Our Customers

CoDesCo IT Consulting develops and integrates system solutions for publishing houses and companies which are involved in communication of all sorts. CoDesCo generates customized solutions which integrate seamlessly with existing systems.

Many of our customers are longtime clients, which is indicative of the reliability of our performance and revealing of the confidence in the quality of our work. Find some of our customers mentioned below and a short description of the tasks we did cope with:

Jahreszeiten Verlag, Hamburg
Established in 1948 by Kurt Ganske. The company has 500 persons employed. It is part of the Ganske Verlagsgruppe (publishing group), which achieves a turnover of € 270 m with 17 enterprises and 1 500 members of staff.

The main focus is on 12 consumer magazines, in addition the Leserkreis Daheim (readercircle) and electronic media as well as online shops and travel guides are part of the company. The range of the consumer magazines is about 7.5 m.

 

The job

Before charging CoDesCo IT, the publishing company worked with QPS 1 over 12 years. The requirements in functionality and asset management as well had risen within the years, so that the company decided to begin a new phase of editorial work and also in pre-press with CoDesCo IT as a system integrator.

After having installed a pilot-system in the year 2006 the publishing company switched completely to QPS/QCM 3.x in 2006/2007. In this project the term "PPS" is of particular importance (production and planning system, meaning assembling as well as calculation). Besides others the litho was implemented. The same system also allows invocing of fees and calculation of costs. A significant part of it is the post calculation, in which all costs of the editorial staff - besides the fees out of the asset managing system - will be entered in a center module, which then can be compared with the planned costs and passed on to the SAP bookkeeping.

The magazine Prinz is a subsidiary company of the Jahreszeiten Verlag to be published in regional editions in 13 towns of the country. CoDesCo IT installed QPS systems in the editorial departments and linked them together over a centrally located PPS, so that the regional departments throughout the country work within one environment.

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MDV - Mittelhessische Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft, Gießen
Established 1946. The publishing company has 400 employees.

The MDV produces 3 local newspapers named Gießener Allgemeine, Alsfelder Allgemeine, Wetterauer Zeitung and achieves through cooperation with the newspaper Butzbacher Zeitung a total print run of 62 133. Furthermore there are newspapers named "Wochenpost", which are advertising papers with an average print run of 51 900. The print office Gießen Druck, established in 1952, is also part of the MDV.

 

The job

in 2007 CoDesCo IT Consulting was contracted to integrate QPS 3.x in the publishing company MDV. It is a exclusively Mac based solution with the following attributes:

  • All editors are "responsible for the page" and build the complete page in QuarkXPress. This causes a special workflow and requires a highly performed automation.
  • Because of the early allocation from authors and fotographers to the articles and pictures an automatic allocation is implemented, that passes automatically on to the fee accounting system.
  • Pictures can be cropped and optimized directly in the layout (Intellitune).
  • Pages respectively page contents can be given to other issues or plan pages.
  • Articles and pictures are given automatically to the online CMS (the editing for online publishing is also done with QuarkXPress)

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De Persgroep nv, Kobbegem (Belgium)
is a Flemish media company owned by the Van Thillo family. In 1978 the family obtained 60 percent of shares in the publishing company Hoste. When in 1990 the rest of the shares were acquired, the company’s name was changed to De Persgroep. The corporate profit amounts € 400 m, De Persgroep has 1 500 persons employed. 

The company is the belgian leader in television, internet, newspaper and magazine business and has a printing center in Lokeren.
 

The job

Two daily newspapers (both situated in economic sector) had been produced with Windows systems for approximately 150 users, whereas three other newspapers (approximately 400 users) in Belgium and Netherlands were produced with Mac systems.

The economic papers (L'Echo in French, De Tijd in Flemish) were switched to QPS 3.x in 2006 from foreign systems (as Unisys).  150 editors are working external and are connected with the headquarter over 2 x 100 MBit/s cables. All servers (also the QPS server and the asset management system QCM) are located in the headquarter.

The biggest newspaper in the company HLN (Het Laatste Nieuws) has 20 different regional editions in over 70 combinations. This system was switched to QPS 3.x from CoDesCo IT Consulting in 2007.

Various customer wishes were satisfied with the development of extensions. Especially the automatic output of all printed pages (with ex AutoJob and ex PrintTools) as well as the picture workflow with ex ImageDesk for over 300 working stations (windows and mac) and the extensive XML-output over the ex XMLExporter should be mentioned.

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DER SPIEGEL (Spiegel Gruppe), Hamburg
Established 1947 by Rudolf Augstein, who was the publisher of the magazine until he died in 2002. Besides the SPIEGEL ther company publishes other magazines as manager magazin, Harvard Business Manager, KulturSPIEGEL or UniSPIEGEL. SPIEGEL TV and SPIEGEL special are television broadcastings, the company even has an own broadcast station named SPIEGEL TV digital, furthermore the SPIEGEL is online.

Turnover of the Spiegel group: € 332 m, 1 250 employees.
Sold edition in 1. quarter 2008: 1 050 296 duplicates
Coverage in 1. quarter 2008: 6.08 m readers

 

The job

DER SPIEGEL and manager magazin have both been produced for years with QPS. In the second term of 2008 the system was upgraded to QPS 7.4. CoDesCo ported all self developed  XTensions and implemented the Spiegel intern picture database BOS and the archive "DigAs". In the first term of 2009 the system will be updated to QPS 8

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Gulf News, published by Al Nisr Publishing LLC, Dubai (United Arab Emirates)
Established in 1978. 1984 the newspaper was bought by three UAE leading businessmen and was named Al Nisr Publishing Company. Nowadays the company has a share capital of 15 m Dirham (=2.6 m Euro). Approximate Gulf News print run per day: 93 000. Editorial staff: 200 persons employed.

The "Gulf News" is a fundamental part of the newspaper landscape in the middle east. The paper is published in English 7 days a week, 365 days a year in Dubai (United Arab Emirates). Gulf News has editorial offices in Abu Dhabi, Oman, Manila, New Delhi and a few other towns. Due to the fact that the audience is situated all over the asian territory, the publishing house has to refer to different time zones and produces from 6 a.m. in the morning until 2 a.m. in the night.

 

The job

The target was to network and automate the whole production beginning with the advertising office up to the digital montage of newspaper pages. Contemporaneously to the launch of the commercial advertising system IS-M/AM from SAP in 2006 CoDesCo IT implemented the publishing system QPS 3.x. CoDesCo IT changed the system within only three months, from signing the contract to the complete production, undergoing a broad relaunch during the installation.

The resolution is based exclusively on Macintosh and has these special features:

  • Transfer of archive data (text, pictures, PDF) from the old system
  • Interface to a PPI planning system
  • Besides english contents also arabic contents
  • Automatic content control of "suspect words", which could offend religiously or culturally

The result was an extremely higher flexibility in the production flow and a significantly shorter response time at the market. This project made Al Nisr Publishing LLC a pioneer in advertising and newspaper production.

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Berliner Verlag (BV Deutsche Zeitungsholding, David Montgomery), Berlin
Founded in 1945 even before the establishment of the GDR - back then with 3 newspapers and 5 magazines in the market. Today the Berliner Verlag publishes the following:
Berliner Zeitung/ Berliner Kurier (complete print run: 729.000)
Berliner Abendblatt (for free, print run: 1,2 m)
Tip Berlin (every 14 days, town magazine, Auflage: 74.900)

 

The job

In 1997 CoDesCo IT Consulting implemented QPS 1 in the Berliner Zeitung and also in the Berliner Kurier, 200 users were linked. Several adjustments and extensions have been proved over years. In the beginning of 2002 the Berliner Kurier was updated to QPS 2.1 (windows) on 75 workplaces.

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Axel Springer AG, Berlin
Founded in 1946 by Axel Springer. The first media to be published were the northwestern german booklets, the magazine Hörzu and the daily newspaper Bild followed. Nowadays the Axel Springer Verlag publishes 170 newspapers and magazines and has 50 products online.

Newspapers and magazines published by Axel Springer AG are among others the following:

  • Bild
  • Die Welt
  • Hamburger Abendblatt
  • Berliner Morgenpost
  • Auto Bild
  • Bild der Frau
  • Computer Bild
  • Hörzu
  • TV Digital

The business volume amounts € 2,6 bn (Ebitda: € 422 m). Altogether 10 000 persons are working in the Axel Springer AG.

 

The job

In 1999 CoDesCo IT made an update of the existing QPS system with 450 workplaces to QPS 2 (Mac). Simultaneously a completely new editorial system "TV Manager" based on XML was developed for the production of programme magazines on 150 working places. Therefore numerous customizations werde implemented.

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Paulinus Wochenzeitung im Bistum Trier (weekly newspaper in the diocese of Trier)
Founded 1875 as a weekly newspaper named "Paulinus-Blatt", which is the diocese newspaper in Trier since 1934 and has an audience of about 130 000 readers. The newspaper is published in the Paulinus Verlag, which is part of the general vicarage of Trier. There are 9 persons in the editorial staff. 

 

The job

After having implemented a Mac OS 9 based solution, consisting of QPS 2 and an agency link for mail integration (based on LotusNotes) in 2001, CoDesCo  updated the complete system to QPS 3.6 at the end of 2007. Simultaneously the system was changed to windows. The reorganisation - in conjunction with the removal of the editorial departement in new rooms at an other location - was mastered within 2 days.

In January 2009 we upgraded the system to QPS 8. The Canto Cumulus installation was extended. 

Also in 2001 the advertisment managing and producing system COPAN was installed.

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FVW Mediengruppe, Hamburg
Specialized publisher for tourism and travelling. Exists over 40 years and has developed from the publishing departement of "fvw Magazin für Touristik" to one of the biggest specialized publishers in the field of tourims and travelling. Nowadays there exist further publications for travel and holidays (such as Urlaub Perfekt, Travel Talk, Biz Travel) and several firms for the organisation of events, congress and exposition service, corporate publishing and distribution of specialized press. Furthermore the FVW Mediengruppe drives internet portals. About 130 persons are working in the company.

 

The job

The existing QPS 1 system was updated to QPS 3.5 in 2005 and the asset management system QCM was added. Simultaneously all magazines were converted to the same technology. 

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