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3 September 2001
A young designer has come up with an Australian first which
helps anyone produce professional-quality Web pages, presentations,
brochures and emails.
Winner of the inaugural Yellow Pages E-Business Award, Template
Central is the brainchild of Sydney designer, Paul Wilson.
TemplateCentral.com is a do-it-yourself web site that provides
thousands of professional design templates to add impact to
virtually any form of publication, be it digital or print.
It gives anyone, from students to big corporations, the power
to create visually rich projects, regardless of their level
of computer expertise.
Mr Wilson was teaching computer applications to business
people when he noticed how bored his students were with the
dull, repetitive stock-standard templates supplied in the software
packages. After searching without success for more interesting
commercial alternatives, he recognized a business opportunity.
He founded Template Central in 2000 and has quickly built
it into an international e-business success, attracting customers
from as far afield as New York and London - in fact, 92 per
cent of the site's revenues come from outside Australia.
"Right from the beginning, I recognized that this business
was ideally suited to the Internet since professional Web,
presentation and other document templates could easily be made
accessible to customers over the Web.
"The success of Template Central is largely due to its
ability to enhance almost every form of published communication,
whether it's being developed by creative professionals, large
or small business users, students, consultants or home users.
This solution is ideal for anyone who wants their work to look
professional," he said.
Templates, images and other files are classified by category,
industry type or software package, making it a simple matter
to locate the best designs for each project. Template Central
will also custom-design templates or graphic images to meet
the specific needs of clients.
Mr Wilson said winning the Yellow Pages award, which comprises
a $50,000 cash grant, specialized business mentoring and a
$13,000 advertising package, is an important milestone for
the business and will enable him to spread his wings even further.
"This is a very exciting opportunity that gives me access
to both funding and business expertise to take Template Central
to the next level," he said.
"Template Central is already the world's largest provider
of common software application templates and my immediate goal
is to continue redesigning the site offerings to meet the changing
needs of my customers and maximize the growth potential."
According to Forrester Research, the downloadable software
market is tipped to grow substantially over the next few years
and Template Central is ideally poised to take full advantage.
Only three per cent of current online sales consist of digitally
downloadable products, but Forrester expects this figure to
rocket to 22 per cent, with a value of US$2.9 billion, by 2004.
Add to that the fact that millions of people around the world
use the packages Template Central supports, ranging from Microsoft
Word, PowerPoint and Outlook through to Dreamweaver, FrontPage
and GoLive, with more to be added over time, and the potential
is exponential.
Media Contact: Paul Wilson
Email: paul@templatecentral.com
Phone: 61 2 9565 2400
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