Can Roland roll in Wide format UV?

Roland DGA is the leader in wide format digital printer-cutters, a fact the company reinforced and built on yesterday with the introduction of the new 54-inch wide VersaUV LEC-540.

This is not the first wide format UV-curable inkjet printer from Roland, but at 54-inches, compared to the 30-inch wide LEC 300 & 330, it is the widest and fastest and should have much greater appeal to those in the signage and graphics markets where Roland has a very strong brand. Roland should have a good opportunity in the low-end of the wide format UV-curable market, which is somewhat unsettled with the lack of any especially strong global competitors. The specifications on the new 54-inch wide printer look good, with 1440 x 1440 resolution, built-in front and back media tables and low power consumption, but one of the more interesting differentiators is the three ink configurations. Read more »

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 »

Canon Sues Ninestar and Others over Toner Patents

According to recent news, Canon Inc. (Tokyo), Canon U.S.A., Inc. and Canon Virginia, Inc. filed a 337 complaint on Monday, June 28, 2010, with the U.S. International Trade Commission to investigate whether Ninestar Image International Ltd. and others infringed two patents for a series of toner cartridges that can be used in Canon and Hewlett-Packard printers. Reportedly, Canon has also filed a companion lawsuit in federal court in New York. The ITC complaint (Docket No: 2743) alleges that 20 respondents have unlawfully imported infringing toner cartridges and related products into the United States. Canon would like to block these imports. Read more »

Five Themes at IPEX

Three days into IPEX 2010, I see some themes emerging from the show:

• IPEX theme #1: Things that are out of our control – After having had a minor travel disruption involving planes, buses, and trains on the way to Birmingham, I have to admit that when it comes down to a battle between me and the volcanoes, the volcanoes win. I feel the same way about the impact of the economic downturn. We all have to acknowledge that there are some big, global trends that will continue to impact everyone whether we like it or not. I put the move toward mobile technology and social media in the same category. This will happen even if we personally do not desire an iPad of our own.

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Dell NextLife Ink Cartridges Now Sold in Best Buy

In its first move to retail, the new Dell NextLife (www.nextlife.com) remanufactured inkjet cartridges are now available in all Best Buy locations and on the store’s website (www.bestbuy.com). The consumer electronics retailer carries about half of the higher volume NextLife cartridges in the stores. To promote the new products, advertising in Best Buy fliers will begin next week. Read more »

EFI Will Benefit from Radius Acquisition

Electronics For Imaging (EFI), the parent company of industrial inkjet systems suppliers Jetrion and VUTEk, announced on April 29 that it has reached an agreement to buy Radius Solutions, a top maker of MIS/ERP software for package printing. The purchase is subject to conditions but EFI managers said in a conference call that they expect the deal to close in the second or third quarter and to be slightly accretive to full year 2010 results. The deal is to be a cash transaction, for an undisclosed amount.

The news indicates a growing commitment by EFI (Foster City, CA) to the packaging industry, which it targets already with its Jetrion inkjet printers. Assuming the Radius deal goes forward, the EFI companies collectively will offer products in two areas of importance to packaging converters—digital presses and software to manage print. Meanwhile, in buying Radius, EFI will be buying access to that company’s base of customers, which include some of the biggest converters of packaging and labels, such as Alcan, Malnove, Multicolor Corporation, and Sonoco.

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Rena Show Memjet-based Prototype for Direct Mail

At this month’s On Demand show in Philadelphia, Rena Systems (Oaks, PA) showed a tabletop addressing system based on a page-wide, CMYK head from Memjet (San Diego, CA). Rena says the printer, the name of which is unreleased, is planned to be commercially available by the end of this year. If so, the printer could be the first Memjet-based printer to be marketed for any application.

Memjet is the product development and head manufacturing enterprise charged with implementing print systems of various types based on the inkjet technology patents of Silverbrook Research (Balmain, Australia). Rena Systems, founded in 1984, is a leading manufacturer of inkjet addressing systems based on monochrome thermal inkjet heads from Hewlett-Packard; in 2009, Rena Systems was acquired by Neopost USA (Milford, CT), a major maker of inserters and other mailing equipment.

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Tonejet Up and Running at Ball Packaging

This month we have a small update on Tonejet, Ltd (Melbourn, Hertfordshire, UK), the developer of a proprietary electrostatic drop on demand technology that was the focus of some intriguing news last year. In July 2009, the company publicized its first major deal, with Ball Packaging of Germany. Under the terms of that agreement, Tonejet and Ball were to jointly develop a single pass, CMYK print system, based Tonejet Technology, to print metal cans at Ball’s manufacturing plant in Hasslock, Germany, with actual production to begin in Q1 2010.

InfoTrends spoke with Tonejet managers recently to check on the status of that custom installation, and learned that the printer is indeed up and running at Ball. The first commercial runs of CMYK onto metal cans began there in early April. The Ball customer will have to remain unnamed until sometime in May 2010. In the meantime, Tonejet’s CEO, Ray Southam, gave a few particulars: Read more »

What Is HP’s ColorPRO Technology Strategy?

Two recent announcements shed some light on the progress that HP has made on the development of third-party produced papers that are enhanced for use on the T300 Inkjet Web Press:

• Georgia Pacific launched a line of treated uncoated stocks using ColorPRO technology. The ColorPRO brand denotes that the papers employ an HP-developed technology that facilitates high-quality print output on HP’s T300 Inkjet Web Press. The line of papers is called Spectrum Web Inkjet and is available now in the United States. (Link to Georgia-Pacific news)
• Appleton Coated will develop coated papers for the T300 Inkjet Web Press using HP technology under the Utopia brand. These papers will include matte and dull finishes designed for textbook, publication, direct mail, and other commercial printing applications. The substrates are currently in production trials and are expected to be available in mid-2010 in North America. (Link to Appleton news)

The Georgia Pacific release was notable in that it mentioned the ColorPRO brand. The Appleton release did not. The reason behind this is relatively simple. The Georgia Pacific stocks are uncoated. The Appleton stocks are coated. In response to a question from InfoTrends HP clarified that ColorPRO as a technology and a brand is for uncoated stocks only. Appleton’s coated stocks will employ an HP-developed technology, not ColorPRO, and therefore will not be part of the ColorPRO technology brand. Read more »