled 'e-Proof Solution,' their remote proofing system for the CTP age was on display. The system allows the user to output color proofs for magazine ads alike via networks by using a general-purpose laser printer and color matching software. Based on a similar concept, Canon was showing their color management and remote output technologies.
In the areas of proofing and remote output, electronic data transfer applicable mainly to magazine ads manuscripts was the major topic. AD-DAM participated not only in the PAGE2002 exhibit but also in the seminar held by the Japan Magazine Publishers Association for the Joint Event.
Creo Japan s Synapse InSite made its first appearance in Japan. In this system, a client sends its print job to the printer via the Internet and remotely proofs the ripped data. No specific tools are needed except for Internet connectivity and a browser.
（C)Output, color and workflow
Heidelberg Japan s Digimaster 9110, a non-impact monochrome digital printer that provides high-speed printing at 110 A4 copies per minute, made the first public showing in Japan. While IBM Japan exhibited its solutions designed specifically for the printing industry such as Infoprint 2000, many large enterprises were concentrating on proposing comprehensive system concepts rather than showing individual new products. Fuji Photo Film s FFCMS and Dainippon Screen s e-Production were examples of this type of solutions.
In the field of output technologies, what caught the eye were 1bit TIFF workflow solutions, the recent focus of the spotlight, shown in a number of booths. Not an alternative to PDF, this technology can be applied as needed. Exhibited by Sakata Inx as a prototype was eXflow, a system that flexibly meets the need in any workflow by optimizing data through hot folders and automating PS/PDF file preflight as well as platemaking procedures such as imposition, while providing capability to drive 1bit TIFF-compatible output devices of various makes. In the booth of GTB, a variety of tools designed to handle 1bit TIFF data during proofing, step and repeat, stripping, and tonal adjustments were on display. As in the cases of BitStepper, a 1bit TIFF step and repeat tool from Dainippon Screen, and PlateFront version 1.6, software for step and repeat and gang printing from Toyo Ink, print system developers provide support for 1bit TIFF as part of their workflow solutions.
On the other hand, no remarkable developments were seen in the area of PDF workflow. Use of PDF in two major application fields, output workflow and the Web/networks, have not been seamlessly linked yet, although the linkage would make the industry more attractive. While Heidelberg Japan, Dainippon Screen, Agfa-Gevaert Japan, Fuji Photo Film and some others continue to offer job-ticket driven PDF workflow products, the workflow with a customization capability that allows the user to optimize PDF by using low-priced tools may work better with the Web as far as the status quo is concerned.
（D)XML and the Web
Since the XML technology is part of infrastructure, it becomes invisible to users as businesses begin supporting XML at deeper levels. The technology is supposed to be remaining at the introduction phase while people are actively discussing it, and by the time they stop talking about it, XML will have found applications in every part of the industry.
Just like in the previous PAGE shows, XML products were on display mainly at the booths in the IT Solution Partners Center, including those of Antenna House and Total Media Laboratories, businesses that long have been developing XML tools. Also in the general exhibition section, exhibitors such as Founder and Simple Products were appealing their support for XML. In respect of XML incorporation into database products, Media Fusion exhibited their XML database engine Yggdrasill 1.5.
Web-oriented developments were seen in the systems that allow Web-based typesetting or database creation. Process Shizai s F2000 enables, by connecting the print firm and its clients via the Internet, construction of workflow covering manuscript creation through print production while feeding back marketing information. Founder's Weblisher is a database system that allows a newspaper publisher to use their news article data as the source for their Web site and comes with functions such as charge management for fee-based columns.