 |
| |
Digital Distributors celebrates 20 Years today!
|
| |
| Business continuously changes and develops, but in no other industry is change so pronounced as in a technology-driven environment. Therefore it is no mean feat (and no April’s Fool joke either!) that Digital Distributors is celebrating its 20th anniversary on 1 April 2008. |
| |
| Gill Tommasi of Digital Distributors firmly believes the success of the business over the past two decades is due to its ability to adapt and anticipate the markets’ needs, while focusing on personal customer service. |
| |
| Tommasi started her career as a draughtswoman in 1981. She remembers that South Africa was the first country to develop a desktop based CAD package. ‘We worked with the first desktop applications and used 18-inch floppy disks. The functions of these packages were limited and we interacted closely with the designers of these programmes. We held regular user group meetings to discuss compatibility between systems, libraries, functionality and management of drawings. |
| |
| ‘In 1988, a colleague that was also training on CAD software, Maxine Rees, and I started Dragan Systems. We sold computers and software and offered support to the architectural industry. We also sold plotters and undertook plotting as well as draughts work for clients. |
| |
| lsquo;Our first plotter was the HP Pen plotter. It took an hour to plot one drawing, while today a drawing can be plotted in a few seconds! Our Skok Systems CAD packages ran on HP workstation. Drawbase was a programme similar to what we were using at the time, but PC-based and developed in the US. Our first sale of Drawbase was to the Cape-based architects Revel Fox and Partners in 1988. In those years, we thought those first PC’s (286’s) were fantastic! They required extra Maths co-processors to run CAD packages. |
| |
| ‘My brother John Panton joined the business in 1989. He is especially strong on the technical and sales side and has always been very interested in new technology. When he joined, he immediately looked at a new product – the QED inkjet plotter,’ added Tommasi. QED was the first large-format inkjet plotter which was designed and developed in Cape Town. |
| |
| In 1991, this formidable team Beta tested and sold the first large-format inkjet printers in the world, which were manufactured in Cape Town. |
| |
| In 1993, Encad released the first colour large-format inkjet printers, sold by Digital Distributors as the first solutions for large-format inkjet print production along with the Photoscript RIP solution. |
| |
| A large format black and white scanner was bought by Digital Distributors in 1994 and by 1996/1997, Digital Distributors stopped offering draughting services altogether, but still sold plotters and computers along with offering bureau services. |
| |
| With the release of the Epson Stylus pro 3000 in 1997, and the development of BestColorproof, Digital Distributors claims to have been the first company in South Africa to provide inkjet proofing solutions and offer large-format colour scanners. Tommasi remembers that they did a lot of work for the business in charge of South Africa’s 2004 Olympic Bid as well as Mossgass. |
| |
| lsquo;Diane Stanfield, who is now in charge of our sales, ran the bureau services and managed to build this side of the business. Although we have moved on with the times and some new people have joined our team, we believe fresh blood always help create new ideas. Our philosophy has always been to be a small team who delivers personal service. Today we are a team of 13 dedicated people who strive to do the job right. The fact that we have managed to retain key clients over many years bears testimony to our commitment,’ said Tommasi. |
| |
| John Panton is well known as one of South Africa’s leading colour management specialists. He commented, ‘We were the first company to promote and implement ISO 12647 certified proofs with EFI ColorProof XF and its integrated Verifier. Today we fully serve the latest ISO 12647-7 standards. In addition, we also sold and implemented the first HP Designjet 10000 solvent-based Inkjet in Africa and were the first to sell the HP Designjet Z6100 1524mm (60-inch) printers released recently. |
| |
| ‘The last in our recent list of firsts, was the sale and implementation of the only commercial high end archival and fine art scanner in South Africa, namely the Cruse 185ST flatbed scanner, at the end of June 2007. The Cruse scanner has a copy board of 1m x 1,5m and is capable of capturing the finest of details, capturing billions of pixels. |
| |
| ‘While these pioneering sales and implementations are always exciting, Digital Distributors dedicates a lot of time, effort and training to these developments. |
| |
| ‘We continuously strive to help improve the industry in South Africa and stay close to our payoff lines ‘We fingerprint colour’ and ‘Service at your fingertips’. We are a specialist solution company and is the sole distributor of EFI-Bestcolor solutions in South Africa, while we also distribute Pantone and Alwan Color Expertise colour management tools and applications, as well as EFI Oneflow and Enfocus Gradual Software’s PDF-based Switch Workflow, providing end-users and partners with consultation and training on colour management and much more,’ added Panton. |
| |
| What does the future hold for Digital Distributors? Tommasi concluded, ‘With the way technology is developing, we believe that enabling fast, efficient and cost-effective self-service will be our competitive advantage. We are planning to implement remote printing services and have already launched our on-line support set-up with LogMeIn Remote Technical Support. This software implementation complies with HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley and other corporate local and federal legislation and gives our customers access to secure, Web-based support sessions.’ |
| |
| Pictured above: Digital Distributors has a small team of friendly people. From the left, Davey Mtete, Dilshaad Rajie, Craig Trilivas, Danni Panton, Ernest Ngwenya, Diane Stansfield, Gill Tommasi, John Panton, Nicky Panton, Amin Nyangulu and Roger Harker. |
| |
| For more information visit: www.digitaldistributors.co.za |
| |
| © Graphic Repro On-line, 1 April 2008. |
