Locals get connected at EFI Las Vegas conference

Six companies across Australia and New Zealand made the trip to EFI's Ready, Set, Connect User Conference in Las Vegas last week. Print 21 caught up with the jet-lagged jetsetters to find out what they had to say.

Connect may be in its ninth year, but for most companies in Australia and New Zealand, 2008 was the first year that they had attended the four-day show.

The show drew a crowd of more than 500 attendees - down somewhat on previous years due to drupa; but those who attended believed it was nonetheless a successful show.

"It was much better than I thought it would be," said first-timer, Stephen Malpass, business and IT systems consultant for Kwik Kopy.

"For me, the highlight was the daily user-group forums which allowed us to ask for inclusions and changes that we would like to be made to the products."

Some audience members were startled to discover that EFI had acquired ePace, but Mark Mitchell, said the news was exciting for those at Doculink. "This will enhance their offering to us and our customers in the future," he said.

"Connect was an opportunity to be updated on the products that we use in our web-to-print solution and our MIS."

Damien Robbins, product manager at Ricoh Australia found the chance the network invaluable for his knowledge. "It was great to be able to network and meet other end-users from the US along with key EFI staff," he said.

Most agreed they would all be only too happy to attend Connect again in 2009.

"I will definitely return," said Robbins. "You don't see too many companies opening up for end-users the way that EFI do."