LIVE FROM IPEX briefing in Birmingham UK – Xerox to be largest exhibitor

Although dominating Hall Five on a 5,128 sq mtr stand, it’s the ‘new business of printing’ that will receive the focus – how to make money with Xerox’s ‘Profit Accelerator’ strategy, how to increase the value of print with personalization.

Four distinct areas will address the Xerox philosophies:

Offset and Digital Integration Zone – this application zone recognizes that digital and offset can live side-by-side and use the same workflows. As Xerox Europe’s Valentin Govaerts put it “We will seamlessly transfer offset-prepared documents to digital presses based on run-length and content, and integrate this with the MIS system.”

Print on Demand Zone – Self-explanatory, this area will show end-to-end solutions for high volume mono and colour, finishing and a big emphasis on Xerox Freeflow workflows.

Book Printing Zone – Total colour and mono book production in short runs. One example shown was a European firm – Ted Gigaprint - producing bound colour photo albums from customer-supplied images using two iGen 3s.

Profit through Personalization Zone – Xerox has signed on with the Digital Smile software and offers other forms of advanced personalization. One example of mass-personalization discussed was Japan Advanced Information Systems who run an incredible 24 iGen3s to process personalized, data-driven direct mail offers to Mitsubishi Bank’s Visa customers.

There will also be a ProfitAccelerator Theater where practical, business-led presentations will educate delegates on, well, accelerating their profits! In all, the giant Xerox area (bigger than Heidelberg’s by a smidgen - 7 sq mtrs!), will feature 70 working pieces of Xerox equipment, 60 PCs and servers; five km of cabling and 250 staff.

As barriers to proprietary systems come down, Freeflow workflow will receive intense attention, along with its integration into third party MIS and other workflows.

Govaerts added that Xerox expects 35,000 people through the booth during IPEX, which he described as a “very important event to Xerox and Fuji-Xerox. With organizers IIR targeting 74,000 ‘genuine’ (i.e. individuals counted only once and excluding exhibitors) visitors, if this is achieved, almost half of all IPEX visitors will visit the Xerox booth.

Packaging attack
In a surprise announcement, Valentin Govaerts also revealed that Xerox intends to attack the global packaging market for shorter-run cartons, in partnership with paper giant Stora-Enso. The iGen3 is seen as the machine to lead this drive as it can take heavier stocks. As Govaerts said; “If we can get just one per cent of the world packaging market, that will equate to about 100 extra iGen3 installations.”

Xerox is also attacking the global loyalty and plastic card market, personalized greeting cards in partnership with Hallmark and Greetz.

One little-known fact is that Xerox also has wide-format inkjet machines to complement its cut-sheet battalion. The current range is OEM’d from Encad but Govaerts said Xerox is currently working with Epson and Mutoh on future products.

IPEX 2006 looks set to catalyze a change in the fundamental business model on which much of our industry operates and Xerox is in pole position to drive this change – but don’t expect them to just sell you a box.