The Xplor View - July 2008 - (Page 4)

highlights review Other hot topics and key areas of focus at drupa included companies’ efforts for environmental sustainability, the growing importance of China for the printing industry (with 139 exhibitors China ranked third, just behind Italy and ahead of the UK), and the efforts made by the manufacturers of conventional equipment to make their presses more productive and flexible. ink holds its shape on nearly any surface because it is not water-based like traditional inkjet technologies." New large format, high-speed, cut-sheet ink presses were demonstrated by Screen (Truepress Jet SX producing 1,600 sheets per hour or 107 A4 impressions per minute --with media size up to 503x740 mm) and Fujifilm (JetPress 720 capable of producing 2,700 B2 sheets per hour at 1200 dpi). expanding their • Printing systems vendors are For example, offerings into new territories. Xerox announced a move into the packaging market with a solution combining its iGen3 colour press, a varnishing unit, a die cutter, and a stacker-conveyor unit from Stora Enso. This solution is specifically targeted at the pharmaceutical sector. Beside the graphic arts market, Xeikon and HP are now targeting transactional/transpromotional applications, while EFI announced its entrance in label printing. combining • Hybrid printing solutions with digital printing conventional technology were highlighted at the Agfa, manroland, and Kodak booths. Hybrid workflow was another area of focus at the show, as leading printing systems vendors promoted their solutions allowing customers to support both conventional and digital printing equipment from a single workstation. All leading vendors produced newspaper and transpromo applications on their new digital presses Source: INTERQUEST Key trends in digital printing the trend • In the monochrome printing areagreyscale is toward higher speeds and better image quality. On the cut-sheet side, Kodak announced a system capable of reaching speeds of 300 impressions per minute (ipm), while on the continuous-feed front Océ and Xerox demonstrated the new systems they announced earlier in the year: the VarioStream 8000 Series and the 1300 Continuous Feed printer, respectively. Nipson announced significant print quality enhancements for its VaryPress product line. important • On the colour front,the low endannouncements took place both at and the high end of the market. Xerox, Konica Minolta, Ricoh, and InfoPrint Solutions introduced new systems in the 65-90 ipm speed segment, while digital press vendors such as Xeikon and HP Indigo demonstrated their new presses which have pushed the speed limit of high-quality, full-colour, continuous-feed electrophotographic presses well above 200 ipm. Leading vendors’ announcements and developments Hewlett-Packard HP demonstrated the colour presses it announced in March. These included: HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press • The sheet-fed120 full-colour A4 impressions which prints per minute and is able to produce 800,000 full-colour A4 impressions per month in one shift, or 3.5 million running around the clock. • The HP Indigo W7200 Digital Press, a new web-fed unit that can produce up to seven million A4-size colour impressions or 30 million monochrome A4 images per month. The press prints 240 A4 full-colour impressions per minute, 480 A4 two-colour impressions per minute, or 960 A4 monochrome impressions per minute. system • The Inkjet Web Press, a four-colourletter-size which prints 400 feet/minute (2,600 impressions per minute) at a resolution of 600 dpi, with a web width of up to 36 inches. The new unit, which uses HP pigmented inks, jets a special bonding agent onto the paper prior to printing to prevent ink spreading through the fibres. The Inkjet Web Press has a recommended duty cycle of 70 million impressions per month and targets the direct mail, transactional, book publishing, and newspaper markets. The system is expected to be commercially available in the second half of 09. • As reported earlier, a number of new fullcolour inkjet presses were announced and demonstrated at drupa. HP had a strong showing with its new Inkjet Web Press; it was the first public demonstration of the JetStream and Kodak VL2000 presses; and attendees had the opportunity to see Kodak Stream technology in action. Xerox, who until recently had chosen to compete solely with electrophotography (with its new 490/980 Color CF system) at the high-end of the market, announced its move into inkjet production printing. At its booth, Xerox previewed a cured gel ink technology that prints not only on paper but also on materials like plastic and foil. According to the company "the new cured gel • Printing systems vendors demonstrated a wide range of applications from highly personalized direct mail to transpromo, and from monochrome and full-colour books to newspapers. 4 The VIEW Journal Xplor European Edition Issue 5 July 2008

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of The Xplor View - July 2008

The Xplor View - July 2008 Contents Cover Story: Drupa 2008: The Highlights Review New Technology: Inkjet Technologies Moving Forward New Technology: QR Codes: Leading Edge but not Bleeding Edge A Fresh Look at Electronic Document Delivery Management: Growing Your Business Through Tendering The Experts Versus the Amateurs News: Xplor UK & Ireland Supports Total Print! Expo� Part Two: The Latest Developments in Knowledge Management Xplor Europe News: Short News Items for the Xplor UK Programme and Europe News

The Xplor View - July 2008

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