Case Studies - Herald Tribune (IHT)
Paris, France
The solution supplied to the Herald Tribune (IHT) is a complete publishing system.
Originally installed in 1997, as GoodNews (GN1), the IHT system utilised two dual Pentium 166 Mhz servers mirrored by Octopus software over a 100 mbit LAN segment, and the OPI server TOPIC integrated with a Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 database to store all the information related to the work flow of the printing devices (9 local printers and 12 remote output sites).
In March 1997, the Herald Tribune became the first customer of the TERA image browser based on Internet technology. Pictures - transmitted by Reuters Agency, France Press and Associated Press, are stored on a dedicated Windows NT server where the application, connected with the Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 and the Internet Information Server 3.0, interprets the data and stores the information, creating a low resolution thumbnail for a prompt and easy further retrieval.
Each journalist is able to browse through the archive, search for the pictures and tag them for publishing. An automatic procedure takes care of sending the selected pictures into the production work flow.
Since March 1997 GoodNews is also used to produce the full colour weekly issues.
On January, 11th 1999 the Tribune produced its first edition with GN3 and became the first customer in the world to adopt the new publishing system.
In spring of 2007, IHT updated their software to the most recent release of GN3 after an eight-year gap. The upgrade was performed by a single Tera representative over the course of two weeks without invalidating any IHT data or involving the cost or risk that an upgrade of this magnitude would require.
Throughout its 17-year history of engineering excellence, Tera has never released a software version that has invalidated any customer data or previously released software. Tera has never required its customers to take on the work, expense or risk that a so-called major upgrade requires. Tera continues to satisfy this engineering imperative.