by Joel Friedman
I spent a lot of time yesterday speaking with Xinet users and prospective users on the show floor here in Chicago. I also had some lengthy conversation with both management and technical experts from the two largest US integrators, NAPC and IO Integration (IOI). I also spent some time with Carlos Oñate from Latin American Xinet integrator CT&D, based in Mexico City. As we seek to further internationalize our users group, I'm getting to meet or correspond with integrators from all over the world.

I had a wonderful time chatting with Xinet's Worldwide Sales Director, Carole Witter. It was the first time I had met Carole. I just had a blast going through the current XUG membership roster with her, as she blew me away by knowing just about every company and even almost every person on the list! This is a sharp woman who certainly knows her worldwide customer base and integrator network in great detail. We also spoke about XUG's desire to bring international users on the XUG Board of Directors, and I think you'll be seeing announcements over the coming month about some exciting new additions to our user governing board from outside the US.

On the product side, I spent quite a bit of time yesterday with IOI's boy genius, Dean Holmes, who showed me the fruits of their new cooperative relationship with the developers of Remote Director, ICS.

Dean went through a detailed demo of the custom-developed, tight links between Portal and Remote Director. Not only are there hooks between the two programs that pass information back and forth regarding proofing comments, change control, and much more, but there is a tight, clean interplay between the two as well as the ability for production management to personalize each client's setup as to look and feel, access rights, and shared team control.

I have some screen shots stuck in my camera that I'll have to upload after I get home from the show tonight. Also, Dean said he'd provide me with some additional details as well as screen captures that will probably show more clarity than my camera shots do.

Suffice it to say for now that Remote Director users ought to look at Xinet systems now if they aren't currently using them, and WebNative users ought to take a close look at the Remote Director tie-in. To the best of my knowledge, this current tie-in is available exclusively from IO Integration in the US. I'll look into whether there are similar relationships with integrators outside the US.

Finally, I had a long talk with Xinet CEO Scott Seebass yesterday, and I really think that now more than ever he is having some fun with the idea of a growing Xinet Users Group. He also looked at the current XUG membership roster with me and was quite pleased to see how many of the users he already knows and the quality of the membership. He promised he'll be stopping in here every now and then to answer questions from users, and we're looking into having Xinet provide special messages for XUG members from time to time. You should also know that Scott has been monitoring the site for some time now and has been taking note of what his customers are saying in the postings. That means that if you just start posting more questions and comments, in effect you'll have the "ear" of Xinet's man at the top.

Now it's back down to the floor for my last day here at Graph Expo. Later, doods.

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