Electronics for Imaging Inc, et al. – ‘425’ on 3/12/03 re: Electronics for Imaging Inc

On:  Wednesday, 3/12/03, at 7:31pm ET   ·   As of:  3/13/03   ·   Accession #:  950152-3-2847   ·   File #:  0-18805

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Business-Combination Transaction Communication   —   Rule 425
Filing Table of Contents

Document/Exhibit                   Description                      Pages   Size 

 1: 425         Printcafe Software, Inc./Electronics for Imaging       5     19K 

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                                         Filed by: Electronics For Imaging, Inc.
                                                Filed under Rules 425 and 14a-12
                      Subject Companies: Electronics For Imaging, Inc. (0-18805)
                                              Printcafe Software, Inc. (0-49710)

The following article was published at whattheythink.com, a website focused on  
the printing industry, on March 12, 2003:                                       

NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR EFI AND PRINTCAFE: GUY GECHT, CEO OF EFI AND MARC         
OLIN, CEO OF PRINTCAFE                                                          

March 12, 2003 - Forty-eight days ago - such a short time! - Creo, Inc. (NASDAQ:
CREO), shook up the graphic arts industry when the company announced that they  
had agreements to acquire enough outstanding shares of Printcafe Software, Inc. 
(NASDAQ: PCAF), stock to achieve a 55% majority ownership. At the same time,    
Creo offered to acquire the remaining outstanding stock for $1.30 per share for 
total ownership of the company. Promptly, Electronics for Imaging (EFI), Inc.   
(NASDAQ: EFII), countered with an offer of $2.60 per share for all outstanding  
shares. No one was taking bets on how the whole matter would play out.          

The last seven weeks have been quite a rollercoaster ride, and now that the dust
is settling, EFI's CEO, Guy Gecht, and Marc Olin, CEO of Printcafe, carved out  
time to answer some questions for WhatTheyThink. The closing date for the       
acquisition has not been announced, though the target is sometime in the second 
quarter. In the meantime, Guy and Marc offer their insights into the future as  
the two companies look forward.                                                 

WTT: How do you see this merger benefiting printers and print buyers? Once      
settled, what type of "powerful end-to-end solutions" as referenced in your     
press release do you expect to present to the industry?                         

GUY GECHT: Printcafe has done a great job in automating the business process for
buyers and printers to increase efficiencies for both. EFI has clearly          
established its leadership in increasing productivity on the shop floor with our
Velocity workflow solutions, high-speed print servers and VDP (variable data    
printing) expertise. By joining forces, we will bring enormous efficiencies to  
the entire printing process from purchasing to printing.                        

It is too early to suggest what new products we could jointly bring to market   
but there are immediate and obvious opportunities to work together to create    
seamless, cost-saving solutions for both printers and buyers.                   

MARC OLIN: EFI's commitment to open architecture, and proven willingness to     
integrate where it's in the best interest of customers, may open many new doors 
for us down the road--opportunities that would not have existed otherwise. The  
fact that they have such incredible sales channels developed for many of their  
products also gives us a great opportunity to expose many more potential        
customers to our products.                                                      

WTT: Describe the sales opportunities within the existing customer bases?       

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MARC OLIN: We're focused on delivering solutions to help our customers become   
more profitable by enabling them to be better business people and more efficient
manufacturers of print. We will continue to deliver solutions built around the  
idea of connecting the disparate print processes. Our unique ability to deliver 
on this is what will differentiate us in the market. I believe our vision for   
automating the print manufacturing process is similar to that of EFI. Together, 
we can accelerate this process.                                                 

GUY GECHT: We all know that business is tough today. Everyone is constantly     
trying to reduce costs and maximize profitability. EFI understands the          
importance of helping customers become more profitable by driving down costs    
through increasing productivity. Our goal is to work with Printcafe to make     
their customers-both print buyers and print shops-more successful. That's the   
way to get customers...and that's the way to keep them!                         

WTT: Guy, Creo is developing the content-related portion of Printcafe's new     
e-commerce solutions. Will EFI take back the development or develop your own... 

GUY GECHT: Our goal is to work with Printcafe to ensure that we satisfy all     
their customers' needs so that they can get their jobs done with the greatest   
efficiency and quality. It's still premature to talk about specifics.           

WTT: And would EFI continue to support all the Printcafe workflow products or do
you see a renewed effort to create a single workflow?                           

GUY GECHT: Printcafe has a large installed base of customers-over 4000 customers
in over 8,000 facilities. Our top job will be to ensure that we continue to give
them the tools they need to maximize their productivity and profitability. Both 
Printcafe and EFI have great products for this market and we believe customers  
will embrace adopting further efficiencies throughout the procurement to        
production process. The more we help customers automate their processes, the    
more savings and control they have over their business.                         

WTT: ASP companies have generally failed as print buyers continue to adopt these
technologies slowly. Their participation is important in a true end-to-end      
workflow. How will EFI succeed where others have struggled?                     

GUY GECHT: In today's market, printers understand that in order to retain their 
customers they must offer excellent service and continual productivity          
improvements. We believe that by making printing a seamless process from        
beginning to end, we can offer real value to Printcafe's customers. It's all    
about making customers happy AND profitable.                                    

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MARC OLIN: We agree. We've learned a lot from our customers over the last few   
years and that learning is reflected in our products. This process will continue
and our products will continue to get better and be more valuable to our        
customers. As a result, adoption will increase.                                 

WTT: Will EFI's reputation for open standards architecture provide integration  
opportunities with Heidelberg and all manufacturers?                            

GUY GECHT: We are strong advocates of interoperability between systems and we   
will strive to serve all customer needs regardless of the systems they employ.  
As you said, EFI has a great track record in supporting open standards and      
architecture and we intend to follow that path in working with Printcafe and its
customers.                                                                      

WTT: Will EFI support the CIM concept and what about the interfaces between     
Creo, Printcafe, and MAN Roland. Will you continue to support those?            

GUY GECHT: Both EFI and Printcafe strongly support current industry efforts to  
establish standards that promote interoperability between different components  
to establish a fully functional CIM. EFI will continue to support widely        
deployed print workflows and any possible integration based upon industry       
standards.                                                                      

While it is premature to talk about specific products and systems, our intention
is to work with everyone to ensure that all of Printcafe's customers are happy  
with our offerings. Printcafe has built a great network of customers for its    
products and our intention is to serve all of them.                             

WTT: How do the Velocity workflow solutions complement Printcafe's products?    

GUY GECHT: There is a tremendous opportunity for synergy between our products.  
Printcafe has developed a powerful solution to manage the back office of        
printing and we have built Velocity into an industry-leading solution for       
maximizing the productivity of printers' equipment investment. These software   
solutions are completely complementary, bringing efficiency from the beginning  
to the end of the print cycle.                                                  

Our goal is to make Printcafe products an integral addition to EFI's suite of   
print workflow software-offerings that help professional printers build unified,
intelligent and efficient workflows for offset and digital color printing       
processes. We're very excited about the synergies between these products and    
believe Printcafe's customers will feel the same way.                           

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MARC OLIN: Velocity isn't as well known yet among our commercial print customers
and prospects, but it's a very powerful suite of workflow applications. We see  
it as a unique solution as it allows the automation of many prepress workflow   
tasks which otherwise must be performed as separate, discrete steps. The irony  
of automated workflow is that because changes are happening so quickly, it's    
difficult for the printer to capture the events and the related costs. So it's  
often more difficult for the printer to capture critical business information.  
By connecting our print management systems to Velocity and other workflow       
solutions, we'll give our customers better visibility, control and              
profitability.                                                                  

WTT: Marc, what will happen to the Printcafe user group meeting planned in Las  
Vegas? Is that still scheduled?                                                 

MARC OLIN: Absolutely. Not only is Connect 2003 still on, it promises to be our 
best yet. We already have more than 400 customers registered, well ahead of     
where we've been in past years at this time. We expect to have 1000 attendees.  
And the content of the conference is better than ever. We have new tracks for   
both executive managers and IT people, and more than 130 breakout sessions. Our 
"Connect" users' conference is the biggest conference of its kind in the        
industry. It's become the center of the universe for information technology in  
our space.                                                                      

WTT: This acquisition has been played out in public view for the last month. WTT
described this as mostly high-level tension and healthy competition. Do you     
think product cooperation will continue between Creo and Printcafe considering  
Creo has competitive products in EFI's server market?                           

GUY GECHT: In business today, you can be both "competitor" and "collaborator"   
with the same company. I have great respect for Creo's accomplishments in the   
CTP market and I look forward to opportunities for collaboration with them in   
the future. Creo and Printcafe have a long and good relationship and we need to 
see how all this plays out. I think we are all agreed that the bottom line for  
success in this industry means making customers happy.                          

MARC OLIN: We agree. Creo and Printcafe share a number of customers, many of    
whom are depending on us. We don't intend to let them down.                     

WTT: Guy, will EFI keep the Printcafe name and will it continue to be based in  
Pittsburgh?                                                                     

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GUY GECHT: That is our plan right now.                                          

WTT: EFI has been described as a "true technology" company. What does that      
mean and describe for printers who may not know what they can expect from EFI - 
the corporate entity.                                                           

GUY GECHT: EFI built its reputation on its industry-leading Fiery and Splash    
servers but our success didn't end there. Beyond servers, EFI's diverse range of
software products offer customers greater productivity, cost efficiency and high
fidelity output. These products include advanced pre-press applications for     
imposition, document management, trapping and scanning, local and remote inkjet 
proofing solutions, powerful variable data solutions, and, of course, our suite 
of Velocity workflow software for production printing. We've built our          
reputation and success on being innovators who are unwaveringly focused on      
making our customers more successful.                                           

That's really the exciting part about this story. We believe we can help        
Printcafe make their customers even more successful in the future by adding our 
expertise, resources and customer focus to their efforts. We look forward to    
making every Printcafe customer more successful tomorrow than they are today ...
and we are confident we can do it.                                              

EFI's offer to acquire Printcafe is subject to a vote of Printcafe's            
stockholders. Printcafe will file a Proxy Statement with the Securities and     
Exchange Commission describing the terms of the merger and other information    
about Printcafe and EFI. The Proxy Statement has not been filed as of the date  
of this letter and, once filed, copies may be obtained from either Printcafe or 
EFI or at the SEC's website www.sec.gov <http://www.sec.gov>. The Proxy         
Statement will contain important information as to how the merger will affect   
investments in shares of either Printcafe or EFI and interested persons should  
carefully read the Proxy Statement in its entirety.                             

Printcafe and its directors and executive officers may be deemed to be          
participants in the solicitation of proxies from its security holders in favor  
of the adoption of the merger agreement. The directors and executive officers of
Printcafe and their beneficial ownership of Printcafe common stock are set forth
in the prospectus for Printcafe's initial public offering and has been          
supplemented by filings on Schedule 13D/G with the SEC. You may obtain those    
documents free of charge at the SEC's website, www.sec.gov. Printcafe's security
holders may obtain additional information regarding the interests of the        
foregoing people by reading the proxy statement when it becomes available.      

Dates Referenced Herein

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Filed as of:		3/13/03							None on these Dates
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