Kodak GUA Day 1: The Importance of User Groups

The annual Kodak GUA (Graphic Users Association) conference is taking place this week, April 11-14, in Vancouver, BC. I am lucky enough to be here in attendance as a media/journalist member and participant in one of the K-Zone sessions. I don’t often get the chance to come to user group meetings and interact with print service providers. Here are a few of my thoughts as the first day comes to a close.

The user group experience continues to be one of utmost importance to those in attendance. Talking with print service providers attending the event it is no surprise as to why they are here. Participants are given the opportunity to speak with like minded individuals at varying stages in technology implementations. They are able to gain valuable insight, discuss issues, and be reassured that the paths they are taking are those leading them in the right direction.

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What’s Keeping You Up at Night?

I recently met with a group of Kodak NexPress users and I asked them, “What keeps you up at night?” They started throwing out a range of ideas and didn’t stop until we came up with a list of about twenty things like keeping up with technology, driving growth, new competition, automation, legislation, solution selling, and government regulations.

I dutifully wrote everything down and then grouped them into about eight or nine topics areas. I gave everyone three votes to apply to their top three nightmares. After the smoke cleared the top issue by far was the future of print. In short, what is the viability of print in an age of Internet, social media, and mobile communications? Read more »

The Use of ALL CAPS to shout out PRODUCT NAMES

Sometimes when marketing professionals name new products, they shout them from the page by putting the name in ALL CAPS. Writing something in all capitals, whether in an e-mail or in print, has the effect of drawing attention to that word. That’s fair from a marketing perspective, but I suspect I speak for the press and analyst community when I say that this is annoying, and therefore I avoid using the all caps versions whenever possible.

The latest product to take advantage of this trend is Canon’s imageRUNNER ADVANCE (capitalized as the company proposes). The name “imageRUNNER” didn’t bother me so much because it combined capitals and lower case letters. Now that Canon has decided to maintain the old imageRUNNER branding with the new platform, it has added Advance (all in caps) to the name. The written shorthand for imageRUNNER is iR. Does that make the Advance products iRA? Writers will likely move to that contraction in an effort to avoid all of the shouting capitals. Read more »

Kodak’s Print 09 Gamble: The Pipeline of Innovation

You may have heard that Kodak will not be exhibiting any print hardware in its Print 09 booth. This isn’t all that surprising given that many vendors have been cutting back on the larger scale print devices that they are bringing to trade shows. The reason is simple. The cost of bringing these large devices is higher than the marketing return on investment. These devices have a relatively small pool of potential prospects. It’s nice for the masses to see them, but “nice” isn’t a compelling reason for printing system vendors to go to the expense of transporting the devices, setting them up on the show floor, and bringing the right levels of support staff to be sure they are operating at their highest level. Read more »

Did Kodak Say It Was Going to Divest NexPress? No!

The Wall Street Journal reported today that Kodak was planning to “seek partners to share the costs or possibly sell” the Kodak Gallery and NexPress businesses. In a conversation that I had with Kodak this morning, it became clear that the Wall Street Journal had misinterpreted Kodak’s statements and jumped to an incorrect conclusion about divestment. During the investor conference Kodak did say that it needed to transform and position its Kodak Gallery and NexPress businesses (it made the same point about image sensors and OLED businesses). Kodak, however, says that no mention was made of divestment. For NexPress, Kodak said that it intends to explore partnerships and alliances, as well as look at segmentation and licensing opportunities. Read more »

Beyond Process Color Digital Printing: Approaches to Additional Colors, Special Effects, and MICR

I’ve been giving some thought to devices that offer one or more imaging stations above the typical four (for the four process colors). HP Indigo, Kodak NexPress, and Xeikon have had this capability for many years but recent announcements are expanding this capability, and, in addition, others are entering this space. The possibilities range from simple spot color use to custom colors, coatings, and magnetic image character recognition (MICR). The table below shows a brief summary of the current state of the art. This table includes only currently available products used for document applications. Another table would need to be dedicated to adequately address products in the flexible label and packaging space. Read more »