Kodak banks on Prosper

Before the doors of Ipex had officially opened, Kodak unveiled its new Prosper 5000XL inkjet press with Antonio Perez, chairman and CEO, cutting the ceremonial ribbon to launch the press before a packed press gallery. Print21 editor, Simon Enticknap was there.

First shown at drupa08, the Prosper press, that uses Kodak’s Stream inkjet technology, is now available for purchase with one site already up and running. Perez commented that Kodak is moving to rapidly increase production of the machine and that the only constraint to sales at the moment is that they can’t be built fast enough.

Asked if Kodak expected the number of sales for the Prosper to be about 100 machines, Perez (pictured) replied: “No, that number of 100 is wrong. It’s a much higher number than that.”

The Prosper prints at a top speed of 200 metres per minute on coated and uncoated web stocks, including glossy coated, with a monthly duty cycle of up to 120 million A4 pages.

Current target markets include book publishing, marketing collateral and direct mail but Perez also foreshadowed further applications including the possibility of a sheetfed version.

However, he stopped short of predicting that inkjet technology such as Stream will one day replace toner-based machines such as Kodak’s Nexpress, saying that the industry is big enough for both.

“All have a role to play,” he said.

Commenting on the state of the market generally, Perez singled out the “incredibly healthy” Asia Pacific region in particular where the company has enjoyed strong growth in the graphics market of up to 25 per cent. This is due to a combination of a large population with growing purchasing power and rising education levels, he said.

Among other new products launched by Kodak at the show, the Trillian SP plates are a new thermal, low chemistry digital plate offering run lengths of up to 500,000 impressions unbaked. The new plate technology is expected to become the core product for Kodak in the plate market in the future.