Manufacturing Ink for Digital Print: EFI’s Acquisition of Rialco

On March 2nd, EFI has acquired Rialco Limited, a UK-based supplier of dye powders and color products for digital print and industrial manufacturing industries. The acquisition is an important one for EFI because it could augment EFI’s equipment offerings with complementary EFI OEM inks for their digital textile printing products.

Based in Bradford (an hour’s drive northeast of Manchester), Rialco manufactures inks and dyes for textiles and wood finishing applications. Rialco was incorporated in 2003 and its latest turnover is just about 7.9 GBP (or just over $11 million) and gross profits of about 2.1 GBP (or just under $3 million) for 2014 (according to DueDil.com). According to EFI the company will operate as part of EFI’s industrial inkjet business, and will continue to support its existing clients as well as expand and grow its capabilities with new products and new customers as part of its long term growth strategy. As noted by Stephen Emery, Vice President of EFI’s Ink and Jetrion businesses, “The deal announced today gives EFI the platform to accelerate the technical advantages we provide to customers in the textile, signage, ceramics and other industries that are rapidly transitioning from analog to digital printing.” Read more »

EFI Productivity Suite Announcement Tops the Headlines at EFI Connect 2015

EFI Connect, EFI’s annual user conference is currently underway in Las Vegas. Over the years it has grown in size and importance, but has never been as big as this year. An estimated 1,500 attendees have taken three days out of their work schedule to meet and discuss trends in the industry and be educated on EFI and partner offerings. The conference has also attracted a record number of media and analysts; over 70 representatives from 17 countries came to Las Vegas; about 20 of them from Europe. This blog provides an update on some of the interesting happenings and identifies what InfoTrends sees as the biggest news at EFI Connect: the announcement of EFI’s Productivity Suite.

EFI CEO Guy Gecht talking to RR Donnelley CEO Thomas Quinlan III

EFI CEO Guy Gecht’s keynote is always an anticipated event Read more »

12 Pieces of Wide-Format News from drupa 2012

Wide-format developments were in evidence at drupa, but weren’t the centre of interest. The biggest noise at drupa was Benny Landa’s nanography and the other big noises were B2 sheetfed digital presses and the universal interest by vendors in applying their products to packaging and label printing. However, there were some launches and technology demonstrations of wide-format printing hardware that highlight developments in the sector.

Screen Truepress Jet W1632UV

The following is a list of some of the wide-format printer and press developments listed alphabetically.

Read more »

Heidelberg’s Digital Print Partner Will Be?

In December I wrote about Heidelberg’s search for one or more digital print partners. Earlier in the year at IPEX it appeared that they would make some decisions before the end of 2010. It turns out that they were really saying that their decision would come within a year’s time, so their announcement will probably not come until March or April. In December, however, they did clarify that their focus was on a short-run color partner with a product in the 60 to 90 page per minute range capable of printing volumes of over 80,000 A4 color impressions per month. Canon, HP, Kodak, Konica Minolta, MGI, Ricoh, RISO, and Xerox all have products fitting this profile, but not all are a perfect fit given Heidelberg’s more recent statements in PrintWeek putting the price at €100,000 (approximately $136,000), narrowing the speed range to 80 to 90 ppm, and dismissing some of the possible candidates. Still, if this were a horse race here’s how we’d rank the potential winners, from most to least likely: Read more »

Xpedx will distribute EFI

At Graph Expo xpedx announced that it will distribute the EFI wide format printer line including EFI-VUTEk and EFI-Rastek. This is a very positive deal for xpedx, which has been moving methodically into wide format for a number of years, and for EFI which recently lost an important distribution partner in the United States when Agfa acquired Pitman. Read more »