Today In Print

HP today announced a landmark release of graphic arts technologies and products that improve the speed and reduce the cost of digital printing.

The rollout – the company’s most extensive graphic arts push to date – supports HP’s Print 2.0 strategy to capture more digital pages from the analog print market and enable printing customers to take advantage of new market segments and business opportunities.

Spanning high-speed inkjet production, offset- and photo-quality liquid electrophotographic printing as well as large-format printing, the new offerings will be featured at drupa, the world’s largest printing equipment exhibition, in HP’s booth in Hall 8A, May 29-June 11, in Düsseldorf, Germany.

New products and technologies are being previewed this week at a Tel Aviv event for customers, partners, press and analysts. Highlights include:

• A high-speed 30-inch (762-mm) inkjet platform for high-volume production of books, transactional/transpromotional mail, direct marketing materials and newspapers.
• New HP Latex Printing Technologies that offer an environmentally responsible large-format printing alternative for a wide variety of outdoor and indoor applications.
• An expanded portfolio of HP Indigo presses, including the new HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press designed for high-volume print service providers and enhancements to the market-leading HP Indigo press 5500.
• The company’s first-ever graphic arts workflow portfolio – the HP SmartStream Digital Workflow Portfolio – which offers customers greater flexibility with specific solutions to address a broad range of market segments and application needs.

(more…)

No Comments

Well, my goal of “live bloggin” On Demand didn’t go so well. Couldn’t find a decent place to sit and type out some blog posts.

So recapping the day.

Show floor for exhibitors was pretty busy. Lots of people milling about. Started at the Kodak booth talking about Unified Workflow, Web to Print applications. Kodak had a lot of kiosks, and computer demo areas, no big equipment, no big announcements at the booth. Kinda light on the show but got to see the document imaging scanners which I have been trying to see for awhile. Talked to Jeff Hayzlett, Kodak’s CMO about his appearance on The Apprentice - Celebrity Edition and he told me to stay tuned for the live finale.

Headed to the Xerox booth next. Not too much new, XMPie was a separate booth, more on that later. Got a good look at the DocuColor 8000AP. Impressive light production device that finally doesn’t slow down for heavier weight stocks, although it still does in mixed mode. Got a good look at Xerox’s new wide format eco-solvent Ink Jet printers. Color looked washed out, but was fairly fast in output. RIP is being OEM’d from someone, can’t remember the name, but it can be driven via Onyx or other DFE’s. Spoke to a product manager about the target audience, aimed at commercial printers and their customers from an in-plant space. Sounds like they are going after the quick sign printer shop. Ink wells were small, no word on if they have a larger tank option. Pricing was vague, but at least no click. Buy the ink, buy the paper. Xerox will sell 5 stocks at the beginning, with profiles pre-built for color in the RIP. You can use 3rd party stocks, but you are on your own to build color profiles.

Headed to the Canon booth and saw their new 135 ppm black and white device. Had a good conversation with Joe Caplan about workflow and their partnership with Printable. Ironically, I haven’t found printable at the show again. No booth at Graph Expo, no booth at On Demand, not a good sign. Canon seems to be spreading themselves further into the commercial print space with the c7000 color device which is a fuser oil less toner device with very good image quality but not a 300,000 / month or greater production machine. I am a little concerned over the long term high volume capabilities of it, but time will tell.

GMC Print Net T had a good demo / walkthrough of their authoring tool and workflow. Still no transparency support from Adobe apps. But oh well, time will tell. Great composition tool, incredibly powerful and customizable but lacks the web to print customization, but can be plugged into many systems if needed.

XMPie had a separate booth, despite their recent purchase by Xerox. Got a good demo of their Udirect and Uimage products. Tied to the Adobe sweet of products but they do have a server version and a new focus on cross media, Purls (or Rurls, response urls) and some basic visitor tracking. Image personalization is self contained, no reliance on 3rd party guys like DirectType or DirectSmile. Can do sprite based personalization via photoshop actions or standard text layer interactions. Very limited info on the email blast options and how you author emails, but one person can’t answer all my questions.

Those are my brief notes from my first day. Lots more to see and talk about but figured I’d hit the highlights.

No Comments

John and I are in Boston right now getting ready for On Demand / AIIM Conference and Exposition.

We will bring you our limited coverage from the show. Today was the travel day for us, plane ride was bumpy but quick. All checked into the hotel, EVDO works, catching up on emails and gearing up for the show tomorrow.

We will try to hit the highlights for those that can’t make it here to Boston for the show. If you are here, leave a comment and maybe we can meet some of our readers.

No Comments

Source

Fujifilm plans to expand digital printing of personalized greeting cards, notebooks and other photo specialty products

ROCHESTER, N.Y., Jan., 2008 — Capitalizing on the growth in the photo specialty market and to meet customer demand, FUJIFILM U.S.A, Inc. is now digitally printing spiral-bound photo calendars with the installation of Xerox Corporation (NYSE: XRX) iGen3™ 110 Digital Production Presses at its Fujicolor Processing Labs.

“Xerox was a logical first choice to be our digital press supplier because of the strong, global corporate relationship established between Fujifilm and Xerox over the years” said Joe Palaggi, vice president of operations and business development, Fujifilm U.S.A, Inc. “But the deciding factor for choosing the Xerox iGen3 was its high productivity and image quality”

(more…)

1 Comment