Yesterday, Google announced its acquisition of Picnik, the online photo editor. Established in 2005, Picnik is a powerful Flash-based in-browser editing suite for photos that are already online, with tools well beyond the standard zoom/crop and rotate functions offered by most online photo services. Read more »
Tags: android, flickr, Google, phanfare, photo editing, photoworks, picnik, web 2.0, yahoo
Canon announced today that 71% of Océ’s shares have been tendered to Canon, which is below the 85% that Canon required to go ahead with the deal. Now that ‘only’ 71% has been tendered or acquired by Canon, the company needs to make a decision about what to do next. They have the following options:
Tags: Acquisition, Canon, Oce
WhatTheyThink reported last week that neither Heidelberg nor Komori would exhibit at Graph Expo this year. This news represents the culmination of a trend that has been brewing over the past ten years at the Graph Expo and Print shows. Since 2004, InfoTrends has compared the Graph Expo show floor maps to provide an indication of market changes. These rankings are compiled by measuring the published show floor map. Initially InfoTrends began conducting this exercise to show the impact of the digital vendors on a trade show that had been dominated by traditional printing press vendors. This point has long since been made. For all practical purposes, as one looks at the list of top vendors, Graph Expo has become dominated by digital exhibitors.
| Company | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2004 |
| Heidelberg | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| HP | 2 | 2 | 5 | 4 |
| Xerox | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| Kodak | 4 | 4 | 2 | 11 |
| EFI | 5 | Tie 10/11 | 17 | 12 |
| Canon | Tie 6/7 | Tie 10/11 | Tie 6/7 | 17 |
| Océ | Tie 6/7 | Tie 6/7/8 | 10 | 10 |
| Böwe Bell + Howell | Tie 8/9/10 | 5 | Tie 6/7 | 9 |
| Komori | Tie 8/9/10 | Tie 6/7/8 | 8 | 5 |
| Mitsubishi | Tie 8/9/10 | Tie 6/7/8 | 11 | 14 |
Tags: Benny Landa, Bowe Bell + Howell, Canon, drupa, EFI, graph expo, Heidelberg, HP, Kodak, Komori, Mitsubishi, Oce, Print, Xerox
I was reminded recently of a good example of innovative design. I had seen GBC’s eBinder at ON DEMAND 2009 in the Xerox booth where it was shown in-line with a Xerox Nuvera, but the full impact of the design took a while to sink in. As is often the case, a picture can tell the story better than a wordy description. The eBinder uses a single flat plastic consumable (see below) to form an elliptical lay-flat, wrap-around binding that can support document page counts ranging from 2 to 100 sheets.
eBinder Ellipse consumable (top) and GBC ProClick consumable (bottom)
Tags: Digital Photo, iPad, Photo
Wherever I go at the moment I hear cautious optimism regarding the European economy and the prospects for business in 2010. Nevertheless there seems to be something troubling people, a sense of unease despite the positive sentiments. A couple of weeks ago someone went as far as suggesting they were seeing a multi-speed recovery in Europe; some markets picking up - others remaining severely challenged.
Today, I thought I’d take the bull by the horns, go one step further and openly talk about the enormous elephant in the room – DEBT.
OK, so I’ve said it – what now? Read more »
The proposed acquisition of Océ by Canon is still not certain as it emerged that activist shareholders Hermes Asset Management, owning 3.3% of Océ’s shares, and The Universities Superannuation Schemes, owner of 1.8%, have asked a court in Amsterdam to conduct an investigation about the negotiations that took place between Canon and Océ. Since Canon made the offer, there has been resistance from certain shareholders as they argue that Canon’s proposed €8.60 offer per share undervalues Océ, and that higher returns can be achieved if each of Océ’s business groups is separately divested.
Tags: Acquisition, Canon, court, Oce
Today, the major provisions of the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act (the CARD Act) takes effect in the United States. The ultimate goal of this law is transparency and clarity in terms and conditions. The likely result will be sweeping changes to how credit card issuers approach their marketing, advertising, and billing. What does this all mean for TransPromo? One long-standing hurdle to the implementation of TransPromo is the headache of document (and data) redesign. Credit card issuers were given a government-mandated opportunity to open up that data and begin a redesign process—however basic it may end up being. That said, multiple vendors and service providers have leapt at the opportunity. The general feeling from many of the companies these vendors are working with is that if they are going through a redesign anyway, what else can they do?
Some of this activity was already put into motion while ramping up for the Truth in Lending Act (Regulation Z), which took full effect on October 1, 2009. Similar to the CARD Act, the relevant portion of this law related to content and formatting changes that credit card billers needed to put in place. CreditCards.com has an interesting timeline that shows when various credit card legislation takes effect. Our expectation is that 2010 will reveal significant headway made for TransPromo in the credit card industry in the United States.
In another indication that Canon’s planned acquisition of Océ is moving toward completion, Konica Minolta and Océ have mutually announced that they are ending their joint development efforts, which had centered around cut-sheet monochrome and color output systems for the production printing market. Konica Minolta and Océ said that they would continue to supply production printing systems to each other on an OEM basis, under the OEM sales agreement. They will also continue to supply consumables and parts and offer after-sales service for products already in the market.
The OEM relationship had started with Konica Minolta providing its 50- and 65-ppm color copier/printers to Océ. It expanded when Konica Minolta announced its bizhub PRO 2500P, an OEM version of Océ’s VarioPrint 6250. The companies announced a formal partnership for a development and marketing relationship in January of 2008.
Tags: Canon, Color, Copier, Konica Minolta, monochrome, Oce, printer
After listening to several vendors so far at the pre-IPEX media briefs I have to admit this has been a slow start. With 100 days still to go before the show, it appears that some vendors felt the time not to be ripe to share too much detail on what will be on display at IPEX. It looks like they want to save the fanfare for the opening day of IPEX. Here is my response to the vendors: Rest assured, we will even come if we have heard a lot of details about the products to be launched. In fact having the press to write more about upcoming products would even help attract more visitors.
Despite this general reticence, there were some interesting product news. With the announcement by Domino Printing Sciences the array of suppliers of inkjet label printers has been enlarged again. The N600, due to be available from IPEX starting in May, is a continuous fed colour inkjet label printer. It uses Kyocera inkjet heads and has a resolution of 600 dpi at a speed of 50m/min (164 feet/min) with four grey levels per drop. Reducing the grey levels to three will allows even a faster speed of 75 m/min. The printer uses UV inks and is firmly targeted at label applications. Domino will provide unwind and rewind, with the opportunity to integrate in-line finishing steps, and also supplies its own front-end.
Pitney Bowes was one of the few vendors that spent considerable time on talking about its new product line of high speed continuous feed inkjet colour printers. Although the product was already announced in September last year and covered by an InfoTrends analysis, the interest of the press crowd was considerable. The Intellijet is the fruit of the strategic alliance with HP, in which Pitney Bowes has the exclusivity of the T300 inkjet web press for transactional and direct mail markets. In addition Pitney Bowes features its own DFE capable of processing data streams. At this opportunity Pitney Bowes announced the first sales to an U.S. based healthcare payment company, who is taking three printers at once.
Tags: Business Development, Canon, Domino, Inkjet, IPEX, Pitney Bowes, Ricoh, Transaction, Workflow, Xerox
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