Submitted By: Tim Greene on August 31, 2010
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 »
Submitted By: Tim Greene on July 22, 2010
Last week Agfa announced that it has acquired Pitman Company. While this deal was probably much more about the distribution of Pitman’s more traditional line of business, prepress materials, it nevertheless has a lot of implications for the wide format and industrial inkjet market because of Pitman’s prominence in wide format. Read more »
Submitted By: Tim Greene on May 19, 2010
Hewlett Packard introduced a series of new wide format printers at the IPEX show in Birmingham England. These printers extend HP’s technology platforms and increase the addressable markets for HP and its customers.
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Submitted By: Tim Greene on April 7, 2010
Last week FESPA announced that it is co-locating its introductory show here in North America along with Graphics of the Americas (GOA) in Miami in 2011. The co-located show will be called FESPA Americas. There are those who say, and I have been one of them, that there are already too many trade shows in the wide format business because there are North American events such as ISA and SGIA along with GlobalShop, IRgA, PMA and other trade shows that serve particular segments. Additionally there are regional shows held by publications, dealers, and equipment manufacturers. So, why would FESPA coming to North America be a good thing? I have 5 reasons … Read more »
Submitted By: Tim Greene on March 11, 2010
Today HP announced the commercial availability of HP SmartStream Director 4.0. In the release HP notes that SmartStream Designer allows wide format printing organizations to offer faster turnaround and address the need for shorter runs and variable data. There has been an increasing focus on these tools for wide format among all kinds of printing organizations, but especially as more commercial printers invest in wide format digital printing systems. As it happens InfoTrends just got data back from our World Wide Survey III, a joint InfoTrends/FESPA study (look for results to be published next week). In it, 81% of the survey respondents, who are wide format print companies, reported they are seeing an increase in demand for shorter turnaround times. 67% reported an increase in demand for shorter runs. 52% have seen an increase in demand for more versioning and personalization.
We’ve been showing data like this for quite a while, with trends indicating a need for digital wide format systems to address variable data printing. Many of the 3rd-party wide format RIP solutions offer options and modules that enable variable data printing as well. We’ve been suggesting that important wide format product developments in 2010 would be aimed at easing the integration of wide format systems into the production environment. The launch of SmartStream Designer 4.0 for wide format certainly fits the description.
Submitted By: Anne Valaitis on November 16, 2009
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 »
Tags: Acquisition, Canon, Color, digital photography, Digital Printing, Enterprise, HP, HP Indigo, Inkjet Web Press, Kodak, Konica Minolta, Managed Print Services, Oce, Printing, Production, Publishing, Ricoh, Software, Solutions, Wide Format, Xerox
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Comments (4)
Submitted By: Tim Greene on
The news that Agfa acquired struggling Gandinnovations (Gandinnovations has been in bankruptcy since May 2009) is interesting because it gives Agfa a wider, more robust portfolio of products with which to go up against the more prominent wide format/commercial printing companies in the global market (HP, EFI, Screen & Fujifilm). In wide format, Agfa has been deeply involved in UV-curable inkjet with its Anapurna line, but not participating in the wide format solvent inkjet (which Gandi has also been getting out of) or wide format dye-sublimation markets. The acquisition of Gandi by Agfa makes sense for Agfa from the portfolio perspective. As details come out about how much Agfa paid for Gandinnovations and how much of Gandi’s obligations Agfa will assume it will become clearer whether or not this was a good deal. Agfa’s Graphics business unit had 2008 sales of almost 41.5 billion, so the acquisition of Gandinnovations is probably not a “major risk” kind of deal from a financial standpoint. However much Agfa paid for Gandinnovations or debt Agfa assumed, real value will only be determined if Agfa uses the Gandinnovations line to compete and grow its wide format business. InfoTrends thinks it is likely Agfa will “kill” Gandi’s solvent line and use their dye-sub and UV-curable inkjet products to complement Agfa’s existing wide format printer lineup. Our initial view is that Agfa’s acquisition of Gandinnovations is a strong, low-risk (depending on what Agfa paid) way to complement a portfolio to be better able to compete against bigger competitors.
Submitted By: Tim Greene on October 12, 2009
I’m just getting back from the Specialty Graphic Imaging Association (SGIA) show in New Orleans, LA. I am working on a more detailed write-up, but in short I think there were two distinct sets of wide format digital printing equipment developments.
At the front of the show floor, basically right next to each other, the leading high-end wide format graphics hardware suppliers like Durst, EFI, Fujifilm, and HP were showing off their latest equipment and tools. Durst had its new Rho 900 flatbed printer and Rho 1000 printer, EFI was leading with the new GS-3200 and new Fiery XF RIP product, Fujifilm was demonstrating the Onset S20,its new UviStar 3.2- and 5-meter wide UV-curable inkjet printers. The UviStar models are private-labeled from Matan. HP has the widest portfolio of products in the wide format graphics market, and was at SGIA with equipment ranging from its high-end flatbed inkjet printers to its new low-end “Latex” printer (more on that in just a minute). All of those vendors were reporting that they were closing deals right there on the show floor. The trend on the high-end is clearly about the tools that make up solutions and help customers build and operate their wide format business more effectively,with Fujifilm showing its Print Run Controller software, the new EFI Fiery XF solution and HP’s Capture program all taking a position.
The other big development was on the ink side, where I should note the aforementioned Latex printer, but also identify new inks from Roland DG and Seiko I Infotech. HP’s Latex ink has a lot of appeal in and of itself because of the low VOC emission and good image durability. The reaction I got from one of the HP resellers I spoke to was very strong, he told me “HP is going to sell a ton of those”. On the eco-/light-/mild-solvent inkjet side, there were new printer models but also new ink formulations. Roland’s new printer is the first to use a metallic silver inkjet ink, so this represents something of a breakthrough, and the examples in Roland booth illustrated the great effects that can be created using these metallic inks. The printer will start shipping later this year. Also on the solvent side, SII announced a new ink set called “EG Outdoor-LX” which are lower-priced than the company’s “EG Outdoor-EX” ink sets. These new inks are less expensive and come in larger cartridges than the EX-series ink, but do not offer the same outdoor durability.
The SGIA show was smaller and the attendance was lower compared to past years. There was very limited participation in the event from the screen-printing side. New Orleans did not draw the attendee-vacationers that Las Vegas or Orlando usually does, but according to the vendors I spoke with, attendees at SGIA were ready to do business, so just about all of the vendors I spoke to were pretty happy. We’ll be publishing that more detailed write-up of SGIA later this week.
Submitted By: Tim Greene on July 16, 2009
Today EFI issued a press release http://www.ir.efi.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=117454&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1308513&highlight= about its win in court over Leggett & Platt. Leggett & Platt had alleged that EFI-VUTEk was in violation of U.S. patent number 7,290,874, applied for in 2004 and awarded in 2007. EFI won the case after the court ruled that what Leggett & Platt had patented was obvious. EFI noted that this is the third time it has beaten Leggett & Platt over this patent in court.
While I am no patent expert, after reviewing the patent here (http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=7,290,874.PN.&OS=PN/7,290,874&RS=PN/7,290,874) it appears that Leggett & Platt was able to get a patent on a technology that was well established by the time the patent was applied for in 2004, and very well established by the time it was awarded in 2007.
It should also be noted that the division of Leggett & Platt that was likely pursuing this lawsuit, known as L&P Digital Technologies, was sold by Leggett & Platt in 2008 to WIFAG group of Switzerland, and is now known as WP Digital. The company still sells high-end wide format UV-curable inkjet printers under the Virtu brand. WIFAG is a manufacturer of newspaper presses, package decoration equipment and graphic arts supplies. As such, WIFAG/WP Digital will continue to be an active competitor, especially in Europe, to the leading manufacturers like HP-Scitex, EFI, and Sericol, that are all targeting the commercial and screen print market with high-end wide format UV-curable inkjet printers.
Submitted By: Tim Greene on June 26, 2009
I recently got a briefing on a new low-end version of Oce’s Repro Desk software solution called Repro Desk Studio, for the low-end of the wide format technical document printing market in general and its low-end digital PlotWave printers in particular. The new software brings high-end functionality such as print and device management and print job accounting to small and mid-volume wide format technical environments for a fraction (about 25%) of the cost of Repro Desk Professional.
One of the things I like about Repro Desk Studio is that within the print management feature, which lets users indicate which device they would like to print to, there is the option to push print jobs to predetermined external reprographics companies. This seems like a good example of Oce designing its software with its important user and reprographics customers in mind. Oce suggested that Repro Desk Studio would be ideal for environments that print less than 200,000 square feet per month.
Oce has a lot of software capabilities and a deep understanding of technical document workflows, so Repro Desk Studio is well designed to ease these processes in low-and mid-voluem environments. While the price reflects a deep discount off of the Professional version of Repro Desk, some of this same functionality is provided by 3rd-party solutions like Ratio Software at lower prices.
Oce never really tries to be the price leader, instead focusing on overall productivity. The overall Repro Desk Studio package (functionality & price) seems to fit the Oce approach and expertise, while also addressing the low-end of the market where the company has not been historically strong.
