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.

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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.

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.

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”

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San Diego, CA, February 28, 2008 – Printable Technologies®, Inc., a leading provider of integrated marketing, web to print and personalized direct marketing solutions, today announced that it will introduce two new major enhancements regarding their FusionPro® Links and FusionPro® Web products at the On Demand Expo in Boston, MA, March 4 - 6, 2008.

FusionPro Links version 2.5 boasts a new campaign-centric workflow that helps marketers better reach their customers with individualized communications, while gathering enhanced response data to more easily understand and respond to their customers’ needs. FusionPro Links creates a customized online response experience using personalized URLs and microsites for variable data publishing (VDP) marketing campaigns.

The new Intelligent Forms feature in FusionPro Web allows users to further customize the types of data entry forms they create for web-based ordering of simple to complex collateral, as well as versioned and variable data. Key features include the ability to create matrices of dynamic data to pre-fill forms in areas such as pricing, customized choice lists and altered data entry based on the particular person logged in.

“Printable Technologies is eager to share these new technologies for intelligent marketing with the attendees at this year’s On Demand Expo,” said Coleman Kane, President and CEO, Printable Technologies. “By offering feature-rich personalized marketing technologies and intelligent collateral management systems, we are giving print service providers a wider range of offerings to support their business objectives.”

To learn more about these and other products from Printable Technologies, please be sure to visit Printable in Booth #349 at the On Demand Expo. For additional information on FusionPro Links version 2.5 and Intelligent Forms, contact Dustin Ritter or visit www.printable.com.

About Printable Technologies

Printable Technologies is a world leader providing Software as a Service including Cross-Media Variable Data Publishing (VDP), One-to-One Marketing Campaigns, and Web to Print solutions to corporate enterprises, creative agencies and the graphic arts industry.

The FusionPro VDP solution suite—consisting of desktop, online and server-based VDP applications—is used to manage dynamic cross-media campaigns consisting of variable text and images, perform high-speed data merge, and generate production-ready output data streams.

The complete marketing campaign execution and tracking solution from Printable Technologies—FusionPro Links—consists of a powerful data-driven direct mail solution with personalized URLs, and microsites.

The FusionPro Web marketing collateral management system delivers online ordering and e-commerce, mail list purchase and management, versioned and variable documents, job submission and file transfer.

Solutions from Printable Technologies integrate with ERP solutions, content management solutions, shop floor management applications and production workflows from Hewlett-Packard, Canon, Xerox, Kodak and more.

More than 1,700 corporate customers use solutions from Printable Technologies to serve over 400,000 end users; more than 100 of the Fortune 500 offer desktop access to Printable Technologies products. Clients can scale over time from the powerful VDP solution on the desktop to web-based and server-based solutions customized to meet the needs of organizations small and large.

For more information go to http://www.printable.com or call 800.220.1727.

Low order minimums, quick delivery

HAMILTON, Ohio, Monday, February 25, 2008 7:00 AM EST —SMART Papers has launched the i-Xpress™ for HP Indigo Paper Program. It offers HP Indigo press owners the widest selection of premium RIT-certified uncoated and coated papers including more than 200 colors, textures, finishes and weights.

HP Indigo press owners can now offer their customers hundreds of paper choices and meet their quick turn project demands. The i-Xpress™ for HP Indigo Paper Program includes products from the entire range of SMART Papers premium-branded coated and uncoated papers including Kromekote®, Knightkote® Matte, Carnival®, Synergy®, Genesis® and Passport®. This program brings HP Indigo press owners the largest single source of premium digital papers in designer colors, textures, finishes and weights.

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February 21, 2008 – Boston, Massachusetts and Appenzell, Switzerland – At ON DEMAND, GMC Software Technology, the standard in personalized communication, will showcase the latest capabilities and enhancements to its PrintNetTM software suite. Demonstrations will be conducted in GMC Software Technology booth 759 highlighting the software suite’s ease of use, support of open standards, Web tools and integration; advanced job flow and customization as well as personalization capabilities.

Graphics arts and communications professionals will get a first-hand look at how PrintNet can accelerate application development, improve document effectiveness and maximize productivity for a variety of marketing, transaction, transpromo, on demand and electronic communications applications. These include many key personalized communications applications that are in high demand today:
• Transpromo 401K transactional statements with embedded marketing messages
• Promotional marketing flyers and postcards
• Interactive, web-based communications
• Invoices using color IPDS print streams
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FOSTER CITY, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Feb. 19, 2008–EFI (Nasdaq:EFII), the world leader in customer-focused digital printing innovation, today announced the availability of two new models in the award-winning QS superwide format printer family. The addition of 4- and 6-color configurations to the industry leading QS2000 and QS3200 family of printers offers ease-of-entry options for sign printers and graphic display manufacturers who wish to add digital UV production to their product mix.

“On the heels of installing our 300th QS-series printer,” said Chuck Dourlet, vice president of marketing EFI VUTEk, “we are expanding options for our customers even more. By introducing ease-of-entry options for the QS family, we are offering greater flexibility to the graphic communications market enabling more service providers to migrate to digital production using a proven UV platform.”

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The university has recently installed a Kodak NexPress 2100 digital production colour press for use in its Marketing and Communications department, as it brings in-house the production of its personalised prospectuses and direct mailings, which has been one of the major reasons for its success with student enquiries and enrolment numbers.

Read more… 

Source: graphicrepro.co.za

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