Looking for the PCX Factor...

We’ve not yet reached the end of January, but it feels like we’ve had an extraordinarily busy 2012 already.

That’s partly down to a rush of activity in our Marketing department where we’ve said goodbye to one bright young thing, welcomed another and begun the search for two more.

Graphic Artist Rachel Crump set out for pastures new after a mercurial couple of years having come to us straight from Coventry University. Rachel had a major input into PCS’s change of image, look and feel and some of our marketing messages in the time she was with us and we wish her well in her new job.

Even in a relatively short time, she’s left quite a legacy for her successor to follow – some of it clever enough to attract what appears to be a little flattery by imitation. Ironic that her ‘Anything but ‘me too’ message seems to have resulted in a ‘me too’ nod from elsewhere in the industry.

Currently occupying Rachel’s seat in the Marketing office, if not her role, is local lad Russell Booth, who has joined us as an intern with a mission to research potential markets. He’s already begun to make his mark and we look forward to Russell’s contribution over the months to come

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It does mean that we’re still on the hunt for our new graphics guru and we expect to make a decision on that post shortly.

What’s been encouraging is the response we’ve had not only to our ad for the Graphic Artist, but for another intern, too.

In the space of only a few days we had towards 100 applications for the two posts. In the end we had to call a halt to enquiries from one of the channels we were using otherwise we would have been well and truly swamped.

As you can imagine, that’s led to plenty of sifting through CVs up and down our admin corridor as we’ve tried to identify the folks with the X factor who can help us build on the momentum we’ve been creating over the last year or so – and especially since Ifra Expo in Vienna last October.

It’s been an interesting process, particularly with so many applications in such a short time.

On top of that, however, we’ve been talking to potential partners in a couple of overseas markets as we start to implement our strategy for 2012 and beyond.

That process is coming along nicely, too. Exciting times, indeed.

Ring in the new...

New Year heralded something of a milestone for PCS. We’re officially into our 40^th year and already looking forward to the big Four-O celebrations in 2013.

As ever, the turn of the year heralds much excitement and optimism. There’s always a sense of change and renewal and this year’s no different.

Standing at the gates of 1972, who would have expected the release of the first hand-held calculator, introduced at a starting price a little under 400 dollars (just over 2,000 dollars at today’s rates)?

Mid year came the demonstration of the Magnavox Oddyssey gaming system that signalled the dawn of the video gaming age; then there was Atari’s release of the fabulous ‘Pong’ later in the year – as big a sensation in its way as the iPad.

In 1972 PCS was still the equivalent of a technological twinkle in the eyes of its parent company, the Express & Star, but in 1973 we bounced into life with a bright little bundle of our own, the ‘electronic’ publishing system, Press 11.

Gazing ahead in 2012? Well, who knows...

Remembering that it’s still less than two years since Apple shook up the tablet market with iPad, we come into this new year anticipating even further developments.

In the UK, the first milestone will be the launch of the Kindle Fire (currently available at less than 200 dollars), which has already started to make inroads into the iPad market in the USA. That’s currently slated to be sometime in February, but then we’ve been told to expect an iPad 3, an iPad ‘mini’ and a Google tablet this year year – probably sooner rather than later, too.

The tablet market’s still in a highly agitated state, but we’re actually more excited about that than we are concerned.

Last year we took the decision to face the volatility of the tablet landscape head on by giving ourselves the option of building digital content delivery mechanisms in our Knowledge digital content management and publishing solution in HTML5, so giving ourselves and our customers more options for their web, tablet and smart phone offerings.

We have an idea what’s coming and we’re ready for the opportunities they will bring. That doesn’t mean, of course, that there won’t be some other disruptive technology ready to smack the industry straight between the eyes all over again.

We’d like to think we’d be ready for that, too.

We’re actually quite excited about what lies ahead – and we might just have some more exciting news of our own to announce in the very near future.

So, it’s a Happy New Year from us. Bring it on...