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By Cary Sherburne, Senior WTT Editor
WhatTheyThink will be covering Connect live for the third year in a row. We recently chatted with Marc Olin, VP/General Manager of EFI’s Commercial Printing Systems, to get a preview of what to expect at this year’s event and to gain his perspective on various other recent industry happenings. WTT: Marc, thanks for speaking with us today. We are looking forward to hearing about the latest and greatest developments in the EFI software business at the upcoming Connect conference. Can you share some of the highlights of what we might expect to see? MO: We are very excited to have as our keynote speaker Captain James Lovell Jr., who has held various commands in the space program, including in the Gemini Mission Program, command module pilot and navigator for the epic six-day journey on Apollo 8 and backup commander to Neil Armstrong for Apollo 11. His fourth and final flight was on the perilous Apollo 13 mission in 1970. We also have a lot of new developments in our core products, with Hagen 8.5 ready for production release by the conference, Logic 22 being shown as a technology demo or beta, and both PSI 11.2 and Printsmith 7.2 being shown as well. It has been our tradition to focus our development efforts on getting new technology out in time for the conference, and to that end, we expect to show continued progress in each of our major product lines at Connect. Also at Connect, we are doing a mini-session for our PrintSmith clients, who told us they wanted an opportunity to focus more specifically on their needs and challenges. A lot of those businesses are small, and we tried to reduce the time commitment for them so that they didn’t need to stay away from their businesses as long. We will also have educational sessions about Best proofing, digital printing, and variable data printing, giving printers exposure to topics other than MIS, so that not only do they gain knowledge inside of the MIS environment, but they also learn about other ways to improve their businesses and achieve business growth. Connect really provides a unique learning environment in the industry. WTT: With Creo being acquired by Kodak, do you expect to see EFI become active in the NGP effort? MO: The more relevant question is, will there be any NGP after the Creo acquisition by Kodak is completed. We never really understood the reason for it in the first place when we are all trying to put our efforts behind the CIP4 coalition. WTT: EFI has done a significant amount of work related to the industry-wide JDF effort. Can you bring us up to date on that work?
WTT: At what point do you see the entire EFI software portfolio being JDF compliant, and how long do you think it will take for JDF implementation to become pervasive within the commercial print sector? MO: As I mentioned, with these releases all of our products will have some JDF compliance within them. JDF compliance is kind of a never-ending process. We will continue to expand and enhance our offerings as the specification is expanded and enhanced. The big inhibitor now is getting more equipment out in the field that is JDF enabled. By drupa 2008, I think there will be more new presses in the field as installed presses age and are replaced. And from a prepress compliance perspective, we will see more critical mass by that time. Of course, the newer digital devices are JDF compliant already and more of them being sold; that will also help make that transition toward a higher level of compliance across the industry. WTT: Udi Arieli has spoken at prior Connect conferences about his Theory of Global Optimization (TGO). Will there be continued emphasis on that topic this time? MO: We are not doing a main session on TGO, but it is our intention at Connect to announce a new program that recognizes customers in the industry that have changed the way they operate their companies based on TGO principles. There are a lot of good examples where our clients have been able to change the way they run their companies with PrintFlow and TGO principles. That story needs to be told more broadly so printers understand that they can take advantage of this printing theory to change the way they run their businesses. WTT: How is Udi’s work being reflected, if at all, in EFI’s software development efforts? MO: While we can’t give specifics yet, you will be seeing more TGO and more PrintFlow technology being included with core MIS systems in the future. There will probably be some announcements at Print 05 about how some of that will take shape. We definitely want to find ways to bring that technology to a broader audience. WTT: EFI’s acquisition of VUTEk is pretty interesting. What new opportunities do you see that acquisition opening up for the software side of EFI’s business? MO: Obviously, there are a lot of printers that are wide format printing companies, some hybrid screen printers and digital, some pure digital. This acquisition gives us another area to focus on for MIS systems. We will probably choose one of our MIS systems and direct it more at that market segment. We also expect that we will be showing some VUTEk products for the first time at Connect. We are very excited to be able to introduce this technology to our commercial print customers as a new revenue opportunity for them. It’s a great opportunity for them to see it up close and personal, since many have not had much exposure to superwide format printing. We hope to print our banners for the conference using VUTEk printers. WTT: I was just curious what the reasoning was in moving Connect from Las Vegas to Florida? MO: We thought it would be nice to have something closer to the East Coast client base, so we figured we would give Miami a shot. We have been in Vegas for the last three years, and we were in Orlando in 2001. The Fontainebleau is an exciting property. It is a very nice place right on the beach, and we think people will enjoy the change of pace— South Beach nightlife instead of Vegas nightlife. WTT: Marc, any other thoughts you would like to share with us before we close? MO: There are a couple things. First, VUTEk is one area of opportunity that we can provide to printers to help them grow their businesses. Secondly, our full range of MIS products continues to see a lot of market adoption and excitement. Printers are adopting PrinterSite Fulfillment, PrinterSite Exchange and PrinterSite Internal to grow their businesses and get into new areas of the business, like fulfillment and using PrinterSite Exchange as a submission tool for accepting digital work, pushing that directly into a digital workflow at their facilities. On a general front for us, we have a number of very big projects we are working on that we hope to be able to announce in advance of Connect, so stay turned for that. There are some very good things happening among our MIS clients that we hope to be able to talk about soon and that will make for some good headlines on WhatTheyThink. WTT: Marc, thanks for your time. I look forward to seeing you at Connect.
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Prior to launching her consulting practice, Ms. Cary Sherburne was the Vice President of Marketing Communications and Outsourcing Solutions at IKON Office Solutions. In that capacity, she developed and implemented a branding campaign to build brand awareness for IKON in the marketplace as well as enhance employee pride in the organization, and was responsible for all internal and external communications, including trade shows and events, corporate newsletters, and industry and press relations. In the outsourcing role, she set strategic objectives and priorities for IKON’s product and services portfolio in its Outsourcing businesses, including development of programs and sales support materials for that environment. Sherburne was a Director at CAP Ventures, an internationally known firm specializing in market research and strategic consulting for the digital document and print on demand industry, before joining IKON, where she launched and managed the company’s Document Outsourcing Consulting Service. Her tenure in the printing and publishing industry has also included sales and marketing positions at Xerox Corporation, Indigo America and Bitstream. She is a frequent speaker at industry events and a recognized author. Cary can be reached via email at cary@sherburneassociates.com, online at www.sherburneassociates.com and by telephone at 603-430-5463.
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May 3, 2005 -- In the second full year since EFI acquired Printcafe and its MIS solution set, the company is preparing for its annual users’ conference, 
MO: The releases I mentioned earlier will all have JDF support in them across all four products, including Fiery connectivity, Hagen and Logic for press and prepress, and PSI will have press connectivity. There is quite a lot on the JDF front in terms of connectivity for all of the MIS systems. We will definitely be showing connectivity at Connect on a Xerox printer that is Fiery enabled. I don’t believe our other equipment vendors are bringing the type of output equipment required to physically show connectivity, but we may run a press simulator. We will definitely be able to illustrate how data travels into the press or prepress environment so people can see the type of information that is exchanged.