On January 19, 2012,

Eastman Kodak Company and its U.S. subsidiaries filed voluntary petitions for Chapter 11 business reorganization in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.

The business reorganization will enable Kodak to bolster liquidity in the U.S. and abroad, monetize non-strategic intellectual property, fairly resolve legacy liabilities, and enable the Company to focus on its most valuable business lines.
See formal press realease here: http://www.kodaktransforms.com

We were sorry to hear the our friend, the ExScite Guy Alon has passed away.
Guy was a designer, application engineer and product manager at Scitex and Orbotech

 both in Israel and in Boston. We have received this letter from Alon's family:

Dear Friends of the Guy Alon,
After years of bravely struggling with health issues, it is with great sadness we relate the news of Guy’s passing away on November 20, 2011. Guy quietly slipped away from us in the afternoon, with Shoshi and Iris by his side. Words seem inadequate to express the sadness we feel; Guy was a very special person in all of our lives and he will be greatly missed.
Guy was laid to rest on November 22nd, in Needham MA Cemetery. There will also be a memorial service in Israel, and we will communicate the details once we know more. We appreciate your friendship, love, and support at this time.
The Alon Family

The ExScite Jacob Aizikowitz wrote us:

The ExScite community mourn the passing of a genius- Steve Jobs of Apple.
Apple has been the platform of choice in the graphic arts industry. As we all recall, Scitex has not diverted its skills and software innovation to the Mac platform, which quickly spelled the end for its workstation business.

One group at Scitex was trying hard to port the Scitex ingenuity into the Mac, under the leadership of Eli Israeli . Ken Hurtubise was the application/marketing power behind the Scitex Visionary, and he posted this at ExScite members' board:

"I had the opportunity to meet Steve Jobs a couple of times while I was at Scitex. His death reminded me of some of the "insanely great" products the Scitex team created with the Macintosh.

For those of you involved in the Visionary and VIP projects, here is some trivia you might be unaware of or forgotten:

- Scitex was the first company to attach a color printer and color scanner to a Macintosh. Even beating Apple's own internal developments.
- For a time Scitex bought more high end Macs than any other company in the world.
- Color Macs from Apple started out being priced the same as a Sun workstation in Europe. We pushed them to have a more rational international pricing policy.
- At product launch, we sold 13 Visionary Beta sites for $80,000 cash up-front. That was important since Scitex was having cash flow issues.
- We wouldn't tell anyone the price until the end of the introduction. One customer, who had to leave before the presentation was over, left us with a blank check and told us to fill it in and tell him the amount at the end of the day.
- With Quark, we created what became the concept of "extensions". We taught Quark how to do quality text processing and they taught us how do some things in color on the desktop.
- I first offered Paul Brainerd (the president of Aldus, maker of PageMaker) the ability to work with Scitex on the Visionary concept. He turned me down, saying that they wanted to focus on the B&W office market instead. Years later he admitted to me that it might not have been the best decision he ever made.
- The original agreement between Scitex and Quark was a handshake agreement and a letter of understanding, handwritten on the front and back of piece of notebook paper at a Seybold conference.
- Adobe never wanted to do a software rip on the Mac. They only agreed to do it after we ported the Pipeline Technologies interpreter to the Mac and demoed it at a trade show".

We have received this sad not from the ExScite Ray Fair:

It is with great sadness and regret that I inform you of Jeff Hurley’s passing on May 17 in Littleton, CO.

Jeff was one of the original Application Engineers at Scitex America working out of the Bedford MA office. I had the privilege of working with Jeff at many printing sites and trade shows. He was truly one of a kind. RIP Jeff, RIP.

Jeff is survived by wife Lucie, daughter Sarah, son Kristopher, mother Marilyn, brother Michael and 2 grandchildren.

We have received this message from Vincent Bourke, the brother of Yvonne Bourke (married Sanua, but divorced in 2006) .

It is with great sadness I have to inform you that Yvonne Bourke passed away last March 28th.
Yvonne had just turned 50 and leaves two daughters, Jasmin (17) and Amy (16).

She worked many years for Scitex in Brussels back in the late 70's and 80’s (as also my two other sisters Lorna and Fiona, but for shorter periods). Yvonne lived in Belgium most of her life, in London (Scitex office) for a few years, in Paris and then moved to Germany for ten years before relocating to Israel.

Yvonne knew quite a few people from Scitex and remained in contact with several. We (the siblings) have located whoever we remembered but it is highly probable we forgot some or are not aware of other people Yvonne may have known.

Dear ExScite member!

We have begun the long process of overhauling the design of this ExScite web site, which was designed in the 20th Century. The new design will include major security and privacy protection features, worthy of the 21st Century.

The process is expected to take a couple of months.

Until then, please take a minute to update your current Member Record, so that transporting all the existing information and data bases from the old to the new, will be as accurate as possible.

Stay tuned.

Etan Rozin & Aharon Nizani 

The former STA's engineer Charlie Baum has passed away.

 website: www.casameo.it

If you are looking for a magical vacation site, immersed in Tuscany's green landscape, here is a history-laded house offering comfortable rooms within easy reach of the most remarkable Tuscany's spot, and not far from Florence.
Our own ExScite veteran Reuven Anati (who had been born in Italy) and his wife Erela bought the Casa Meo house and have converted it into a magnificent 6 room B&B. Located in the heart of Italy's Casentino area, the house had been built in 1541 and was restored by Anati recently.
Great place, very reasonable daily rate, friendly service and Ex-Scitex atmosphere, combined with a breath-taking view and immersed in intoxicating Tuscany air. Casa Meo, is the perfect vacation spot.

Contact Reuven and Arela (Hebrew, English and Italian) at:
Email: info@casameo.it
Tel: +39 0575 570 498
Address: CasaMeo Loc. Pagliericcio, 74 52018 Castel San Niccolo (AR), Tuscany, Italy