IPA Systems Ltd

IPA Systems Ltd. was formed from four different companies, QED Technology Ltd., GB Techniques, Monotype Systems Ltd. and the Compugraphic part of the Agfa/Compugraphic Newspaper Division in 1992.

In September 1990, QED acquired the Compugraphic Newspaper Division. In March 1992, Cromas Trading acquired the equity in QED. The action by Cromas Trading provided the financial security for the future expansion of the company. To further strengthen its market position and product range QED then acquired GB Techniques Ltd, a developer of newspaper front-end systems, based in Scotland.

From their conception both QED and GBT developed products to meet and satisfy the requirements of the print and publishing industry. QED's chosen hardware platform was the Macintosh whilst GBT elected to develop their applications to run on the PC. The development of these systems coincided with page layout programs which enabled the on-screen make-up of complex pages, and related software operations. The combination of these powerful applications took both companies into the specialist field of newspaper, periodical publishing and allied industries.