Business News

Kodak Completes Acquisition of Design2Launch

Monday 07. April 2008 - Eastman Kodak Company today announced that it has completed its previously announced acquisition of Design2Launch (D2L), a developer of collaborative end to end digital workflow solutions for marketers, brand owners and creative teams. D2L (www.design2launch.com) provides turnkey solutions for "Graphic Lifecycle Management" to the pharmaceutical, food and beverage, automotive, and consumer package marketplaces. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

“Kodak and D2L make a powerful combination,” said Judi Hess, General Manager, Enterprise Solutions Group, Kodak’s Graphic Communications Group (GCG), Managing Director, Kodak Canada and Vice President, Eastman Kodak Company. “Kodak’s graphic communications solutions play a key role in helping reproduce consistent brand colors. D2L solutions improve communication and collaboration, reducing cost and improving speed to market. The addition of D2L to Kodak’s product portfolio will help Kodak to more tightly integrate brand owners, marketing services, and print service providers.”

As a wholly owned subsidiary of Kodak, D2L will be a part of the company’s Enterprise Solutions Group. D2L’s founding managers, the brother and sister team of Ron Malloy and Alison Malloy, will continue to lead the D2L subsidiary. Alison Malloy will be General Manager, Corporate Solutions, GCG, and Ron Malloy will be Vice President, Sales and Strategy, Corporate Solutions. D2L offices will remain in Stamford, Conn.

“Joining with Kodak makes D2L an even stronger player in the expanding corporate solutions software marketplace,” said Alison Malloy. “Building D2L’s existing relationship with Kodak, we will further leverage Kodak’s expertise in workflow automation, color and image management for our customers. Because of Kodak’s worldwide presence, we will also be able to provide additional local support for global brands.”

The D2L System is a suite of integrated modules created to save time and money at every step of the graphics creation process, from project initiation, collaboration and revision to approval and production. Major modules of D2L include:

Visual Asset Manager (VAM), a browser based, comprehensive digital asset management system that supports all types of digital files, managing both works in progress and finalized branded assets

Dynamic Digital Workflow, an easy to configure, rules based system that supports both template and ad hoc workflows

Routing & Collaboration, a tool for routing and tracking all annotations, reviews and approvals

Soft Proofing, based on KODAK MATCHPRINT Virtual Proofing Option Software for color managed remote proofing

File Transfer Manager, to help users distribute large files between remote locations quickly, securely, and efficiently

Project Management and Tracking, which provides automated real time monitoring and reporting of all types of projects to maximize resource utilization

In addition to color management, Kodak’s unified workflow approach includes a wide range of portal products that use the Internet to facilitate e-commerce, collaboration, digital asset management, online job submission, and monitor proofing. Kodak also offers industry leading software tools for file creation and management in the production environment.

http://www.kodak.com
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