Global Graphics - History

History

  • On June 30, 1998 the company finalised the acquisition by its wholly owned subsidiary, Photoméca, of the Italian company AZ srl, who manufacture flexographic equipment.
  • On 2 May 1999 the company acquired Heights Design Production Ltd, a manufacturer of lithographic plate-processing equipment and proofing equipment based in Wainstalls, near Halifax, U.K.
  • On 21 April 1999 the company signed a letter of intent to buy Technigraph Products Limited, a Thetford based provider of lithographic processing equipment, to be completed in July.
  • On 12 July 1999 the company bought Harlequin Group Plc after Harlequin Ltd (the R&D company in the group) went into receivership, and have since used the Harlequin RIP products to build a product portfolio in the graphic arts and commercial print, newsprint, digital print, and document markets.
  • During 1999 the company also acquired ICG, a scanner and platesetter manufacturer.
  • On August 29, 2000, Jaws Systems Ltd was formed from the Digital Publishing division of 5D Solutions Ltd., bringing the existing products Jaws RIP and Jaws PDF Creator into the Printing Software division. The company business model includes selling software to OEMs who build products around it; for example, by licensing RIP software for use by laser printer manufacturers who embed the software inside their printer.
  • In 2001 the company reorganised its subsidiary companies, with former hardware businesses Photomeca, Colomag, Kelleigh, AZ, ICG, Heights Technologies and Technigraph forming the Hardware Division, and Harlequin Limited, Harlequin Inc, and Jaws Systems Limited forming the Software Division. The Hardware division of the company, which dealt in lithographic, flexographic, letterpress and scanning equipment, was sold in October 2002 to a group led by the former head of the hardware division, Gary Jones, who had resigned from the board in February.
  • In 2003 Global Graphics was chosen by Microsoft to provide consultancy and proof of concept development services on XPS and worked with the Windows development teams on the specification for the new format.
  • In May 2009, Global Graphics launched gDoc Fusion, edocument builder software aimed at knowledge workers and designed with usability in mind for users to create, review, edit, share and archive PDF and XPS documents.
  • On 1 December 2009, Global Graphics launched gDoc Creator, a free enterprise-level creator to create, review, edit, share or archive PDF and XPS documents.
  • In January 2010, Global Graphics completed a survey with 400 Chief Information Officers from organisations with over 1000 employees across the US and the UK that shows three quarters (76 per cent) of large organisations use free software across the enterprise with over half (51 per cent) planning to deploy more free software in 2010.
  • In May 2010, Global Graphics launched gDoc Fusion 2.5 allowing multiple incompatible files to be merged into a single document through a simple drag and drop action. gDoc Fusion 2.5 enables users to create a summary, report or other document that combine spreadsheets, slides, images, text, PDFs and more than 200 other types of document.

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