A High-Speed Inkjet Press (Reality) Check —Michelson

In a commentary on page 32, analyst Noel Ward doesn't view today's commercially available continuous-feed inkjet presses as being industry game-changers. "It will be a machine generation or two, when cutsheet models come to market that compete directly with EP systems and offer inkjet economics at lower print volumes 
(i.e., under 2 million impressions/month), before the shape of the market will truly change," Ward contends. Market acceptance, he adds, will also depend on how customers adapt to the new business models that the presses enable. "If direct marketers and publishers, for example, see high-speed inkjet presses as new ways to stretch their dollars and get a better ROI, then inkjet will begin to take share from offset systems."