In order to find out a little bit more about this innovative software company
and this unique product they have called FlightCheck, we are now joined by two
additional executives of the company. First off, with us is Ron Crandall,
who is the Co-President of the company. Ron, why don't you tell me how
this company actually, actually began?
Well, Doug, it's actually very interesting.
Pat Marchese and I, for the last several years,
you know,
being in the computer industry with Macintosh, specializing in printing.
Right. We have lots of friends around the world.
We ask them, you know, what problems they're having, what, maybe, what feature they'd
like to see in an application.
You know, these large developers, they can't easily upgrade their product
to satisfy the needs. So we ask everyone, you know, what problems are you having?
And nowadays, you know, with email, we get a lot of responses very instantly,
even around the world,
So, people would say,
"I'm having trouble. You know, I...
when I go to print a document,
it doesn't come out right.
How can, you know, it's 1997. There. The computer's quite advanced.
With all this technology,
why can't I...
why can't I figure out a way
to tell me when the document's really bad?" So, just by asking people, based on a survey,
we looked into it and said, "Well, maybe we could develop such a product, like FlightCheck."
So, how did you go about doing this? You knew there was a need for something.
You knew what the major problems were that
the users of these products were having.
How did you go about developing the solution?
Well, actually it took quite a long time.
The need's there,
but how you actually
get the data from these documents...
How do you technically, actually, do that?
It's actually a very immense thing. This took two or three years just to
develop this whole technology.
It was quite a breakthrough. The way it actually came about
was we were
in the business of repairing bad files. Sometimes, files get corrupted,
and then you can't
print your job at all.
A very, very big disaster.
So, but we figured out a way
repair these files.
We started selling this thing. It was very popular,
because it quite saves
a lot of time and money.
I mean, once... once we realized that,
we were reading these documents.
we were sitting around a coffee shop, and who would have known?
we came up with this idea that, you know, we could now list the colors
that are in the documents. We can now give you a list of the fonts,
the images. And someone says, "Well, could you tell me if
such and such an element is bad and this one's bad?"
And suddenly, hey, that's a product everybody wants!
So, you... you went to work, you brought out the product,
and was it an instant success?
This is
instantly recognized
as a product people need.
You know,
if you compare it to... to fire insurance, you don't buy fire insurance
after your house burns down.
You want to guarantee that your documents going to print
just the way you think it is.
If you look at the evolution of this whole thing,
it's very interesting, because, you know,
people are...
are... are now able to buy a personal computer.
Well, even kids are learning computers. Absolutely, absolutely.
So, you have...
you have
various ways of
verifying that things are going to work.
A few years ago, all you could do is print, look at the thing,
and start crying, because you can... now you realize that you've got to print it over.
Well... But as people learn more about these applications and
how to create a document, and how to lay it all out,
then you can look at the computer screen, and... and maybe see
if something's going to be bad.
There are experts that do this for...
for a living,
but what we did is we tried to figure out:
How could you do it electronically?
How can you create software that will scan through a document and look at all
of the elements and build these lists of what's wrong,
what's potentially wrong? We did this and
we came up with
well over 150
different potential problems that
could be discovered or detected.
So, the whole technology has evolved into sort of a
quality-control-type thing.
It is actually an insurance policy.
We... we...
first we scan
the document... Right.
getting into the detail that no human can get at. Then, we verify all of these
different little things against a set of rules,
which are customizable, because people have different opinions
or needs about what... what is an error and
what can be allowed to
go all the way to the printer.
Then, we... Then, we say, or the software says,
if the job is approved or flunked.
What was the reaction
from, you know, the initial... your friends, the people that
had been telling all of these problems all the time,
when it finally came out?
They called it a godsend.
It really...
it really... We have heard of examples
of FlightCheck itself creating jobs. Now you can check a document.
You can charge the customer to have it checked and approved.
So, now
people at
print shops are hiring
various people to sit down
run the document through FlightCheck to instantly
guarantee that all is well.
Did you have any wild ideas that this product would be this successful?
The original... Well, the way I started telling you that... how we...
how this company formed:
it was originally done by using surveys asking people
what problems would they like to be solved, things like that.
There was no concept
of starting a company, selling a product, and making money. Amazing.
And it... This just fell right
into place as a giant need.
You have people creating documents
and sending along to the printer, but the problem was
there was no traffic cop.
There's nothing there to say
this job is good or bad,
and all that's left is wasted paper, wasted film,
wasted time and money.
This... So, this thing
fills that giant void.
So, the industry is abuzz.
We have multiple awards.
We have
a Program of the Year for '95, a Program of the Year for '96, and...
and we're up for '97 this year. I know, interesting, and, we didn't mention this before,
but this really was created to work on the Macintosh first.
You're just now coming out with a version for Windows.
Well, again, the printing industry recognizes us now as such a standard,
that a lot of print shops use a PC. Right.
Or... or, better stated, are now able to use a PC, because now they can check
their documents.
A customer walks into the shop.
He could have a Macintosh. He could have a PC. But the printing service bureau
needs to be able to handle all these different formats.
So, again, per the customer's request,
we are developing on the PC, as well.
Let me talk to you, Jason. Jason Tempestini is the...
the Director of Education and Training for... for the company.
You... You add support for the users of this product, correct?
Yeah, my job with Markzware
is to train people how to,
not only how to use FlightCheck, but also how to utilize all the tools
that are available in desktop publishing,
to allow them to produce better documents faster.
So, you make it sound as though, or that may make some people think
this is a hard program to use. Is it? Well, not necessarily. FlightCheck itself
is very easy to use. We get very good reactions from people, because, when you start using it,
it's very intuitive. You understand immediately what each of the
different issues are that FlightCheck brings up. Mostly what I teach people how to do is
I teach designers how to work with all the other tools, so that they can integrate with
the realities of the printing process.
They're having to take on more and more responsibility these days,
so we try really hard to set them up, so they know how to work well in the entire workflow,
what we call the unified workflow. Very interesting.
Now, I guess the really big question is now: I mean, you've created a product,
created something that's become a success,
where does this company go now? Well, up to this point, we've been checking problems.
We're going to come back and fix them.
We're going to be able to give
push-button
fixing of the problems that... that FlightCheck finds,
or at least the lion's share of them.
In addition, we're going to start working with the worldwide web. We'll do a web check,
which will check html documents, and even moving on to concepts like the printer's web,
where we'll be able to distribute documents and then print them and distribute...
distribute to sites throughout the world, checking them on the fly,
being able to produce products like that. So, there's... there's still a long way to go
and a lot of jobs to be filled? Oh, yeah, there's... there's a lot of issues
and a lot of... a lot of gaps in the industry that still need to be filled,
and that's what Markzware does: We provide solutions.
Gentlemen, thank you very much. It's been very interesting.
So, there you have it, more inside information on what this company does and exactly what
FlightCheck is all about.
Now, back to you in the studio.
And there it is: a timely report that represents some of the
new developments that impact life in the '90s.
It was another focus of Heartbeat of the City.
See you next time,
when we appear again on your television screens with more stories
that are the heartbeat of your city.