SYSTEMS UPDATE Vol. 23 No. 2 MAR/APR 2004 issue      

1. HITACHI PRINTING SOLUTIONS

2. STAMFORD TRAVEL

3. SOPHOS ANTI-SPAM ASIA 2004 SEMINAR

4. DDS22/DDS32 MONO LASER PRINTERS

5. VIRUSES & HOAXES

6. CYTO CHANGES WORKFLOW

7. RAINBOW IS NOW SAFENET

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1. HITACHI PRINTING SOLUTIONS

On 31 March 2004, all the shares of Hitachi Printing Solutions, Ltd (HPRS) owned by Hitachi will be transferred to Ricoh Co. Ltd.  The transfer is scheduled to be finalized on 1 October 2004.  What it means down the road is that the equipment will bear RICOH instead of Hitachi logo.

The president, Mr Toshiaki Katayama indicated that since the establishment of HPRS on October 1st 2002, HPRS Group has offered technologies; such as highly trusted systemized technologies that meets mission-critical, high-speed customer needs, as well as low-cost design and mass production technologies for the small color printer market.  We, at the same time, have been seeking ways to further expand and enhance our businesses while the market environment is radically changing.  We found Ricoh is the right partner to achieve our target, that is, to become a world leader in the printing industry by utilizing our superior technologies, know-how and workforce.

The objective of HPRS Group is to offer printing solutions for the innumerable needs of individuals, society and companies in the 21st century where information is ubiquitous and ever growing.  We will continue to value the relationships we have established over the years with you and endeavor to develop a more prosperous relationship with you in a mutually beneficial manner.

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2. STAMFORD TRAVEL

Early this year 2004, Stamford Travel has decided to shift from a semi-automated to a fully automated travel operation system.  They did source around in the beginning and decided to invest on the Rapid Access Travel System (RATS) with Systems Design after much consideration.  They found out that the benefits of automating their operations easily out weigh the investment and they commented  that they were especially happy with regards to the post purchase that Systems Design provides.  Miss Gina Teo, Managing Director of Stamford Travel felt the effort to convert gave her better control of her operations.  The RATS software is currently running on Windows Small Business Server 2003.

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3. SOPHOS ANTI-SPAM ASIA 2004 SEMINAR

Held on 20th April 2004 at Grand Hyatt Hotel, the seminar detailed the complexity of 3rd generation spam techniques and explained why simple content filtering and “tag and pass” techniques are no longer effective against the latest spam.

Keynote speakers includes Dr John Graham-Cumming, Research Director, Sophos Anti-Spam Task Force; Mr Tan Ming Liang, Advocate and Solicitor, Rajah & Tann; Mr Wong Loke Yew, Security Evangelist, Trusecure Corp; Professor Lawrence Law, Director, Information Technology Services Center, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.  Mr Ng Hak Beng, Technical Support, Sophos Asia, also presented a short product tour on Sophos PureMessage explaining the anti-spam features, ease of use, flexibility and scalability of Sophos PureMessage solution.  Of particular interest is the detailed case study presentation by Professor Lawrence Law on how Hong Kong University of Science and Technology conquered spam with Sophos PureMessage anti-spam solution.  If you did not manage to make a trip there, or were opted-out of the mailing list, here is what you actually missed.

See http://www.sysdgn.com.sg/newsletter/0404/seminarsophos.html

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4. DDS22/DDS32 MONO LASER PRINTERS

Hitachi Printing Solutions recently announced the availability of a low end range of laser printers at 22 page per minute (A4) and 32 page per minute (A4). These printers complement the current popular DDS45 page per minute workhorse printer.

The new DDS22 and DDS32 are capable of printing at 1200 dpi, 600 dpi and 300 dpi.  Apart from A4 size, these printers can also do A3 size.  They are rated at 13 pages per minute and 19 page per minute respectively.  PCL5e and Postscript compatible come with the printer.  USB and Parallel interfaces are standard features.  However, 10/100TX Ethernet is optional.  Duplex is also optional.  Delivery of the printer has already commenced.

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5. VIRUSES & HOAXES

Top ten viruses reported to Sophos in March 2004

The top ten hoaxes reported to Sophos during March 2004 are as follows:

See http://www.sysdgn.com.sg/newsletter/0404/sophos.html

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6. CYTO CHANGES WORKFLOW

When Cytology Section at Department of Pathology, Singapore General Hospital went LIVE on 1 Jan 2004, Dr Lim-Tan, the doctor in charge had some different ideas.  She wanted more productivity from the medical technologists.

In the old system, each medical technologist after reading the slide will write down on a form the result, time taken, specimen no. read, etc.  Then they would either pass the result for a clerk to key in or wait for a free terminal to enter the findings.  Should there be quality control, tracking was all manual.

When implementing the new system, she got an additional 8 PCs – one for every medical technologist.  Now instead of writing on the forms, the med techs key directly into the PCs.  Getting the screeners workload for the day or the reporting rate or the other statistics is just selecting the appropriate report to print.  This is so much easier as compared with compiling the statistics from the forms.

Also, when the medical technologists/pathologists sign out the report, the report is scheduled to be printed in the next auto-print cycle.  If she chooses to print the report, auto-print will know and will not schedule that report for printing.  Currently, there are 4 printing times on the auto-print, 9.30 am, 11.30 am, 2.30 pm and 4.30 pm.  Reports printed by the auto-print are sorted by lab number.

The new workflow took a couple of weeks to settle down.  Now, for the medical technologists, it means less paperwork and more time for more productive screening work

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7. RAINBOW IS NOW SAFENET

SafeNet held a merger announcement at a dinner in Pan Pacific Hotel on 22 April 04.  Mr Humphrey Chan, VP of Asia Pacific was there to present the future plans of the combined company which is operating under the SafeNet name (NASDAQ : SFNT).  The combined company will have a turnover of about US$210 million and 800 employees   As SafeNet presence in the Asia Pacific is small, most of the staff came from Rainbow for the Asia Pacific region.

Distributors of the two previous companies in the region were in attendance.  They came from Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore.  The message was clear that SafeNet wants to be a leading Information and Network Security Player.

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