GITEX newsletter sets records

In all, over 40 editions of the newsletter were produced through GITEX, put together by CPI's team of journalists and printed out using high speed digital LED A3 colour network printers from Oki Printing Solutions, the global colour printing solutions leader.

"Printing over 800 copies of each edition every hour meant that we were publishing something like 6,400 newsletters every day of GITEX," said Ala Al Qassas, editor in chief and associate publisher, CPI Arabia. "Each newsletter carried the latest news and information from the show in a high quality, easy to read format. We were also posting the news simultaneously to the Internet and to the IDG global newswire. There is no doubt that the newsletter was the most timely, most frequent and most up to date news medium at GITEX."

The GITEX Hourly Newsletter project was printed on two Oki 9600N networked digital A3 colour printers, which were kept operating virtually constantly during the five days of the show. Printing in excess of 40,000 A3 newsletters with no overheating or technical faults, the Oki machines showed their reliability and durability in one of the most rigorous real-world, real time tests of network colour printers ever carried out. Perhaps as importantly, the print quality was consistently excellent throughout the entire project.

"These are normal office-class A3 Digital LED toner based printers which are capable of what we call SPRINT, Short Print Run In No Time showing that the GITEX Hourly Newsletter was produced using the same printers that our customers are using in their businesses," said general manager of Oki Printing Solutions Middle East, John Ross. "This truly shows that the SPRINT concept really carries through. We're delighted that Oki printers have enabled this new and innovative publishing venture."

Show visitors were delighted to be handed the very latest news throughout the show: "I think this is really clever," said Sile Kennedy, a visitor to GITEX from Ireland. "The fact that now get the news on an hourly basis shows how technology is changing the way we look at the information around us."

"I'm amazed that they can put together the news from the show, design it and then print it to this quality every hour," said Anwar Abdallah an employee of an advertising and marketing agency in Dubai: "This is as good as something from a printing press."

CPI's team was also able to sell advertising and sponsorship packages for the newsletter, which made the project a profitable venture for the company as well as an attention getting exercise. "The changes in technology that have brought high quality A3 colour to the network at an affordable price point have also enabled us to introduce a new category of publishing to GITEX," said Qassas. "And that's really what this show is all about, isn't it."