Drupa ramp up #2 – it’s not all gloom out there

Guy Gecht, CEO EFI is having a great time at the media conference in Düsseldorf, comparing the growth of his company to the spectacular results of Apple. His recipe for success? Be where print is going – not where it’s been.

Printing on ceramics, digital labels, wide format, MIS software, EFI the company that made and still makes most of its money from the seminal Fiery RIP is working hard at diversifying. It is looking at getting into areas where tablet and digital technologies will not venture, such as offset commercial print, inkjet printing on tiles, wide format outdoor advertising and becoming the largest cloud-computing provider for the printing industry.

Cash rich EFI made five acquisitions in the past year, including Prism in management information systems. Gecht maintains that combined with organic increase it’s a viable way of growing and that the company is getting better at integrating other corporate cultures.

He teased the audience here with a new mystery product to be unveiled at drupa. What’s it about? A wide format fabric printer is my best guess.
Never short on confidence in himself and the company, he is equally bullish about the future of printing – at least those sectors that the tablet world will not wipe out.