IPA and IDEAlliance to Merge

The IPA and IDEAlliance have announced that the two groups will merge, combining their memberships and resources into a single organization. Following final approval from a majority of the IPA membership in early March 2010, the new combined organization will serve professionals throughout “the media supply chain,” including brand owners, agencies, publishers, printers, materials suppliers, technology suppliers, and pre-media service providers. Events and services will be evaluated, reorganized and staffed to provide the most value to the combined memberships. New program offerings will also be launched based on expertise now applied from across the two organizations’ staffs and memberships.

“IPA has a strong history of working closely with IDEAlliance,” says Steve Bonoff, IPA president. “In 2004 the organizations formed an alliance and launched the joint industry venture, PrintTools.org, a web portal of tools and publications for the prepress and print community. In 2008, IPA and IDEAlliance announced the coordination of their digital press programs. And in 2009, IDEAlliance co-located its G7 Summit with the IPA Technical Conference. Industry applause of these joint efforts led the two organizations to examine coming together for the benefit the industry.”

IPA, The Association of Graphic Solutions Providers, was founded in 1897 as the National Association of Photo-Engravers and in the 1980s became known as the International Prepress Association. Today, the IPA now represents a community of premedia professionals in the creative, corporate, print publishing, packaging, and in-plant sectors within the graphic-communication industry. IPA is a forum for peer networking and a vital source of business, technical, and management resources for graphic solutions providers.

IDEAlliance (International Digital Enterprise Alliance) is a not-for-profit membership organization that develops standards and best practices to enhance efficiency and speed information across the end-to-end digital media supply chain — creation, premedia, production, management, and delivery of knowledge-based multimedia content. Members include brand owners, agencies, publishers, printers, materials suppliers, and solution providers.

IPA
www.ipa.org

IDEALLIANCE
www.idealliance.org