Hey Guys,
Thanks for your interest. I was a bit vague about the application initially because I wasn't sure about the rules of the forum regarding products, etc.
I am working as a prepress consultant for Founder Electronics in Beijing, China. As you all might know, Founder makes Chinese fonts, RIP's, proofing software and workflows. In the Chinese domestic market, Founder also makes page layout software. The application is called Founder FIT and it has a fairly dominant position in the Chinese language publishing market, worldwide. Founder is now working on an English language version of FIT for the global market and is nearly ready to start the BETA testing phase of development.
FIT is a fairly well-featured page layout application in the style of Quark Xpress or Adobe InDesign, but will be targeting more of an entry-level user. If Founder is successful, then commercial printers will end up getting print jobs produced with FIT from "business/education/community group" type users, at least initially. This is why it's important to get your input now, in the Beta phase.
When the software is released (target date May 5th), Founder will give a license to anyone helping with the Beta.
As for VDP, the answer is YES but NO. There is a Chinese language version of FIT for VDP called VariFIT which currently only works with the Founder digital press workflow. At this point there is no plan to make an English language version of VariFIT... but hey, anything can happen, right?
So, if anyone's interested, drop me a line at...
[email protected]
And I'll get back to you with Beta details.
cheers,
zac