Primis's Full Court Press.

When Lance Primis saw the Internet coming, he took off in the opposite direction. No, it wasn't an attack of cyberphobia that led this 28-year veteran of The New York Times publishing empire to the much smaller world of PressPoint. Instead, Primis saw the connectivity of the Internet opening another door--a portal to same-day, print-to-order newspaper delivery around the world.

In a nutshell, PressPoint's operation delivers condensed, paper-and-ink versions of more than two dozen international dailies to readers far from home-- primarily in hotels and typically $3.50 for a 36-page global edition. The alternative, in too many cases, is settling for a two-day-old broadsheet at four or five times the traditional cover price.

PressPoint's original development plan took the narrow view, limited to a business travel model, but is now expanding to bookstores and eventually even to cruise ships via a satellite link. Whether the reader's usual fare is the Suddeutsche Zeitung or the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Primis's commitment is to deliver a bit of the reassuring daily routine: "For 15 minutes, I'll take you home every day."

Having worked his way up from classified-ad taker to president and COO at The New York Times Co., Primis earned a deep understanding of the newspaper business. So when he saw that impending changes "were not predominantly print," Primis figured it was time to move on from a corporate role of "deciding which budget to borrow from" and take a hard look at what was going on in the outside world.

Because it offers news in print, PressPoint's business proposition avoids problems that exist when reading a newspaper on-screen: the lack of a convenient full-page view, a disconcerting organizational hierarchy, and an inability to conform with long-established usage patterns. More compelling, says Primis, is its market opportunity, predicated on the simple belief that people will always yearn for news from home. "People still want to read news that they didn't know they needed until they see it." Participating newspapers are paid a royalty, and benefit from the customer loyalty as well as the incremental (audited) circulation.

The mechanics of production in the PressPoint system are a model of time efficiency, beginning with files supplied electronically by participating newspapers. The newspaper decides how the repurposed content will fill the pages--close to the original look for a tabloid, or with cropped photos, smaller type, and relocated articles for a standard broadsheet. Files are transmitted via dedicated lines to PressPoint's New York offices, where they are checked to be sure all pieces are in place, and then sent to Xerox Document Technical Centers for printing, typically in the off-hour lull of the early morning. Distribution is likewise completed through a prearranged network of existing courier services that already transport materials from Xerox facilities to convention hotels and airports.

In most respects, PressPoint turns conventional business models--particularly for publishing--upside down. The operating mechanism is "distribute, then produce" and the revenue stream is circulation-driven, with advertising only accounting for about 25 percent of current earnings. Overwhelmingly, the company only prints what has been sold (though there are some high-visibility newsstands), and since Xerox charges on a per-page basis, PressPoint does not need to lease or own costly printing equipment. And, unlike traditional players, it has no designs on a geographic monopoly, but rather, domination of a demographic slice.

In cybertime, the PressPoint concept is already gray around the temples, dating back to 1994 as a project inside Scitex Corp. Primis joined the effort early in 1997, at a time when the Internet's impact was growing and, as he puts it: "The threshold question was whether the Internet would prove to be friend or foe."

The jury is still our on that score, but Primis believes the information overload consumers are experiencing feeds into the PressPoint format. "More people are finding that the time to read doesn't exist, and they can't confront 10 pounds of Sunday newspaper on their doorstep each week."

For a production-side planner whose schooling in distributive news was forged in the launching of the New York Times national edition, there's clearly a satisfaction to be found in PressPoint's model. "There's no reason to fly newspapers anymore," Primis says as he considers the possibility of itinerary-matched delivery, pondering the irony of today's hometown paper waiting in the hotel room for a globe-trotting executive--maybe even before it hits his own front porch.

LANCE R. PRIMIS

Chairman

PressPoint

The threshold question was whether the Internet would prove to be friend or foe.

Age: 53

Birthplace: Brooklyn, NY

Family: Wife, Ellen; son, Blair, and daughter, Ashley.

Education: B.A. in English from the University of Wisconsin (attending on a baseball scholarship); the Harvard Executive Program, 78 and the Stanford Executive Program, '83.

Favorite baseball movie: The Natural.

Leisure interests: Travel and golf.

Cars: Ferrari F355, Lotus Esprit. BMW 750iL

Major influences: Edwards Deming, who once told him, "I wouldn't want your challenges."