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ON DEMAND 2002 Library Back to our main site
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EDITOR's NOTE: Our ON DEMAND coverage has become a reference point for printers and print buyers considering new digital products and services. Below, we have listed free Premium Exclusives. Use the links above to navigate the ON DEMAND coverage - News, Interviews, Research and eXpert Row articles. Please contact customer service with any questions. Free Premium Exclusives See a few show images • CEO Niels Winther is bringing the Heidelberg standard to the digital age. "The expectations of innovation, quality, performance and profitability are something we work hard each day to maintain and grow. We have earned a reputation that goes beyond the clearly tangible benefits of our solutions. It's a standard that never compromises the precision, power and partnership that are essential components of our solutions." • Scitex Digital Printing Reports Success, 10 Minutes with Xerox's Elaine Wilde - BY Noel Ward While the Xerox iGen3 brought a lot of people into the Xerox booth, just down the aisle Scitex Digital Printing (SDP) was also drawing crowds with the announcement of its new VersaMark Vantage press. • Who Will Speak to Your Customers about Value Added Services? BY Bruce Ganger Revenues and profits are leaking away at both ends of manufacturing process. There is minimal distinction between printing suppliers based only on the printing technology they are using. • SPECIAL REPORT: Xeikon and Indigo, Where Are They Now? BY Carole Alexander It's interesting to look at two pioneers, Xeikon and Indigo, almost a decade after they changed the face of printing. Both were small, independent companies, with unique digital color technologies and variable data solutions. • AdBuilderPro: An Internet Solution For Co-op Advertising - BY Paul White With Ad BuilderPro, this problem is solved through a browser based access to corporate images, pre approved ad copy and templates of various formats for diverse print media. The manufacturer stores its high resolution images in the Image Vault database. • Chris Harrold, Mohawk Digital Papers: Digital Printing Through the Eyes of a Paper Company "Mohawk is the only mill offering a full range of premium papers for color digital printing. The mill has carefully selected products that meet the narrow performance limits required by digital presses and then further refined those papers to optimize their print quality, runnability, and reliability." • Variable Digital Printing is Like a Religion: Become a Witness - BY Jim Olsen Our great guru Frank Romano said in his keynote that there are many case studies that the customers simply don't want their printers to disclose. It is obvious that they want to maintain an advantage over their competitors. • T/R Systems, Inc. - A Very Successful OEM Vendor BY Paul White Conspicuously absent at this year's On Demand Show was a T/R Systems booth. A meeting room, located at the rear of the show floor, took the place of the traditional T/R Systems stand. The OEM vendor has significantly changed its marketing strategy during the last few months. • More Takes: NexPress, IBM, iGen3 & Comments from the Show Floor BY Noel Ward The WhatTheyThink show staff was spread a little thin at the show, so I'm sure there are things we missed. But to capture a bit more of the flavor and energy, here are a few short takes from our three days at the Javits Center. • David Dobson of IBM Printing Systems has solutions for a small planet, even printers. David Dobson is General Manager for IBM's Printing Systems division. He is responsible for approximately 4,500 worldwide employees who develop, market and sell these products and services. • Creo, EFI, T/R Systems and Xerox RIP Through ON DEMAND - BY Alex Hamilton With the days of wondering whether or not files would ever make it to the printing engine (almost) behind us, RIP vendors are moving on to other challenges. At the On Demand show in New York, four of the major players -- Creo, EFI, T/R Systems, and Xerox -- all demonstrated their latest wares • The NEW Danka: Revitalized Investment Grade Focus - BY Paul White Danka's new management team was kind enough to host a very informative breakfast for the press at On Demand. Todd Mavis-U.S. Group President and COO and Don Thurman-Chief Growth and Marketing Officer are not only new faces, but purveyors of new ideas and strategies to rejuvenate Danka's business, perception and customer relations. • Davis Marksbury, CEO of Exstream Software explains multi-channel enterprise personalization. "When I say multi-channel - Dialogue must be able to natively build all types of personalized print and electronic documents. Sure, there are lots of tools out there that will convert from one format to another, but many have significant drawbacks--especially in the areas of performance and document integrity." • Can Xerox Sell to Commercial Printers? Elaine Wilde and five of their top sales reps discuss. "One challenge Xerox faces is selling their high-end production printers, like the iGen3, to commercial printers. In some cases, the company is perceived as a competitor by digital printers and for mid to large commercial printers - why would they select Xerox when all their other "iron" is made by MAN Roland, Komori, Heidelberg etc.?" • Paul Peyrebrune, President of Xeikon America, discusses the New Xeikon. "Xeikon America has a strong and successful user base. We can't be specific about the number of users, but I can tell you that each Xeikon press produced an average monthly volume of 195,000 pages in 2001. 30% of these pages contain variable information, which is more than the industry average." • Frank Romano & Bill Lamparter: Is Variable Data a Niche Market? - BY Carole Alexander "Current estimates of the variable data opportunity vary considerably, although there is agreement that it is growing. One question asked is-- if it's so great how come it's not more widely adopted? Another is-- how big is the opportunity, really, and can variable data printing actually become mainstream?" • Quietly Successful: Jeff Allen is VP of Business Development at SMARTworks. "We have over 800 customer installs now, with approximately 65,000 end users. We processed more than 2 million order transactions last year, and it was interesting to see that somewhere between 30% - 40% of those transactions are targeted print on demand applications" • Second Take at On Demand: What do you hear about show attendance? - BY Noel Ward A casual observation is that the show is busy, but this may be deceptive. A lot less of the Javits Center real estate is occupied this year and some aisles seem narrower giving the appearance of a crowded floor. To be sure, some booths are mobbed. • Xerox, NexPress, Scitex Digital Printing & Canon Discuss Color on the Same Stage - BY Carole Alexander This morning's keynote at the On Demand Conference included presentations from four major digital color vendors and opened with Charlie Corr, Group Director, CAP Ventures, commenting that the "market for digital color printing is about to explode." • First Take at On Demand: Same Stuff, Different Show? Not Really - BY Noel Ward As usual, the question of the day is, "What do you see that you like?" This is journalist/analyst talk for 'Did you see anything new or is it SSDS--same stuff, different show?' • More Moments with DocuFrank: The first 200 iGen3 installs will be easy - BY Noel Ward "The first 200 or so are pretty easy," says Steenburgh. "We know who to go to, we've been showing them the product, they're interested. The real issue is building volume. Printers have to get up to a volume that generates profitability. So we've developed a whole range of programs aimed at developing and building business volume." • Doug Evans, CEO and Ivor Durham, CTO discuss Servador's acquisition of Webprint. "Servador skipped the rapid fall off in dot coms because we were flexible, we listened to our customers, and we solved a real set of problems. We will become the leading provider of print management technology and services for Global 2000 companies within the next 2 years." • On Demand Digital Printing and Publishing: Selling it...the right way! BY Rick Lamos "Staring down the throat of all of this opportunity can be exciting to be sure and if there ever has been a time for you to get your Sales Management house in order...now is the time. More than ever the dynamics of this very new and different kind of selling opportunity demands a purposeful, deliberate and coherent "Go-to-Market" sales and marketing strategy." • Lynn Imaging dominates their market for digital printing services. JL Lynn, CEO, explains how. "Digital imaging is a complex business and mistakes can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars or more, so why should a company that manufactures a product assume that they can do digital imaging too? That is like Lynn Imaging going into the manufacturing business. It doesn't make sense." • "Snap" Functionality On and Off by Building a Workflow with Backbone By Carro Ford "With a workflow backbone, users can "snap" functionality on and off as needed, and these tools don't necessarily have to be all from the same vendor. The backbone model might include Doc Sciences or Exstream software for composition or personalization, Sefas products for print stream manipulation, IBM InfoPrint Manager for print management, and Pitney Bowes tools for insertion control." • Nachum "Homi" Shamir - President and Chief Executive Officer, Scitex Digital Printing "When you consider this system price is comparable to NexPress and iGen3, the price per page is less than the cost of color laser printing, and the throughput is three to five times greater, it’s an overwhelming value proposition." • ATTENTION Digital Printers and Vendors: Talk to Us, Not at Us BY Vince Marini "Don't get me wrong here, I think this is the future...I was not trying to be flippant. What worries me, however, is that, if we do not get the proper information from our vendor-partners, we will be unable to move forward and we may miss the parade." • On Demand Expo Preview: Reinvent Yourself! By Paul White "So, since the conference topics are very change centric, how many new bells and whistles will be on display to support this redefinition? What's in store from this year's vendors? Let's look at a very brief perspective of what the exhibitors say about themselves. • Guy Gecht is Chairman and CEO of Electronics For Imaging. "EFI offers software products that appeal to a range of customers. We have solutions for the demanding graphic arts professional, the corporate business environment, and desktop users. We see growing popularity of our Velocity suite and believe the new GA software we just released will be also very successful." • Frank D. Steenburgh, Senior Vice President: General Manager, DocuColor iGen3 Digital Production Press Marketing Operations. "iGen3 presents outstanding flexibility and color predictability, with an emphasis on reliability and productivity. It provides almost 50 percent greater productivity than the competition at an unprecedented value and is unparalleled with respect to the business opportunity it will offer customers." • Large Customers Interested in On Demand Printing and Personalization CAP Ventures asked print customers to rate their interest in a variety of value-added print services. The highest rated service was on demand printing of shorter run jobs that can easily be updated or versioned (3.3, where 5 = extremely interested). Overall, 46% of print customers indicated they were either very or extremely interested in on demand printing. • Business Communications Outlook - 2002 Even B&W Movies Have Been Colorized BY Paul White "With more than 20,000 DocuTech systems distributed throughout the world—eighty five percent surveyed are networked—in both commercial and in-plant corporate reprographic department settings, it made sense to seek opinions from these digital work flow pioneers." • The Art of Selling Value Added Print Services by Getting Personal - Avoiding The 'Lowest Cost' Syndrome BY Paul White "Don’t waste your time selling to a print buyer who only wants to beat you up on price. The person who’s interested in the cost of warehousing is the CFO. Clearly, you must think outside-the–box when selling on demand services." • Don't Do It All at Once: Build Digital Workflow One Step at a Time BY Carro Ford "Companies can go as deeply and quickly into digital workflow as they wish, but many start small and build as they grow. This works because most links in the chain of turning digits into documents are modular, allowing companies to build on their workflow as they acquire the ability and knowledge." • Creating Digital Printing Partnerships: CRM and VIP Go Hand-In-Hand BY Paul White "Savvy print providers should build alliances with customer-focused corporations in their region. These printers can become the outsourcing recipients for corporate print jobs. Corporations, themselves, can handle the IT function, crunch the data and feed the variable information, via the Internet, to the print provider." |
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