DIGITAL digest
EFI Connects With Record Number of Users
LAS VEGAS—Reaffirming its status as one of the largest graphic arts users groups, the Eighth Annual EFI Connect Conference recently drew nearly 1,500 attendees to the Wynn Hotel & Resort. That made it the biggest turnout ever for the conference, and is still impressive even given that the total registration included 250 EFI employees, a number of sponsor partners and a smattering of journalists.
Connect is well-designed to deliver an effective mix of stimulating and informative keynotes, an extensive array of educational sessions and networking activities. Topics of the 160 sessions ran the gamut from EFI’s MIS systems and Web-to-print offerings, to Fiery, VUTEk superwide format and Jetrion ink-jet printing.
In his opening keynote, CEO Guy Gecht identified the “Big Five” trends he believes will shape the printing industry and define its future success.
• Consolidation—fewer players providing more services.
• The power of information and the Internet—companies need to have access to the right information at the right time to make the right business decisions; they need to automate; and they need to connect bidirectionally with customers. They can also take advantage of the Internet to expand geographic reach.
• Digital printing—allowing service providers to leverage demand for shorter runs, faster turn times and one-to-one communications.
• Industrial printing—taking digital printing to the next level to produce out-of-home advertising, packaging, labels and tags, and textiles.
• Going “green”—not an option anymore, but a necessity.
Zipping through more than 100 slides in an hour, Mark Olin, senior vice president and general manager, EFI Professional Printing Applications, provided a marathon product update. Olin reported that EFI’s development efforts are focused on delivering solutions and capabilities that streamline estimating/order entry, manage transaction volume, integrate management and content workflow, enhance user interfaces and infrastructure, and implement market-driven workflows.
The company continues to build common components that can be used across multiple products to optimize its development efforts and time to market. Many applications are being migrated to a browser-based interface, making them more portable and easier to use.
Specific developments highlighted by Olin include integration of both XMPie’s PersonalEffects and Printable’s FusionPro variable data technologies into many of EFI’s applications to offer users options for easily entering the lucrative one-to-one and cross-media markets. Also, significant upgrades to Digital Storefront make it easier for printers to implement e-commerce capabilities.
Connect provided a good perspective on the overall progress of EFI, which was also reflected in key performance numbers it shared during the conference—1.4 million Fiery installations, 10,000 MIS customers and 2,000 VUTEk printers installed.
As the ’07 event closes, EFI was debating holding Connect next year in light of 2008 being a Drupa year.
Canon Holds True to Forum
CHICAGO—Canon U.S.A. recently brought its annual Digital Solutions Forum to the Windy City. Featuring product displays and customer seminars, this invitation-only, three-day event puts the spotlight on the company’s color, production, workflow and service offerings.
The company’s new Color image-RUNNER C5185 Series made its debut at the event. The printing system outputs a maximum 51 ppm for color and black-and-white letter-sized documents. It has a 5,000-sheet paper capacity and 100-sheet automatic document feeder with single-pass duplexing, which simultaneously scans both sides of an original at speeds up to 100 images per minute.
With commercial shipments of the imagePRESS C7000VP color press set to begin, a representative from one of the beta sites—printer Micropage in New York—was a featured speaker at the forum.
“The color accuracy we are seeing produced by the imagePRESS is excellent and far superior to previous digital presses we have used,” reported Brian Boyajian, Micropage’s director of sales and marketing. “Since March of this year, we have run more than 400 paying jobs on the imagePRESS.”
Canon made a couple of related announcements during the forum. In the near term, it is planning to introduce an imagePRESS Essential Business Builder program, which provides a step-by-step approach to help buyers develop the right “go-to-market” strategy for the C7000VP digital press. Later this year, Canon intends to make available the imagePRESS Customer Maintenance program, which will provide training and tools to clients interested in enhancing the productivity and uptime of a C7000VP press by performing self-service and proactive maintenance.
Kodak Users Meet At GUA Conference
ROCHESTER, NY—Customers representing the breadth of Kodak product offerings recently gathered for information sharing, educational sessions and networking events at the 2007 Graphic Users Association (GUA) North American Conference. The event was held at the Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa in Phoenix.
To better serve the group’s now broader membership, three new topics—digital printing, mailing and trans- promo communications—were addressed in some of the more than 90 sessions offered over four days. In addition, guest speakers from Adobe, Apple, Business Resource Services, Four51 and the Direct Marketing Association made informational presentations.
Among other highlights was a full day of Kodak’s Network Symposium, which provides information and ideas about services and applications that printers can offer to expand their revenue opportunities.
Presstek Takes DI Press on the Road
NEW YORK—Presstek Inc.’s traveling series of open houses called the Javits Center home for a couple of days earlier this summer. The star of the show is the Presstek 52DI digital offset press shown here. Guests can elect to view stock jobs being run on the equipment, or bring in their own file for a personalized demonstration from preflight through to a 500-sheet run on the press. Those interested in CTP solutions can get hands-on with the Dimension425 Excel and Vector TX52 metal platesetters and ABDick DPM34 HSXC polyester solution. In addition, each day features a schedule of formal, expert presentations. Visit www.presstek.com/events for a list of the locations and dates for the remaining stops this year.
One change for the second half of the year is representatives from the Pitman Co. are expected to be on-hand for the open houses, now that the two companies have signed an agreement that allows the graphic arts distributor to sell the Presstek 34DI and 52DI digital offset presses to its customer base.
Xplor to Co-Locate in 2008 With On Demand/AIIM Event
NEWTON, MA—In 2008, the Xplor International Conference and Expo will co-locate with the AIIM and On Demand Conference and Expo, produced by Questex Media Group. The events will take place March 3 to 6 at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center.
“Adding the strength of the Xplor educational programs will enhance the already extremely successful On Demand conference program,” says Charlie Pesko, president of InfoTrends, which puts together those conference tracks. “We are very pleased to be working closely with Xplor to expand education, as the transactional and the on-demand printing environments merge within the enterprise.”
Xplor International is a worldwide, not-for-profit professional association for users of document technologies.
digital bytes
HICKORY, NC—In keeping with the recent addition of “Print” to its name, Catawba Print & Mail has installed a Presstek 52DI digital offset press to provide more cost-effective production of static work. It previously expanded on its lettershop heritage by adding digital printing capabilities for variable data work. Pictured above with the new press are, from the left, Tim Larson, director of printing operations; Jason Lowman, operator; and L.F. Miller, president and owner.
ARMONK, NY—Under a new agreement, IBM Global Financing (IGF) will provide qualified customers of InfoPrint Solutions (the new joint venture of Ricoh and IBM) with leasing services. It will cover printer solutions, including hardware, software, maintenance and professional services.
ROCHESTER, NY—Eastman Kodak has launched Kodak Security Solutions, a suite of products and services designed to help protect against counterfeiting and piracy in applications from currency to product safety labels. The company’s proprietary technologies include new invisible markers that can be embedded during the printing process, then instantly and reliably authenticated in the field.
CAMBRIDGE, MA—Pageflex, a division of Bitstream Inc., recently conducted its first annual Pageflex User Group Conference. The meeting brought together nearly 100 Pageflex variable data software users from around the world for a two-day educational program.
RAMSEY, NJ—Konica Minolta Printing Solutions U.S.A. (KMPS) is being merged into Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A. (KMBS) to create one organization, serving markets from SOHO (small office/home office) up to large production operations. Jun Haraguchi will continue to serve as president and CEO of KMBS.
