Clash of the new printing software Titans

Two of the world’s largest digital printing solutions companies this week announced the acquisition of prominent print management information system (MIS) software companies, in a move that will likely see each player going head-to-head for pole position in the industry.

Printing and electronics giant, HP, announced its acquisition of global MIS provider Hiflex Software on 6 December. On the same day, leading digital printing company, EFI, announced it had acquired the European-based Alphagraph MIS/ERP provider.

Both MIS software companies are based in Germany – Alphagraph in Essen, and Hiflex in Aachen, and both are particularly well suited to service the print to web sector of the market.

For EFI, this week’s acquisition is part of a larger expansion program that saw the company buy locally-based MIS/ERP company Prism Group in August this year. That deal dropped an extra seven thousand active Prism customers into EFI’s lap. This week’s addition of Alphagraph will allow EFI to net a further six thousand ready-made customers.

EFI’s Australia and New Zealand country manager, Anthony Parnemann (pictured), says that buying MIS companies such as Prism and Alphagraph is simply the least time-consuming way for the company to build its global market share in the industry.

“The quickest way to reach the market share we’re after is by buying up these companies,” says Parnemann. “[EFI] didn’t have all the contacts with the customers, and the expertise. The acquisition brings in the expertise and their ideas, and adds to the framework of products.”

HP will also have added legions of businesses to its customer base with the acquisition of Hiflex Software, which although based in Germany, operates globally with customers throughout Europe, the Middle East, North America and the Asia Pacific region.

According to HP’s executive vice president of the company’s imaging and printing group, Vyomesh Joshi, the company acquired Hiflex because it “wants to break the traditional barriers of how and where business customers print, making it easy for them to produce custom or personalised materials anywhere, any time. Hiflex’s technology provides a powerful platform to deliver on this goal as part of our overall cloud printing strategy.”

Like EFI, HP’s acquisition will allow the company to expand in the web to print market, and offer the potential to grasp market share in the industry. As on the global stage, the Australian printing industry can expect to see these two industry leaders attempting to corner the local market.