EskoArtwork, the global market leader in innovative design, pre-production and collaboration solutions for the packaging and commercial printing industry, announces it has completed the acquisition of Gradual Software, a developer of affordable desktop automation solutions for professional publishing based in Gent, Belgium. The terms and conditions of the transaction are not disclosed.

The Gradual Software staff, assets and technology will be merged into EskoArtwork’s Enfocus operations. The resulting new entity will operate as a dedicated business unit within the EskoArtwork group, under the Enfocus brand.

Peter Camps, founder, chairman and CEO of Gradual Software and also founder and ex-CEO of Enfocus Software, joins the EskoArtwork management team as Senior Vice President Enfocus and will lead the business unit. Mr. Camps also re-invests most of his proceeds from the acquisition into the EskoArtwork group.

“Today we re-unite a group of dedicated professionals that were at the cradle of the Enfocus vision and technologies. It gives me great pleasure to welcome Peter Camps, a well-known entrepreneur and visionary in our industry, and the other experienced members of the Gradual Software team into the EskoArtwork family”, says Carsten Knudsen, EskoArtwork President and CEO. “With this move, we renew our commitment to serve content originators, prepress service providers, printers, publishers and print buyers with innovative software solutions, building on the synergies between the Enfocus and Gradual Software activities, and with the full support of EskoArtwork’s drive and resources.”

Gradual Software was established in November 2004 to develop and provide software for full automation across the numerous stages of professional publishing activities from document creation to delivery. Its SWITCH software automates the everyday tasks of multiple participants in multiple organizations—even those who use a variety of systems and tools. For ease of implementation, automation can be introduced gradually as needed, in small increments, through a highly visual user-friendly interface.

“There are still gaps and shortfalls in the automation tools for today’s complex prepress and publishing value chains”, comments Peter Camps. “Most workflow systems on the market are optimized for prepress production, and may not adequately cover the smaller everyday routine tasks typical for e.g. authoring and design workgroups. EskoArtwork offers the ideal environment to develop and market the solutions these customers require. The company’s vision to better connect tools, systems, processes and people across departments and organizations throughout the value chain, and its widely recognized know how and technology base made joining EskoArtwork a natural and logical step forward for us.”

EskoArtwork and Enfocus remain fully committed to the Crossroads community, founded by Gradual Software to bring together a complete ecosystem of software vendors offering products that can automate tasks in publishing workflows and lower the threshold for publishing professionals to start using automation in their environment.