Today In Print

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.