Wayne Beckett and Chris Watson launched Resolve last month after leaving Imprint MIS shortly before. It will now distribute Keyline to the UK and Irish markets on behalf of Cloud to Print, which finalised a deal to market the system in the UK earlier this year.
Developed by German-based Crispy Mountain in collaboration with a number of German print companies, Keyline is a software-as-a-service product, intended to cover the full print process from order taking and estimating through production and finishing to stock keeping, logistics and accounting.
The system’s open interfaces allow for communication with any kind of software, as well as printing, finishing and logistical machinery.
“About three months ago Paul [Warren, founder of Cloud to Print] gave us a quick demo of Keyline. Chris and I had both been thinking for some time that cloud-based open architecture systems with easy API access is really where MIS is going,” said Beckett.
“We thought the look, feel and ease of use of it was unbelievable. Paul has got UK and Ireland distribution rights for it through Cloud to Print but he needed somebody to sell it, so we spoke to him about maybe working with him and it snowballed from there.
“We decided that it’s a product in its infancy and it’s got legs – bearing in mind it's cloud-based, you can go global with it – so we decided to set up Resolve.”
Former Imprint MIS sales manager Watson has around 30 years MIS experience, including 15 years at Imprint. He and Warren will focus on the technical side of the new venture while Beckett, who served as sales and marketing director at Imprint MIS for around three and a half years, will oversee sales of Keyline.
The new business will also offer an MIS consultancy to printers.
“Resolve is going to be two-fold. What Chris and I have learnt in the many years that we have been out talking to people about MIS is that many people still don’t have an MIS,” said Beckett.
“For those that do have an MIS, the consultancy side of the business is really to explain to people what they can achieve.”
He added users of the consultancy could be running any MIS.
“If they’ve got a Tharstern system, for example, that’s fine – the chances are they wouldn’t be interested in a Keyline system anyway because changing from one MIS to another is pretty painful.
“So we can just give them an understanding of what they can hope to get out of their system and then talk to them about things like JDF and JMF integration as well.
“But Keyline is going to be the core of the business – it’s a very exciting product. We’ve had a lot of interest in it so far and we’ve been doing demos nearly every day in the last two weeks.”
There are currently 25 users of Keyline – 24 of which are based in Germany. Latvian book printer Livonia is Keyline’s largest adopter to date, with 600 staff at the company using the system, but Beckett said the MIS could also suit a small printer with “two digital presses and a bit of finishing”.
Subscription costs for Keyline vary and are based on the average number of users at a company – smaller businesses could pay around £500 pounds per month while large firms could likely pay a few thousand.
