Press - Electronic Tearsheets

Mactive Announces Strategic Marketing Partnership with MerlinOne

Quincy, MA, November 4, 2003 - Mactive Inc. has announced the formalization of a strategic marketing partnership with MerlinOne Inc. The two software companies will engage in cooperative sales and marketing arrangements for MerlinOne's E-Sheets electronic tearsheets solution and Mactive's AdBase integrated advertising system. Mactive will be a reseller for MerlinOne.

Offered as a fully hosted solution, E-Sheets brings the tearsheet process into the digital age. Newspaper customers report a fast ROI and are able to streamline their workflow with a powerful, searchable PDF-based page database that turns a paper-based cycle into a few easy keystrokes.
"Mactive truly makes setting up an E-Sheet electronic tearsheets service a plug-and-play operation. With the addition of the MerlinOne E-Sheets module, Mactive's AdBase users can quickly start using MerlinOne E-Sheets to save time and money. This is a win-win partnership. MerlinOne and Mactive win by working together, and the customer wins by gaining a robust extension to their existing system, enabling them to be more efficient," said David Tenenbaum, President of MerlinOne.

As a hosted service, E-Sheets requires no MerlinOne-specific hardware or software to be running locally. All the publication needs to do is send PDF pages and ad booking information via FTP to the hosted site. The new Mactive E-Sheets interface module does all the ad information setup work and interfacing for the publication. It couldn't be easier to start saving with electronic tearsheets and electronic invoices.

"Through this partnership, Mactive can now provide their customers with everything needed for a complete, turnkey electronic tearsheet solution. Advertisers will also derive tremendous benefits from being part of the largest hosted tearsheet system," said John Campochiaro, E-Sheets business manager. "An advertiser on E-Sheets can also see a global view of their ads across multiple publications. E-Sheets currently has over 2M ads available online for over 110,000 advertisers, and it is growing every day."

For several years, electronic tearsheets has been a major industry topic. In June 2002 at the NEXPO trade show, electronic tearsheets came of age when a consortium of Knight Ridder, Tribune Publishing (collectively comprising 44 newspapers) and Newspaper Services of America announced the selection of MerlinOne's E-Sheets as their corporate standard. Since Knight Ridder selected Mactive's AdBase advertising system as their corporate standard in September of 2001, many of these newspapers are already current or future Mactive customers.

"It's only natural that the number one advertising system in the world be teamed with the number one e-tear solution," said John Herbst, vice president of business development for Mactive Inc. "Mactive is now in a position to offer customers any combination of e-tear capabilities required, hosted or purchased. It's a win-win situation for everyone."

About Mactive Inc. - Mactive provides innovative products that enable publishers to control their advertising revenues. The Mactive solution provides a truly integrated advertising system serving small to large newspapers, Metro newspapers, magazines, trade journals and other media. Located in Melbourne, Fla., Mactive Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Fusio of Helsingborg, Sweden, a company that currently employs more than 150 employees worldwide. Fusio also has subsidiaries in Sweden and Norway and has systems installed at over 150 sites. In addition to AdBase, Fusio offers complementary products that provide solutions for editorial, circulation and distribution.

About MerlinOne - MerlinOne, Inc. is a leading provider of digital asset management systems and electronic document discovery platforms. E-Sheets® is the foremost electronic tearsheets service. The Merlin picture desk management solution has over 140 major installations at corporations like The New York Times, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, Harvard University, Pfizer, Habitat for Humanity and The White House. MerlinOne technology helps companies manage photos, text, graphics, PDFs, multimedia and e-discovery material.

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