Barr and Elixir Team Up to Provide Integrated Enterprise Printing and Data Transformation Solutions

Gainesville,Fla.–The hallmark of a world-class enterprise print server is support for many types of file and data formats. The mainframe environment includes several specialized formats that frequently need to be transformed into network formats. The most strategic and effective way to accomplish this is to integrate the print server with best-of-breed data transformation technology.

Barr Systems, Inc., a major provider of host communications and print management solutions, announces a collaboration with Elixir Technologies Corporation, experts in data transformation, to provide seamless integration of the Elixir Transformation Suite with Barr’s print management solution, Barr Enterprise Print Server. The Elixir product accepts data in Xerox Metacode and Line-Conditioned Data Stream (LCDS) formats and transforms it into network formats such as PCL, PostScript, PDF, TIFF and VIPP/XGF.

As an integrated package, the two software products allow companies to connect to their mainframes from network computers and receive Xerox Metacode and LCDS data in an information-rich format. Then, the data is transformed into the appropriate network format. Finally, special routing data is used to direct the jobs to network printing, archival or distribution devices.

The Barr and Elixir applications play distinctive roles in the integration process. The Barr Server ensures that user-originated print jobs get passed to the Elixir software in the proper file format, which includes information-rich data blocks called ‘headers’. The Elixir software then transforms the datastream into network printer formats. The header information is preserved during the transformation process, and used to provide useful information about the job being processed, such as page count information that can be used with Barr's accounting software.

Barr Systems' expertise in print management and host connectivity, and reputation for excellence in the areas of sales, support and services offers companies front-end solutions that accept data from a multitude of hosts and network users, transform the data as needed, and distribute documents to reporting software for further processing. Barr’s professional services are also expected to provide a critical component for organizations that are implementing scalable reporting systems, since installing such systems requires substantial experience and training.

Earlier this year, Barr and Elixir announced an alliance under which they would resell each other’s products. By teaming up, each company is able to provide increased functionality to its customers, and gain marketability in areas previously outside its existing customer base.

For more information

To find out more about Barr Systems, Inc., visit the Barr Web site at www.barrsys.com. To obtain more information about Elixir Technologies Corporation, visit www.elixir.com.