Sitecore has acquired Pectora, an erstwhile partner with solutions for print publishing.

Single-source and multi-channel publishing are often two important requirements of a content management system. While these are rather common features now when publishing to more than one web-based destinations (such as an Intranet and a public-facing web site), it has never been easy to publish to print and web using the same source.

There are many reasons for this. For example (thanks to @pranshuj for sharing these): proper typesetting - hyphenation and justification, text wrapping, and font control (e.g.. Kerning) work differently in print than they do on the web. The way graphics are handled by browsers and more broadly the way editing, sub-editing, page composition works is also different for print and web. Finally, the tools of the trade and the process of handling advertisements for web and print is quite different.

Because of these reasons, the two systems have usually been different and often result in a lot of duplication in content storage, workflows and other aspects. Many content management systems have tried to address this but have only been at best partially successful.

Sitecore, with its acquisition of Pectora seeks to address this old but very important gap. With more and more people now consuming even the print content on their digital devices (such as iPads), addressing this gap will provide a good differentiation for Sitecore.

However, remember the two worlds are still very different sometimes in terms of processes, tools and stakeholders. So while the new tool will provide an integrated setup with "connectors" (which can have varying levels of effectiveness), it remains to be seen how successfully this gap is bridged and if other WCM players follow suit.