Background

Pongrass Publishing Systems of Sydney, NSW, Australia was founded in 1984 by Leslie Pongrass and John Armstrong - two programmers from the traditional computer industry dedicated to introducing the standard desktop PC to the newspaper industry, a revolutionary idea at the time. Their first product was a terminal emulator for DEC Classified and editorial systems. This allowed DEC newspaper software to run in a standard PC. This was followed by a classified advertisement pagination program for the Macintosh platform capable of outputting assembled pages to PostScript image setters. The classified pagination product included interfaces to equipment from traditional newspaper system front-end vendors allowing it to paginate ad files gathered and managed on these systems. From there, in 1991 the burgeoning company began to develop and market a comprehensive advertisement management system.
Over the years, the Pongrass advertising suite has been re-engineered to incorporate the best technologies of the day. This has been a seamless process for our customers, many who have been upgraded from our original systems all the way to the new Version 6 (thin client, browser based)
Key to the success of the Pongrass Advertising suite is the single database integration of the various companion products of the suite. Ad booking, classified pagination, ad layout, ad tracking, editorial tracking, content management, story editing and pagination software can be installed individually or in any combination for the ultimate in configuration flexibility.
Working as a system integrator in Australia and New Zealand and with its channel partners around the world, Pongrass Publishing Systems now offers a complete solution for all size daily and weekly newspapers, shoppers and related advertising based publications, directories and magazines. Pongrass newspaper systems let publishers automate and efficiently manage ad booking, ad layout, pagination, ad tracking and editorial production within a scaleable, open software environment.


Corporate Headquarters

Pongrass Publishing Systems
5-11 Hollywood Ave
Bondi Junction 1355
Sydney NSW Australia
PH: +61 2 9369 6100
FAX +61 2 9369 6150
sales@pongrass.com.au


Key Personnel

Leslie Pongrass - Managing Director
John Armstrong - R&D Director
Shelley Hando - General Manager


Product Strategy

Since its inception in 1984, Pongrass has been a leader in the supply and integration of desktop software technology to newspapers, shoppers, advertising circulars, directories and magazines. The company has a large installed base of customers in Australia and New Zealand. Over the past few years it has expanded its marketing focus and distribution channels and now has a growing base of installations in South East Asia, Latin America, USA and Europe.
One key to the company's success has been its ability to recognize and quickly deploy the most significant and important industry standard technologies as they become available.
With Version 5, Pongrass completed the integration of standard relational database technology with all aspects of its advertising booking, billing, production and editorial software modules.
Version 6 expands on that integration and “one database” philosophy of Version 5 and takes newspaper computing to the enterprise. Version 6 is a cloud computing initiative and brings newspaper enterprise computing back to the data centre. Cloud computing is a technology in which dynamically scaleable resources are provided as a service over the Internet and the corporate Intranet.
Version 6 offers a zero install, pure browser based client for all non production workstations, software as a service and single data centre for the Enterprise.


International Scope

Recognizing early on the limits to the scale of its local markets, Pongrass has developed its software with a worldwide focus. Its classified ad pagination software has been distributed worldwide since 1989; it is installed in the Middle East (Dubai, Israel) where ads flow in a reverse order from the West and a Chinese version of Classified Pagination has been developed for directory publications in Asia. Other international success stories include the Yellow and White Pages in Hong Kong, as well as Yellow Pages and directory publications in Shanghai. Pongrass has enhanced its composition engine, Pronto, for international language support, and has developed tools in-house to allow the simple localization of Pongrass application software.
Pongrass' philosophy on international distribution is to recruit and support highly competent, technically oriented agents that in turn support Pongrass software in their home markets. Thus, while Pongrass is a full system provider and integrator in Australia and New Zealand, it provides software to its international distributors, which they then on-sell to their own markets.


Customer and Reseller Support

Pongrass boasts a team of experienced support personnel available for on-site local support of its more than 200 plus customers in Australia and New Zealand. In the United States, South East Asia, Latin America and Europe, it supports both customers and international distributors using the latest technologies.





 

PO Box 890 Bondi Junction
NSW 1355 Sydney Australia

Telephone +61 2 9369 6100
Facsimile +61 2 9369 6150
sales@pongrass.com.au

© Pongrass Australia Pty. Ltd.
All rights reserved