NEW YORK and SOUTHBOROUGH, MA, March 26, 2001 — Reciprocal, Inc., the global leader in digital distribution services, and Texterity, Inc., a leading provider of automated digital conversion services, today announced a joint-offer that will provide small and mid-sized publishers with an "entry-level" package of eBook services. The two companies will bundle a selection of services to facilitate conversion, packaging and multi-channel distribution of DRM-protected content.
The new service combines Texterity's advanced TextCafe™ Open eBook conversion services with the Reciprocal™ Digital Clearing Service and suite of DRM technologies. The bundle will provide a cost-effective entrée for small publishers looking to quickly and easily publish their content electronically on the web. In particular, publishers who have websites, which are not commerce-enabled, will now be able to sell their content online with minimal effort.
The service is targeted at the estimated 50,000 small and medium-sized publishers. These smaller publishers have not had the benefit of the economies of scale enjoyed by the larger companies, making the high cost and complexity of conversion and electronic distribution prohibitive.
"Many publishers that we work with start with creating high-quality eBook and print-on-demand outputs, but are looking for a superior distribution solution," said Martin Hensel, president of Texterity. "We are excited to partner with Reciprocal, an industry leader in digital distribution services, who shares our philosophy of focusing on customer needs. Through this partnership, we can offer our publishing customers a complete, high quality, powerful end-to-end solution that will enable them to take advantage of multichannel distribution, and leverage Reciprocal's unique services."
"We're pleased to work with Texterity on this exciting new service," said John Schwarz, President and CEO, Reciprocal. "Texterity's high quality conversion process is an incredible benefit to publishers in both time and savings. This new service demonstrates our commitment to making digital media distribution a cost effective and simple reality for content owners as well as consumers."
In addition to the newly announced service, Reciprocal will extend its offerings by providing Texterity's conversion services to its existing customers at favorable rates. Texterity, in turn, will bundle conversion, packaging and integration services, providing its customers with a straightforward path to all of Reciprocal's services.
"We get a constant stream of inquiries from small presses looking for turn-key solutions," added Matt Moynahan, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Reciprocal Publishing, "There is tremendous merit in providing some measure of our digital distribution services so these entrepreneurs can get started. Texterity's participation, with their TextCafe technology, gets a small publisher over the first major hurdle which is an affordable and high quality conversion service."
According to industry observer Frank Gilbane, Editor of the Gilbane Report, "Until now, the path for small to medium-sized publishers to enter the eBook market has been rocky. Either they had to invest in software, hardware, and commerce systems, or effectively assign the rights of their digital content to a third party and get a lower share of the sale. This type of offering enables outsourcing of the entire conversion, DRM, and distribution process."
About Reciprocal
Reciprocal, Inc., the global leader in digital rights management and digital commerce services, provides comprehensive, easy-to-implement e-commerce clearing services and back-office solutions for the music, publishing, software, film, entertainment, and other digital content industries. Reciprocal offers content owners a true outsourced DRM solution that allows them to realize new revenue streams while efficiently protecting their online digital assets.
The Reciprocal™ Digital Clearing Service leverages leading DRM technology from InterTrust Technologies Corporation, Microsoft Corp., IBM, Adobe Systems Incorporated, and Preview Systems, allowing companies to choose the solution that best fits their business needs. Reciprocal Digital Clearing Service is secure, flexible and capable of handling millions of transactions per day. Leading content companies such as Sony Music Entertainment, BMG Entertainment, Zomba Music Group, Time Warner Trade Publishing, Random House, McGraw-Hill Professional Publishing, Advanced Marketing Services, Inc. and Aberdeen Group have selected Reciprocal as their digital rights management services provider. Privately held, Reciprocal maintains offices in Buffalo, NY, London, New York City, Research Triangle Park, NC and Singapore.
About Texterity, Inc.
Founded in 1991, Texterity is a leading provider of ePublishing services enabling fast, cost-effective automated transformation of published pages into multiple electronic formats. Texterity relieves the major bottleneck in electronic publishing today, which is to repurpose PDF-based content. Texterity's services provide solutions for the ePublishing lifecycle, including automated conversion of existing content into XML, HTML, eBook, Wireless, and Print. Texterity provides services to leading publishing, catalog, eBook, portal, and corporate customers including Penguin Putnam, Prentice Hall, Thomson Learning, Houghton Mifflin, Harcourt General, World Book, Perot Systems, Lycos, Fisher Scientific, Reader's Digest and Gartner Group.
