Increased competition in the early 90's demanded a more aggressive approach to branding and marketing communications. The development of strategic alliances within the print publishing sector became important too as established players such as LinoType, AGFA, Kodak, Canon and others jostled for position in the new digital pre-press environment.

The acquisition of London-based SAMS Group Plc in 1992 established KRCS as the largest Authorised AppleCentre network in the UK, employing over 140 staff. By this time DTP sales were in decline with Apple refocussing on high-volume/low-margin computer sales. Product briefings at Stockley Park revealed their low-cost, pizza-box-sized Mac LC, multimedia technology like QuickTime and a touch-screen palmtop device named the 'Apple Newton' . These products were a big departure from the once lucrative DTP era and a clear indication that Apple were going head-to-head against the combined might of Microsoft Windows and Intel processors.

Apple sales channels were about to change too. Traditionally, the company had disapproved of non-Authorised resellers who sold by mail-order via independent publications like 'MacUser'. So it came as a shock to discover that Apple were planning to launch a mail order catalogue of their own, effectively competing against their own Authorised Dealer network.

KRCS responded with its own mail-order publication. 'SelectDirect' was launched days before Apple's own release and represented a major coup for the company. This collaborative publication developed in-house by Tim Clark , Kate Smith and myself, made full use of available intranet technology with AppleLink and BT Kilostream connections exchanging email and PDF proofs between locations in Nottingham, Coventry and Wimbledon.

Intranets and multimedia
By 1994, there was a sense that networks would play an increasing role within the creative industry. Apple literature was already showcasing corporate intranets from the United States and these influential white-papers seemed to hint at the possibilty that print would eventually be superceded by networked multimedia content.

Excited by the prospect of working with interactive multimedia, I set myself the task of producing a digital portfolio that could be distributed by email or on a single high-density diskette, assembling the project with Macromedia Director software, a successor to the innovative though underpowered MacroMind VideoWorks product I'd seen five years earlier. The 'Pit to Pixel' Director file was despatched to advertising agencies in London and the Midlands with a view to moving out of IT and into a cretive environment where I could expand my portfolio with clients from other sectors.