Koni Neuhofer takes on Agfa’s regional newspaper business.

“We are on the verge of CtP being accepted as the product of choice for newspaper printing. A lot of the smaller sites have already turned to CtP but the major metropolitan dailies are now looking more seriously at it,”he said in a press release to announce his new position.

High changeover costs have slowed down the rate of conversion for larger organisations. However, Neuhofer believes that is changing with the development of violet laser imaging.

“I firmly believe that violet is becoming the industry standard in newspaper CtP. It’s the most cost-effective solution because of the longevity of violet lasers and you don’t have the replacement costs or downtime associated with other laser technologies,” he explained.

Agfa has already had newspaper sales of its violet laser models of both the Polaris platesetters and its new Advantage entry-level devices.

Neuhofer hopes to bring more focus to the newspaper group, which he admits has been a little fragmented. “I am looking forward to the new challenge of this role. We are in the process of putting together a strong team dedicated to newspapers so that we will have a more focused approach to this part of the print industry,” he explained.

“We need to keep listening to our customers and continue developing close associations with newspaper printers,” he said, “so that we can build more co-operative relationships and understand what our customers want.”

As well as maintaining Agfa’s core products, Neuhofer believes the company is in a good position to grow new technologies such as CtP and automated workflow.
Internal development of new technologies, such as Agfa’s Arkitex prepress-to-production workflow management system, is also important, says Neuhofer.

“Arkitex is a home-grown product. Our continuing in-house R&D is one of the reasons why Agfa is the leading provider of workflow solutions in newspapers.”

As Neuhofer looks forward to the new challenges ahead, he is optimistic about the company’s future success in the newspaper industry.

“Agfa is able to offer the end-user a choice because we offer a variety of products and a variety of CtP solutions and we can tailor these specifically to our customers’ needs,” he explained. “We’re not just a one-product family.”