Electronics for Imaging changes its name to EFI

Harking back to the founder of the company, Efi Arazi and bowing to industry usage, Electronics for Imaging has picked the acronym EFI as its new corporate identity. At the pre-drupa press conference in Düsseldorf, Guy Gecht, said that in addition to shortening its name to EFI, the company is rolling out a redesign of its logo with a new tagline ‘Essential to Print.’

“Selecting the EFI name was a natural evolution for us as thousands of customers already recognise us this way,” he said. “It also reflects that the name Electronics for Imaging is too limited to encompass the ever-broadening scope of our software and hardware solutions.”

He pointed out that last year’s acquisitions of Printcafe, T/R Systems and Best GmbH made a re-branding essential to bring the new products under the same corporate roof. For example, under the new consolidated branding strategy, Printcafe Hagen will be called EFI Hagen OA and T/R Systems Digital Storefront will be called EFI Digital Storefront.

This is the first time that EFI has a product lineup that is directed at the end-user and not OEMs. Gecht indicated that the company will be concentrating on the EFI Hagen and EFI PrintSmith systems as part of its new strategic drive to have an end-to-end workflow.

However the well-known Fiery server name will continue as a stand-alone brand.

New products for drupa

A new Fiery server to be unveiled at drupa, the QX9000 is claimed by the company to be the fastest ever. It is designed specifically to drive the new Kodak Versamark 2000 page-per-minute, full colour, variable inkjet printer. In addition the company will launch two other Fiery servers; S300, S500 for mid- to high- volume print production engines and the Q4500 for colour production class engines and digital presses.

In keeping with the JDF theme of the exhibition EFI will participate at the CIP4 centre showcasing open JDF connectivity across multi-vendor workflows. It will bring a number of new connectivity solutions to the show including:

• Press Connector module for EFI print management systems with JDF connectivity to Heidelberg, Komori and MAN Roland presses.
• Prepress Connector that provides JDF integration between EFI print management systems and prepress workflow solutions.
• JDF workflow support for digital presses in EFI’s OneFLow, Balance and Fiery products
• Internet solutions, including Digital Storefront, PrintSmith Site and EFI Exchange, featuring JDF integration into print management systems and workflow solutions.