Océ makes reel progress

Océ launches a fresh assault on the continuous-feed print market with a host of new digital print engines.

At a special event held last week in Poing, Germany, several hundred customers, media and Océ representatives from around the world were shown details of the company's latest plans to consolidate its position as the leading digital print engine supplier in the continuous-feed market.

The new products introduced to the global audience included new toner-based systems for black and white, spot colour and process colour production, as well as the star of the show, the new JetStream inkjet printing system which Océ is pitching at the transpromo and full colour direct mail markets.

The new JetStream system uses a fixed array of inkjet print heads with water-based ink, developed in conjunction with a Japanese technology partner, to print full colour on web widths up to 52cm wide at an impressive 150 metres per minute, or 2,052 A4 duplex pages per minute (ppm) printed two-up.

The print heads uses Océ's DigiDot 'drop-on-demand' technology which is claimed to deliver higher quality and be more economical and long-lasting than other print head designs with a variable drop size of between 7 and 14 picoliters and a page resolution of 600 x 600 dpi.

The JetStream is aimed at the high volume colour print market including the burgeoning transpromo/transactional print market, variable direct marketing, personalized newspapers and high quality, short-run digital books. The high production speed is set to deliver average outputs of about 60 million pages per month.

Sebastian Landesberger, CEO of Océ Printing Systems, (pictured) said the timing of the launch before drupa was due to the fact that the JetStream system was ready to go and nothing to do with attempting to pre-empt the competition.

"I think it's Christmas and we thought we'd have some presents," he commented. "We are ready to ship now so why wait for drupa?"

The JetStream is due to ship in the first quarter of 2008 in the US and Europe and Océ expects to have customer reference sites up and running by drupa.

More colour toner too
In Océ's traditional toner market, the company unveiled several additions to its VarioStream line-up as well as a new flagship model, the ColorStream 10000 that combines fast black and white output with graphic arts quality full-colour printing. A unique feature of this printer is its ability to switch automatically between full colour and black and white output during a print run.

So, for instance, the printer will output full colour pages at a rate of 168 A4 pages per minute and then automatically speed up to 800 ppm for monochrome output, enabling printers to easily combine full colour and black and white output in the same document.

Océ also filled out its VarioStream range of monochrome printers with the launch of the 8000 series and three new models in the 9000 series including the top of the range 9710 model which, with a top speed of 1,425 A4 ppm, is claimed to be the fastest black and white duplex printer on the market.

Altogether, there are now 13 models in the VarioStream range including the 7000 series, underlining Océ's boast of having the most comprehensive range of solutions for the black and white continuous feed market.