Business Management - Industry Trends

Venture Capitalist Forum to be Part of Printed Electronics USA Conference
October 17, 2006

ANN ARBOR, MI—Suitable funding is required to drive development of printed electronics into viable commercial solutions. With massive applicational opportunities there will be many successes. For the first time IDTechEx is holding a venture capitalist forum at its Printed Electronics USA conference in Phoenix on December 5-6, 2006 to bring together venture capitalists with companies seeking investment. Companies involved or intending to be involved in any part of the printed and thin film electronics value chain and seeking funding can pitch their uniques and propositions to the panel of invited Venture Capitalists in a 10 minute presentation. If any member of the panel then

NAPL State of Industry Update Helps Printers Prepare for Expected Economic Slowdown
October 12, 2006

PARAMUS, NJ—10/12/2006—The NAPL 2006 State of the Industry Update: Preparing for a Slowdown explores how graphic communications companies can help prepare for the slowing in the economy that’s likely as we move toward 2007. Recently released by NAPL (www.napl.org), the trade association for excellence in graphic communications management, the State of the Industry Update explores how a slowing economy will affect printing company clients; how printers can gain a strong foothold with their customers, and how they can protect their already pressured bottom lines. “For every one percentage point slowdown in the gross domestic product—GDP—print sales drop by more than $1 billion,”

Survey Finds Growth in ‘Web-to-Print’ Adoption
October 11, 2006

SEWICKLEY, PA—October 11, 2006—The trend for printing companies to expand their Internet-based services is growing rapidly. A recent survey by PIA/GATF and Printing Impressions highlighted the trend—of those respondents not yet offering a “web to print” solution,” 54% plan to introduce one in the next 12 months. The October 2006 survey of over 400 magazine subscribers also revealed that about 50% of the respondents already involved in such services are offering branded customer storefronts, compared to production portals (26%), and digital storefronts (18%). The addition of these services was not without considerable work—41% of respondents built their sites from scratch, rather than purchase software or

The World of Print is Flat Too!
October 11, 2006

For most of the past ten years, one of the major trends in U.S. business has been the rise of globalization. Tom Friedmann, in his best seller book, The World is Flat, made the case that if you’re not global, you won’t survive. NPES members have long been active exporters: today we estimate that over seventy percent of them are involved in exporting to some extent. Twenty percent of our members strictly import to the US market although their parent companies are global in nature. So, roughly one tenth of our membership concentrate on the US market and have yet to explore the global

Major Display Advance to be on View at Arizona State University
October 11, 2006

PHOENIX—During the leading conference on printed electronics (Printed Electronics USA 2006, December 5-6, 2006, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Phoenix), there will be a tour of the renowned display research center at Arizona State University. Its remarkable advances are nearer to commercialization than most realize, for example, the new flexible displays could be field tested as early as 2007. Electrophoretic These displays use electrophoretic inks made by conductive ink supplier E-Ink (Kent Displays is also a partner). They will be used in handsets initially and then be embedded into fabric so they can be integrated in military uniforms. These displays will provide soldiers with real-time mission

TOP 30 BOOK MANUFACTURERS — CLIMBING THE STACKS
October 1, 2006

FOR THE second consecutive year, Visant Corp. nailed down the top spot in Book Business’ Top 30 Book Manufacturers list—produced by Printing Impressions’ sister publication and ranked by 2005 book manufacturing revenue—in what was certainly an up-and-down year for many book printers. The book manufacturing landscape continues to change, with paper prices on the rise while availability declines. Publishers are being more vigilant than ever in controlling their costs, while Asia’s impact on the market increases each year. In its annual look at the state of the industry, Book Business sought insights from executives at four of the companies on the list—four companies,

VDP Supplement: Profiting From Digital
October 1, 2006

PRINTERS LOOKING to boost their bottom lines with digital printing, look no farther. Attendees at the general session “Profiting with Digital Print” at the upcoming PIA/GATF Variable Data and Personalization Conference will learn what industry profit leaders have done to maximize their digital printing investments and realize respectable returns. Last year, digital/toner-based printing grew at double the rate of traditional ink-on-paper printing. This session, led by Ronnie Davis, Ph.D., vice president and chief economist at PIA/GATF, will discuss details from recent economic data compiled by the association, a benchmark to compare a company’s efforts in achieving desired results. “Right now, toner-based/digital printing is

Electronic Documents Growing... and Growing... and Growing
August 22, 2006

Last February, we ran a Google search to estimate the number of Adobe Acrobat PDF files that are available on the Internet. At the time, there were 315 million URLs that ended with the address “.pdf”. Just six months later, that same search identified 684 million of them. While this is not a perfect way of determining how many documents are on line, it is still quite informative. The popular use of the Internet may be just 11 years old, but this indicates that it’s still bulking up on its way to teenagerhood. What does this mean to the printing industry? While many of these documents

Here Comes Second Generation Printed Electronics
August 22, 2006

By Dr Peter Harrop IDTechEx Second generation printed electronics has arrived and its impact on society will be immense. A major new industry is born. Transparent solar cells will be on watches by year end and vast areas of printed flexible photovoltaics will be available within the next few years. Heliovolt promises a high efficiency silicon-free photovoltaic film in 2007. Polymer alternatives will have lower efficiency but often be lower in cost. Announcements have yet to be made but IDTechEx has identified several companies that will be commercialising polymer solar film in 2007. Light emitting moving colour displays, vehicle and room lighting on

Item Level RFID – Prosperous Market 2006-2016
August 9, 2006

Item level RFID is set for substantial growth over the next decade. A new study from IDTechEx forecasts and explores key markets that will apply item-level tagging, advances in technology and the mass adoption that will follow. Dr. Peter Harrop from IDTechEx summarises this study below. Item level RFID is the tagging of the smallest taggable unit of things – the library book, apparel, jewellery, engineering parts and laundry are examples. Already profitable for most suppliers, item level tags and systems will be the world’s largest RFID market by value from 2007 onwards. Item level RFID tagging will rocket from $0.16 billion in 2006