Kodak’s Prosper S10 Imprinting System Now Capable of Process Color

When Kodak first launched the S10 Imprinting System, the users were only printing monochrome or spot color with it. Process color printing was the next logical step. Today Kodak announced the first customer to run process color with an S10 Imprinting System. It’s a U.S.-based direct marketing company called Lehigh Direct. This type of “hybrid” on-press use of inkjet in conjunction with web-fed offset presses is a fascinating opportunity. So interesting, in fact, that InfoTrends recently wrote a white paper on this topic and used a Prosper S10 Imprinting System customer, Wilen Direct, as an example of this developing trend. The white paper (entitled “Opportunities for High-Speed Monochrome and Color Inkjet Mounted on Offset Web Presses”) is available for free through Kodak on the Prosper page of the Kodak web site. I recommend that you have a look at this document because it describes and defines key aspects of the use of inkjet and offset in hybrid combinations. I also believe that Kodak is in a very good competitive position to lead this developing market, which is another reason to pay attention to this announcement. When InfoTrends finished its white paper in March, Kodak had not yet specified a release date for on-press process color capability with the S10 Imprinting system. Here we are now in August and it’s arrived, which is very good news for Kodak and for those users who want to take advantage of the best that offset and inkjet have to offer together.

Transaction Printers Are the Leading Adopters of High-Speed Continuous-Feed Process Color Digital

Who is buying high-speed continuous-feed process color printers? Early evidence indicates that it’s transaction printers. About 200 print engines in this class were placed around the world in 2009 but it hasn’t been entirely clear which environments have been most likely to buy them. It was my assumption that the quality and running cost capabilities of these devices made them attractive to transaction, direct mail, and some publication environments but I wondered whether that was really the case. I decided to look at the public announcements of companies that have placed such products to see what this said about market preferences. Read more »

Clover and West Point Products: A Major Development in the Supplies Industry

The supplies industry has a new player and it comes ready to play and invest, Golden Gate Capital. On April 14, 2010, Golden Gate Capital, a private equity investment firm based in San Francisco (which makes sense given their name), announced the acquisitions of Clover Technologies Group and West Point Products. This news could be arguably viewed as combining the largest and second largest aftermarket players in the supplies industry. Golden Gate has approximately $8 billion of capital under management and plans to become a perpetual fund for these two major supplies companies. Now with the backing of Golden Gate, potential opportunities include investing in research and development, new products, and more acquisitions domestically and globally. We have been told that Golden Gate does not plan to buy these two companies and then sell in a few years as sometimes happens in these situations.

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Konica Minolta and Océ End Development Relationship

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.

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Canon to Acquire Océ

Today, Canon Inc. (trading symbol CAJ) announced a public cash offer for all the shares of Océ (trading symbol OCE).  Canon intends to make an offer of € 8.60 per Share (cum dividend) for 100% of the outstanding Shares of Océ, representing a premium of 70% over Océ’s closing share price of Friday 13 November 2009 and 137% to the average share price over the last 12 months, this makes the deal worth about 1.1 billion dollars.

In the wake of other major acquisitions in the last year, particularly Ricoh’s acquisition of IKON, there has been much speculation about what Canon will do. Now that Canon has agreed to acquire Océ, it is clear that one of its strategic options has been selected. Read more »

TKS to Unveil JetLeader Production Color Inkjet Newspaper System

At the JANPS newspaper production show in Tokyo later this month a web offset press manufacturer called TKS (Tokyo Kikai Seisakusho) will be unveiling a production color inkjet newspaper system called JetLeader. It is a roll-fed device that prints at speeds of 150 meters per minute (492 feet per minute) and has a maximum print width of 541 millimeters (21.3 inches) on a maximum roll width of 546 millimeters (21.5 inches). It uses piezo drop-on-demand inkjet heads and aqueous pigment inks. TKS says it can print on groundwood newsprint at weights of 60 gsm or higher. The configuration that will be shown at JANPS will be process color on one side of the web and monochrome on the other (4/1) and will include a sheeter and accumulator. TKS says that a 4/4 configuration will be available upon launch at the end of this month. Pricing has not been released. In addition to the standalone JetLeader newspaper system, TKS will also demonstrate a hybrid offset/inkjet offering at JANPS. Read more »

Kodak Announces Prosper Color XL Press

Kodak invited about twenty analysts and press from around the world to Dayton, Ohio to brief them on a range of production digital print news, but specifically to focus on new inkjet developments including its Stream technology, now branded as Prosper. The two-day event included technology demonstrations and customer testimonials.

Kodak kicked off the first day with a review of the NexPress SE platform toner developments and a customer presentation by Eric Webber of Cohber Press, a NexPress customer who has used the new Intelligent Calibration System (ICS). The day continued with additional information on existing inkjet solutions and highlighted the launch of the Versamark VL6000. Customer testimonials from Tom Fenske of Fenske Media and Giorgio Albertini of Rotomail were also part of the day. Darrin Wilen of Wilen Media spoke on day two about Wilen’s use of the Prosper S10 Imprinting System.

While all of this was interesting and educational, the big news came on the second day with the introduction of the Prosper Color XL Press. With a duty cycle of 120 million A4/letter impressions per month, the Prosper Color XL Press is capable of speeds of 650 feet per minute (fpm) at a print width of 24.5 inches. (The web will be 25.5 inches.) Kodak says that the product will be available in the first half of 2010. Kodak would not identify sales targets for the Prosper system but it is counting on significant growth. It said that it expected the technology to be printing a trillion pages by 2015. Read more »

Covering the Gamut from Monochrome to Five or More Colors

A recent press release from Océ caught my eye (”Aviation Information Leader Jeppesen Selects Océ ColorStream 10050 Systems to Print Critical Flight Data Products“). I found the news intriguing for a couple of reasons. First, Jeppesen is a high-profile HP Indigo account and second, the capabilities of Océ’s Color Stream 10000 series present an interesting mix of monochrome, spot, and process color capabilities. I wanted to get a better understanding of how Jeppesen intended to use the product, particularly since the numbering of the product mentioned in the release (the 10050) indicated that this was a five-color model. So I spoke with some people at Océ who are familiar with the application and what I learned about this site speaks to the evolving use of monochrome, spot, and process color digital, as well as the trend toward moving pre-printed color forms from offset to a full digital “white paper in, color document out” workflow. Read more »

The Impact of the Economy on Digital Print Volume

One of the major questions for our industry in the wake of the economic downturn is: “What impact does this have on the digital print volume?” A partial answer to that question came at Xerox’s financial analyst briefing on Friday (April 24, 2009). In discussing its first quarter 2009 numbers Xerox provided information on its post-sale revenues. This revenue is driven largely by supplies and service for digital print products, which, of course, would be impacted by a drop in print volume.

Three months ago when discussing its fourth quarter 2008 results, Xerox was not ready to admit the extent of print volume declines. The issue, Xerox said, was masked to some degree by the channel’s inventory of supplies. Maybe in these tough economic times users were choosing to stockpile fewer consumables and waiting longer to reorder. If a shift in inventory levels was happening, then print volumes might not be dropping. With another quarter under its belt Xerox acknowledges that print volumes indeed are down.

The main headline in regard to Xerox’s first quarter financial results is that there was an 18% drop in revenue from Q1 2008 to Q1 2009. Some of the impact of the drop was from currency exchange, but even accounting for that the drop was 12%. Post-sale revenue was down 14% (only 8% under constant currency). Xerox attributed this to lower supplies and paper revenue. Equipment revenue was down 30% (26% under constant currency). Read more »

The Move to 30″ Webs and Modular Design for Color Continuous Feed

Whether through systems like HP’s Inkjet Web Press, Océ’s JetStream 2800, or even R.R. Donnelley and Sons’ IPS 3, companies are creating digital printing systems that are expanding beyond the typical 20″ web width of many offerings. In addition, it is clear that some of these wider web systems are required for monochrome or spot color applications rather than full color. Therefore the modular ability to start with a monochrome system and move up to spot or full color system is becoming more commonplace. Read more »