HI-FLEX's Print Buying Application is a "Game-Changer"

HIFLEX (Booth 463), a global technology leader of Web2Print and MIS Solutions for Print, has won the Printing Industries of America and Graphic Arts Technical Foundation InterTech Award for the second time. This year's award was for the innovation of bundling HIFLEX Webshop as a Drupal Open Source Content Management System (CMS) Plug-In and also for Webshop’s JDF core, enabling print buyers to dynamically create and order hundreds of thousands of print products directly on-line and with zero administrative costs. This is a huge departure from the traditional ‘article-based‘ Web-to-print ordering systems.

Drupal, the Content Management System used in conjunction with the Webshop Dynamic Ordering System, was chosen by HIFLEX for its framework and core functionality. In addition, there are over 2000 Drupal modules that are readily available to HIFLEX customers directly from the Drupal Website and that can be uploaded to the Webshop system for immediate use. Drupal is a free, open source, Content Management System and is the choice of other leading companies such as Yahoo, AOL, FedEx, Nike, Forbes, IBM, NASA, Sun Micro Systems, and Novell. There are over 1 million installations and over 10,000 developers worldwide using Drupal to manage their storefronts and websites.

Dr. Mark Bohan, VP, Technology and Research for Printing Industries of America, comments “By virtue of the software’s connection to the Drupal Content Management System, HIFLEX Webshop users have carte blanche when configuring their web2print sites. HIFLEX should be congratulated and recognized as a pioneer in the industry for thinking outside-the-box with their use of open source. The judges loved this innovation and they shared unanimous sentiments that it will have a significant impact on our industry.”

Easier on-line purchasing

The panel of judges, represented by a mix of 15-20 industry executives that are responsible for making buying decisions regarding technology for their printing establishments, agreed that the Webshop-Drupal combination will make it much easier to do business on-line and with the use of these tools, printers of all sizes, small to large would benefit from easier and faster deployment.

“Traditional or proprietary Web2Print systems do not provide an open platform so that users can have the freedom to fully configure their own systems. This is because one, vendors view configuring their customer’s websites as a primary source of revenue and two, because of the proprietary nature of these systems – they simply are not able to provide unrestrictive access to the backend,” comments Gary E. Marron, HIFLEX Corp, NA president and CEO. “The proprietary nature of these systems make it impractical and unsafe to offer such unrestricted access – users could inadvertently damage the system software. Most systems do have the ability to change graphics and images but are limited regarding the restructuring of storefront elements, functionality and adding or changing product types and descriptions. The HIFLEX Webshop backend is one click away from the front-end and completely open and available to users with the superbly organized Drupal Structure.”

HIFLEX’s Webshop-Drupal bundle also allows its customers to leverage from the thousands of Drupal community programmers and users who have also used Drupal to create their own unique and custom on-line storefronts. Furthermore, Much like Apple iPhone Apps, thousands of Drupal Apps are instantly available, such as the Google Analytics module, making configuring easy, simple and fast.

Facebook integration

Another good example of a recent Drupal-Webshop tool is integration with Facebook and Twitter. By using simple Drupal apps, Facebook and Twitter users are now able to have immediate access to a printer’s Webshop site and gain automatic access to the Webshop Storefront without having to re-register and login as a new user. This ease of access expands the market of a printer’s Webshop storefront business by millions of potential new buyers, simply by having this Drupal Plug-in available. Web2Print providers can expect an explosive on-line revolution regarding demands such as these that will drive the need to adapt quickly.