Lithotechnics founder Rohan Holt told ProPrint the company is opening an office just outside the city of Antwerp to help boost European awareness of its Metrix software and drive international sales.

The company already has a market presence in Europe through a variety of resellers, but Holt said that the level of sales “is not what it could be”.

“Our reason for starting in Europe is to further service our customers and really train them more on the value of Metrix and show them why some of the biggest printers in America are using the system,” Holt said.

“What I’m conscious of is that when times are tough, people go with the more ‘sure thing’, and Metrix is unlike other tools,” he added.

“We just think that Metrix has been a bit lost. People aren’t seeing the full value of it, they’re just seeing it as a ganging tool,” he added.

The move sees Holt reunited with former colleague Phillip Glorian, who will head up the Belgian office.

Glorian has been working for vendors including Ricoh and Creo. Holt said Glorian’s multilingual capacity was a crucial factor in hiring him.

“He’s a guy I know I can trust and a guy I know has the experience,” Holt said.

Holt said his company was enjoying a strong start to 2010. Two major Australian printing companies have deployed Metrix so far this year.

“The global financial crisis has affected everything, and our industry has had it harder than most over the last year,” said Holt.

“As a company we’ve done okay, our sales didn’t decrease last year.2009 was not as good as we’d hoped, but it was still better than 2008,” he added.

Lithotechnics released its most recent version of Metrix in September last year.

http://www.proprint.com.au/News/155891,lithotechnics-launches-metrix-37-at-print-09.aspx

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