Simon Enticknap's drupa blog #5 – The day of the digital

If Day 1 of the press circus belonged to the traditional press giants, Heidelberg and manroland, Day 2 was definitely the day of the digital heavyweights (OK, so KBA also held its press briefing on Day 2 but never let the truth stand in the way of a good opening line).

Kodak, Epson and EFI all made presentations to the media (and yes, all highlighted inkjet systems) while the two digital heavyweights, Xerox and HP, finished off the day with big media events designed to, in the case of the former, maintain its leadership position, and with the latter, stake a claim for the No1 spot.

In contrast, Kodak held a relatively low key press briefing at the start of the day at which Antonio Perez, Kodak chairman and CEO, stated the company’s intention to achieve offset quality in everything it does (see drupa blog #4). The chief weapon in its armoury is the Stream inkjet technology which is shaping up as the one system that everybody else fears, if only because it is so much faster and offers better quality than anything else seen so far. The saving grace for the competition is that Kodak is still some way off bringing the technology to market (we’re talking years not months here) so there is a brief window of opportunity in which other companies can stake a claim for a slice of the digital pie.

Certainly the boldness and confidence of the digital suppliers in claiming the future of the industry for the themselves has been a noticeable feature of the show so far, in contrast to the relatively cautious attitude of the offset press manufacturers. This was from Steve Nigro of HP: “People will talk about this drupa as the digital drupa, when digital became mainstream.”

HP gave the most gung-ho presentation of all the suppliers with Vyomesh Joshi and Steve Nigro both pushing the message that the company is best placed to drive the conversion of the industry from analogue to digital processes and, in doing so, become the leading graphic arts supplier. Product announcements mirrored those revealed in the pre-drupa media presentations although there was also news that the new HP inkjet web press is due to go into three major customer sites in the US and Europe for testing.

Where does this leave Xerox, still the leading supplier of digital print equipment and the company most responsible for taking digital print mainstream? In one of the more surprising presentations so far, it spent a good deal of its media briefing showcasing the fact that it too has inkjet technology, albeit in the form of a lab prototype which is still clearly many months away from ever seeing the light of day. All this talk of inkjet clearly has the company rattled; on the one hand, it points out, quite legitimately, that many of the inkjet systems on display from competitors are not expected to be ready until next year at the earliest, while at the same time it feels the need to showcase its own inkjet developments which are even further off the map.

This is a pity because the toner-based products that Xerox does have ready to go now are first-class, including a new version of the iGen, now called the iGen4, plus improvements to the iGen3 which will continue in production, and a new ConceptColor 220 press which is effectively two iGens spliced together to deliver a full colour cut-sheet speed record of 220 pages per minute. A new Xerox 700 digital colour press is aimed at the entry-level digital production market, offering 70 pages per minute on stock from 64 to 300 gsm, A3 oversize. Everybody should take one home with them, quipped Xerox chairman and CEO, Anne Mulcahy, adding that such developments demonstrated Xerox’s commitment to retaining its No 1 position.

“Others may choose to follow our lead but I promise you they will not catch up,” she warned.
Xerox is still obviously the one to catch in this market – Mulcahy pointed out that the number of pages printed on Xerox machines is more than double the number of its nearest competitor – but is clearly looking over its shoulder at whoever may be sneaking up behind. Perhaps as a result, it seems that, from a Xerox perspective at least, offset is no longer the enemy; while other suppliers openly state that offset is in their sights, Xerox is happy to look at hybrid applications, even combining digital print with work produced on a Heidelberg SM52 press at the show to demonstrate the ability to offer the best of both worlds from a single workflow.
And this from the company that once stated (and then retracted) that it was going to be bigger than Heidelberg. Funny how things come around, innit?

Pictured above: Look behind you! Xerox CEO and Chairman, Anne Mulcahy, feels the shadow of competition closing in.

Not all about inkjet
With all the attention focused on production-type inkjet systems, it’s easy to overlook the advances being made in the high-end digital print sector where the likes of HP, Kodak and Xerox continue to deliver faster, better quality output. So far we have seen:
• The new HP Indigo 7000 with a top speed of 120 A4 pages per minute, up from 68 pages per minute for the 5500 model which also gets some additional enhancements for thicker substrates and UV coating.
• The new iGen4 from Xerox which is claimed to deliver 25 to 35 percent more productivity over its predecessor, primarily by eliminating the need to stop the press to add more developer. The iGen3 also gets an upgrade for faster set-ups and more accurate colour matching.
• The new NexPress S3600 from Kodak with what it calls “dramatically increased productivity” and the fastest model in the S-series portfolio which also includes the S3000, S2500 and S2100 models.
In addition, there is a wealth of options and add-ons being offered such as inline finishing equipment as the manufacturers target specific applications in labels and packaging. In fact, digital packaging is shaping up to be the next big battleground for these digital machines.

Shock, horror, journalist turns down offer of beer
We all know competition is tough in the graphic arts market, which must explain why Anne Mulcahy, Xerox CEO, at the end of her press briefing and knowing that the HP event was due to commence immediately afterwards, suggested that the assembled journalists should knock off for the day and retire to the Xerox stand for a beer.
Now normally such an offer would create such a stampede capable of wiping out anybody who gets in its way but this time around even Print21 had to pass on the offer for the sake of the story. The HP conference was packed.

Pictured below: Benny Landa, centre, is congratulated by Steve Nigro and presented with a cake to celebrate 15 years of Indigo.
Having their cake and eating it
Benny Landa, the Indigo founder, made another ‘surprise’ appearance before the media pack and was presented with a birthday cake to celebrate the fact that it is 15 years since the Indigo press first made its appearance. Proving that they eat, drink and breathe print (or indeed anything), the cake was subsequently consumed by the press. This led one wag (OK, I admit, it was me) to proclaim that while Xerox tried to have their cake and eat it too by demonstrating both toner-based and inkjet technology, HP simply ate theirs.

News Flash
The compact disc is making a comeback! Just when I had written off the CD as a digital storage media, it comes storming back into contention. Even digital media companies such as HP, Epson and EFI used discs as their preferred medium. It was left to Xerox to save the day for the flash drive, bringing the total so far to three, although in fairness we should point out that the CD now has a commanding lead. Of course, we all know that the mountain of paper handed out so far can be recycled, and CDs can be used to make interesting mobile sculptures, but what about the flash drives? Gathering dust in drawer somewhere still seems to be their likely fate.

For previous drupa blogs click here.