Q&A With John Hamm on the Digital Printing Outlook

Our cover story for this issue focuses on collaboration in the supplier/vendor community. When I went to On Demand I was struck by how many vendors – including many NPES members – are teaming up. Big and small players are collaborating in ways we haven’t seen before.

I would say that’s true. Just look at any of the digital press suppliers, such as HP, Kodak or Xerox, and their partnering relationships. For example, one of Xerox’s strongest partners is Adobe, and there are many other similar examples. For our PRIMIR study, I have interviewed a Minneapolis printing company who has posted a partners page on their web site, and their top partner listed is Adobe. I thought it interesting that they had not named Heidelberg, Xerox, or others that one might expect. When I asked their president why, he answered, “With a postscript workflow, Adobe is one of our most important partners. That’s how we get our work – through the success of Adobe’s solutions and working with our customers in a PDF environment.”