With drupa in full swing, we have asked Andy Tribute to provide his commentary each day for our readers. Andy will be attending for fourteen days - May 5 until May 19. So watch this space daily as Andy will break news and provide insightful commentary on all the happenings at drupa. Please offer your feedback to Andy via email: tribute@attributes.co.uk.

Archives: May 6-10 | May 11-15 | Home


May 10, 2004

Happy drupa

Finally after the weekend the weather is improving and the sun has come out. This is where drupa changes and becomes “happy drupa”. Unlike North American events, drupa at Messe Düsseldorf has a major outdoor element. The huge show grounds have a seventeen halls, but also a large outside area. In this area are many seating locations, and a number of outside restaurants. People relax between visits to the halls often sun bathing or sleeping in the reclining chairs. It is Germany and the locals and visitors can enjoy the great German habit of drinking beer. One of the highlights is a German beer restaurant sponsored by Lowenbrau beer. In this traditional German food is served, and people drink the beer out of huge litre sized glasses. The great thing however is the German oompah band with great musicians that plays all day. They play traditional German music, plus other items. Today I thought their rendition of Achy Breaky Heart was fantastic. It is this atmosphere and sense of enjoyment that makes drupa my favorite print show.


EFI's Must See Product

As one goes around drupa one occasionally sees real breakthrough state of the art products. The latest one I saw was from EFI. This is their PrintFlow product. In almost every printer I have been to over many years the key control system is the big white board in the production office. On these every job is displayed with details of status being regularly updated. PrintFlow is a digital version of the white board.

It is not just a display board. It is a superb piece of software to manage all the scheduling, and which allows a printer to see the status of anything and where there are hold-ups in the process. These software tools allow a printer to identify areas of hold-up, and to fully optimize the utilization of every piece of equipment. PrintFlow works with Hagen MIS and will also work with PrintSmith MIS. It is JDF enabled allowing all data for every print job to be entered from an MIS system. I think this is a fantastic product and will make running any print shop much more efficient.


What Can You Believe?

If one listens to certain vendors, Creo in particular, you are advised that if you do not go with thermal CtP you are locking yourself out of the future. This is because the future of CtP is stated by them to be process free plates, and such plates can only be imaged by thermal imaging.

Well it appears that this is yet one more piece of misinformation and hype. I had a discussion yesterday with Fujifilm who have a technology demonstration of their process free plate. They state that it is not imaged by heat but by light, which can be in any spectrum. This plate in the future could be sensitized to operate in the infra red spectrum, which is where thermal operates, or in the UV space, the conventional plate area, or in the violet space where most visible light CtP devices operate..

If we are finding that the information we have received before on process free plates is erroneous, are there other items of information, or misinformation that have been given that we now need to re-analyze?


May 9, 2004

The Holy Grail

In my opinion the best quality in imaging is using internal drum technology. This is a proven fact when you go back to computer to film. In the end every quality system used internal drum. Every external drum CtF system was dropped because the quality could not match internal drum. In CtP, external drum became the standard for VLF and for most 8-up machines. The reason for this was nothing to do with quality. It was just that for thermal imaging you had to have multiple imaging beams in order to get speed, so it became the only solution. I know that Lüscher has an internal drum basis, but those clever Swiss worked out a way to have lots of thermal imaging beams work in a unique way in their device. The holy grail however is a low cost internal drum thermal CtP device.

The holy grail

Well it is here, from AB Dick and Presstek. The key is those awfully clever guys at Presstek have managed to take the output from a thermal diode and squeeze it into a single collumated beam. This is used in the new AB Dick Vector TX52 internal drum platesetter. This uses the very clever thin drum (a drum without a surface) where the plate becomes the drum. This looks like a great product and at $60,000 for a B3 format thermal platesetter delivering press ready plates directly from the unit, its a bargain.

The question is - can Presstek output much more power to image the less sensitive plates that we find with almost every other thermal plate? Most thermal plates are about as sensitive as a house building brick! If that is possible perhaps Presstek may be supplying their new SureFire technology to internal drum CtP vendors to allow them to add thermal imaging as an option to their existing violet based systems.


Low Cost Digital Color

If you want to get an idea of the future of digital colour, a must stop location at drupa is RISO in Hall 3. RISO is traditionally known as a duplicator company for lowish quality, low cost monochrome small format printing. The new HC5000 however is a full color inkjet printer. This is in fact the fastest cut-sheet A3/A4 format single engine color printer in the world, and yet it only cost €35,000. That is faster than a Xerox iGen3, at less than 10% of its price. OK, so the quality is not as good, but for the price and the speed the quality is quite amazing. For that price you get a system that prints duplex, comes with a PostScript controller, and has twin paper trays to allow for continuous operation.

So how does this product work? It is a joint development between RISO and Olympus, the camera people. It uses an array of Toshiba Tec ink jet heads (Xaar technology). These are the same heads used in the Agfa Dotrix The.Factory industrial press. These enable the unit to print at 300 dpi in a single pass mode. Enhanced quality at a lower speed can be at 300 x 600 dpi. The stated cost of printing is given as €0.025/sheet with 20% coverage.

The product is targeted at a market below the Canon, HP Indigo, Xerox markets for digital color. At this purchase price, and at the cost of printing, the demand for this machine is likely to be enornmous. It is currently only available in Japan, but should become available in some other markets late this year.


Rumors

drupa has now been going for a few days, and it is now Sunday. Only 10 more days to go! The press have spent the last few days at press conferences and evening dinners, and are now having to start thinking for themselves. Last night we had a real indication of the financial state of the industry in that there was no evening dinner press event by a vendor. The press actually had to buy there own dinner! Horror! Discussion among the press is now getting to what rumors are being heard. The following are some, and I wonder if there may be any figment of truth in them, or are they totally fictional.

1. The overall profit this year of all the suppliers at drupa added together will be less than the money spent by all the vendors in supporting drupa. If that is true it shows that drupa is a major gamble on the future for these vendors.
2. The recent Heidelberg share sale by RWE is just a irrelevance that will allow the share price to drop further so a large private investor can make a bid for the company to merge it with MAN Roland. This surely is hardly likely considering how many new shareholders have been created who will hold onto shares in the promise of jam tomorrow.
3. Creo has introduced a new waterless process free plate on a polyester base for the Presstek DI market (Heidelberg Quickmaster 46/4 and Ryobi based products). Presstek has in the past taken legal action against any company that tried to invade this business space (Agfa and Heidelberg). Will they now sue Creo, or will it be cheaper to take over Creo based on Creo's depressed share price?

Ok... it is Sunday, and we are getting bored!


May 8, 2004

Kodak - The Vision

I have written a lot about Kodak and their move into digital printing. Some of my comments have been positive, and some perhaps not so positive. One area I have always been positive about has been their acquisition of Scitex Digital Printing. This is now a division of their Commercial Printing Group and is called Kodak Versamark This organization has taken their continuous ink jet technology and built a very successful market leading company in the industrial and transactional printing markets. At drupa Kodak Versamark introduced its latest higher quality color printing technology. While this is not targeted at the same markets as products like Xerox's iGen3, it will open up new markets for the company. In its maximum configuration of an 18 inch wide duplex press it can print 1,400 color pages/minute.

I spoke with Homi Shamir who has run this operation for many years, and is now CEO of Kodak Versamark. This group is without a doubt the jewel in the crown of the 100% Kodak owned digital printing companies. I was intrerested to find out what were the likely directions for the company in future. Much of the future is planned to utilize Kodak's Stream continuous ink jet technology to complement the current and future implementations of the Versamark technology. Homi believes that it will not be possible for drop on demand ink jet printing to challenge continuous ink jet in high productivity markets. (Tell that to Agfa!). He sees that any product to challenge offset, flexo or gravure has to have a running speed of in excess of 150 metres/min. He sees that Stream will allow lower cost presses to come to market, and also sees it will be feasible for building sheet fed presses to fit into future markets for commercial print, but with lower running costs than xerographic technology can operate at.

Homi tells me his engineers are already working with Kodak scientists in looking at how to put Stream into print head production. That does not mean presses coming soon. It may well be up to three years before we see a commercial press using the technology. Homi sees that with this technology to complement the current and future Versamark technology, together with Kodak's financial and managerial backing, that Kodak Versamark has great potential for substantial growth in future. He believes it will be the dominant organization in many areas of industrial, commercial and packaging printing.


The Highlight of drupa

In this industry today there is really very little new innovation. It is largely an industry of continuous improvement. At drupa this is what we are seeing. There are minimal changes in offset presses. CtP is pretty mature, and only process free plates show ongoing development. There is little really new also in digital printing. The most amazing new development is the 3D imaging from HumanEyes.

I first saw this a few months ago and was very impressed with what it could do. Here it is being demonstrated on the KBA stand, but also 3D printing is being shown using this technology on the HP Indigo, Inca, Creo and a few other stands.

Going to HumanEyes is to meet old friends. Gideon Y. Ben-Zvi an early Scitex exec is President and CEO. Yoav Chelouche, the ex CEO of Scitex is Chairman. Benny Landa, founder of Indigo is a shareholder. Danny Hertzka who many of us know from his time in many high-tech companies is doing the evangalizing.

Why am I so excited by this? It is because it adds a new dimension to printing. Potential customers are now asking signage companies like Inca for 3D for the signage and point of sale products. The prospect however goes way beyond printing. It is enabling 3D digital photography for home users, and here HP printers are being used. The real excitement however is in display technology. Imaging 3D in games consoles and how that will change games. Also in personal computer systems. What it needs is a company like Apple to build an updated GUI and imaging engine using the technology. Just image your computer experience of working with a spreadsheet, when the negative, or positive figures jump out of the page at you.

If you are at drupa go to Hall 16 on the KBA stand and have your 3D picture taken with Yoav or one of the other famous industry luminaries.


Long Perfectors

What is the difference between the new Heidelberg Speedmaster 52-8-P-H eight unit perfector press and the Xerox iGen3 digital press shown on the Xerox booth at drupa. Both these presses do very similar things.

1. They both print an oversize B3 sheet in four colours, both sides in one pass.
2. Both presses print high-quality full colour.
3. Both presses are long perfectors.

So what is the difference apart from one prints by offset litho and the other is a digital press?

The difference between these two presses is the Xerox iGen3 is the longer of the two machines (I have not measured the difference in length). The iGen3 being shown by Xerox is the longest digital press Xerox has built. It is as fully configured as is possible with the maximum number of input feed stations; an inline UV coating system; an interposer for inserting extra preprinted sheets plus paper feed stations for this; the module for turning the printed sheets for finishing; and a full inline finishing system for book making.

That shows the other difference between the two presses. The output from the Xerox iGen3 is fully finished, whereas the printed sheets from the Heidelberg Speedmaster still have to wait to go into the bindery for folding, collation, binding and trimming. The iGen3's capabilities are being fully demonstrated in the printing of a superb color book, Echoes in the Ice by Rik van Glintenkamp. This book uses three different papers, including a vellum insert. The book is being given out by Xerox to attendees at a theatre presentation on their stand, in which I am the presenter. This presentation looks at business applications where digital printing is a very successful solution. One of these is in short run book printing.


Espresso - CtP without the Froth!

In the CtP market one product that is creating interest is the new Espresso product from Esko-Graphics. This is a device that images conventional printing plates using a UV lamp light source, rather than using a laser to image special laser imaged CtP plates. In a previous posting I mentioned that Basys Print, the only supplier of such conventional plate commercial CtP products to date, had introduced a new entry level product at drupa.

The Espresso is built like a digital contract frame. The plate is manually loaded and unloaded, and there is a multiple light LED system that comes on when the plate is positioned in all areas, to ensure that the plate is accurately loaded before exposure starts. The output quality I saw looked really excellent with high screen values being achieved.

I had a look at the new Espresso product and was impressed with the unit. It uses as its basis an established hardware product for its operation, this being the Eskoscan copydot scanning product for scanning screened film at high resolution. Esko-Graphics has supplied over 2,000 such scanners so this product is well proven for high accuracy. Onto this engine Esko-Graphics has installed an imaging head comprising a powerful UV light source with a TI Digital Mirror and a lens system. This looks very well engineered. This generates pixels from digital data which are exposed to the plate. The head is moved accurately across the plate in horizontal sweeps in both directions. The floats an accurate defined distance from the plate on an air bearing which compensates for irregularities in the plate surface. The image unit also has redundancy built, in so if any element of the Digital Mirror fails it does not cause any prolem in imaging quality or speed.

There is no final price being quoted, and it is felt that Esko-Graphics are testing out pricing possibilities at drupa to assess what is a suitable price for the product. At present the projected price is well above the price of the PlateDriver Compact violet diode visible light platesetter, as Esko-Graphics feel there is an added value for the product. I have to disagree with this as the product is targeted at companies that so far have not taken up CtP, and a high price would not be acceptable for them. It will be interesting to see what the final price will be.


HP and Quark

In an announcement today HP stated it had an agreement with Quark to cooperate in developing areas of business within the digital printing market. The reason for working with Quark was stated that they had the largest market share in the creative marketplace.

Did HP not see that the ongoing trend is for Quark's loss of market share with XPress to Adobe's InDesign to accelerate? Most system suppliers in publishing that have used Quark in their systems are switching to InDesign. Is the agreement to work with Quark a good idea, or is it a reaction to the close working agreement between Adobe and Xerox in the digital print market? Perhaps HP lacks understanding of the graphic arts market, and an understanding of Quark's poor reputation for ongoing support of its customers.

Perhaps I am showing too much of my past in this response. Now Quark has serious and popular competition, it has improved its support act. Fred Ebrahini, Quark's owner has lessened his hands on control of the company and spends most time away from the office. I also understand that a part of the package taken by HP is an element of software that HP had planned to develop, but which was already available and working from Quark


May 7, 2004

CtP for Conventional Plates

The CtcP market is one in which one company has for a long time been the only real supplier. This company is Basys Print who showed their first products at drupa in 1995. Today they have a range of products for the commercial and newspaper market, and have built a user base in both areas. At drupa they will be joined in this market by a much larger supplier that has better channels to market. This supplier is Esko-Graphics who are announcing their Espresso machine. As yet no proces have been given but indications are that it will be much cheaper than the machines from Basys Print. We still have to find out more about Espresso. So far we know it is a 4-up machine with manual plate handling, that will image 4-up plates at a rate of up to 20 plates/hr. Pricing is stated will be competitive with other 4-page CtP devices. My guess is that probably means around $70,000.

Basys have responded to the challenge and announced an entry level manual load machine of 8-page format with a price around Euro 130,000 and a speed of 8 plates/hr. More expensive than Espresso, but again Espresso is aimed at smaller printers who want a smaller format.

At the same time Basys announced a new higher speed technology for the newspaper market, but still imaging conventional plates using UV lamp technology. This new unit now appears capable of a speed of approaching 150 plates/hr, which is a really attractive speed for newspapers. Pricing is stated to be the same as their earlier machine, despite the 40% plus speed increase. So far working through MAN Roland, Basys has installed around 35 newspaper units, mainly in Europe. If they can enhance distribution in the USA market this product could do really well, as newspapers there are buying purely on plate cost savings, and conventional newspaper plates in the USA are really cheap.


Heidelberg Newco

Today is the first day in the life of a new company called Heidelberg. If you read my drupa Views yesterday, or have read other press information today, you will have heard that RWE, the majority shareholder in Heidelberg is divesting itself of all its shares in Heidelberg and putting them on the open market. Around 30% are being taken up by institutional investors, and the rest hopefully will be taken up by small investors who previously have had little opportunity to invest in Heidelberg.

For Heidelberg it will now be like a new company as they will not have one dominant shareholder, and it should allow them freedom to operate in the way they would like. As I predicted Barnhard Schreier, Heidelberg's Chairman and CEO is highly delighted by this move.

We heard yesterday of Heidelberg's future plans. They no longer have a digital printing operation, and soon will also not have a web printing operation. The concentration is on the sheet fed offset market with associated pre and post press. A new slightly larger format and high performance offset press was announced, which Heidelberg believe will push them ahead of their competitors. There were also developments in the Speedmaster 74 range of mid-size presses. In prepress we saw Heidelberg no longer trusts working with partners to develop its core technologies. It has developed its own laser imaging head for thermal plate imaging, and this is appearing in its new Supersetter CtP range. It was also shown it could be used for on the press imaging (DI), but there are no announced plans for any product. What this shows is that if Heidelberg is to introduce direct to cylinder or equivalent imaging in future, it will not risk working with any other supplier. Its relationships with Creo in particular, and also with Presstek, have made it want to keep everything that is core inhouse.

For shareholders this may be a worrying trend. For growth the only opportunities are in taking market share away from its competitors, as sheet fed offset is not a growing market. The fact Heidelberg no longer wants to partner in growing its business may mean it may have to forego some future opportunities for growth. In the short term however we shall probably see the share price increase as the company goes back into profit as the economy improves, and also by removing the loss making operations. What though are the company's long-term growth prospects?


May 6, 2004

RWE to Sell Heidelberg Shares

I don't like to say I said it first, but I have been saying now for over a year that RWE, the majority shareholder in Heidelberg, was setting up the company for sale. It first of all made the company's three divisions totally separated and self-contained The next stage of this was to get rid of the loss making digital and web offset divisions. That would make sheet fed more saleable. That has largely been done with the help of Kodak and Goss.

Today it was announced that RWE was divesting itself of its share in Heidelberg. 30% of their shares are being taken up by institutional shareholders, many of whom are already major shareholders in the company. The rest will go on the Frankfurt stock market tomorrow, the opening day of drupa.

This will make Heidelberg a public company where there is no one controlling shareholder. That is what Bernhard Schreier, the company's Chairman and CEO, has always wanted. It will give him more control and allow a more flexible operation. With a smaller more controllable company it should allow the company to recover and become profitable again, assuming that is the printing industry continues to recover. It will be interesting to see what price the shares will be when they are offered tomorrow, and what will happen to the shares after that.

What's next for Heidelberg, or can we now expect a more stable operation? I can be sure that Bernhard Schreier is wanting that.


Agfa’s Plates & Proofs

Apart from the obligatory presentation of inter-supplier working via JDF, an area in which Agfa is a key player, I felt the emphasis from Agfa in their preview of what they are showing, was all about plates, upgraded CtP, and wider approaches to color proofing.

First of all great emphasis was made on new plate technologies with their Azura chemistry free plate. Chemistry free and process free are nearly the same thing. The difference is chemistry free requires a small washing type operation before being mounted on press, whereas process free goes straight from the platesetter to the press. Azura looks very interesting for the smaller printer. It will be priced about 25% more than other Agfa thermal CtP plates, but as Agfa said it has added value. The price overall will probably work out the same as normal processed CtP taking into account the price of the processor and chemicals.

In the CtP area Agfa introduced a faster version of its Polaris newspaper CtP device with the new Polaris XTV and XCV models. These will now image of Agfa's newspaper CtP plates (silver & photopolymer) at 260 US broadsheet plates/hr at 1016 dpi. That is almost as fast as the faster newspaper platesetter from Krause. This is done by putting in a higher power 60 mW violet diode laser. Agfa will soon put this laser into every one of its visible light platesetters. This is a trend we will see everywhere soon. Perhaps it will allow other suppliers to introduce their photopolymer plates soon with this extra power.

In the proofing area Agfa enhanced its own Sherpa proofing systems, plus added a range of non-Agfa ink jet print engines from Epson, HP and others to be driven by its SherpaProof RIP. In its own range, the key new product was the Grand SherpaMatic. This is a double sided proofer delivering contract color quality in seven colors on a substrate up to 127 cm (50 inches) wide. This can output a double sided 8-up proof in under 4 minutes. (There is no reason now to get your imposition wrong!)

The real interest was that Agfa now saw it had to drive off-the-shelf engines to get into the wider market area. Will they now be challenging EFI's Best and KPG's Imation products in the creative profing market. That will be interesting to watch.

There were a number of other key areas in other subjects but I may cover these in a more general subject coverage later.


Ink CtP Again

With the possibility of plate making in the future not requiring a plate processor as process free plates arrive, Glunz & Jensen, the Danish film and plate processor supplier is moving into the market to supply a platesetter. At drupa it will introduce the PlateWriter 4200. This is a low cost B2 format platesetter with a price stated to be in the region of $35,000, with the B3 version significantly less. The PlateWriter 4200 uses ink jet technology to print a “Liquid Dot” solution onto an uncoated aluminium plate. Plates are then fed through a finishing unit that dries the plate to bond the dots to the surface, and which then gums the plate. The plate then requires no further processing and it is ready for the press.

This is all very reminiscent of the Pisces JetPlate system. Pisces used a modified Epson ink jet printer, and initially a similar approach to Glunz and Jensen with uncoated plates, but found their solution that was printed onto the uncoated plate was unstable. They then developed an updated solution in which a differently formulated solution was printed onto a conventional coated plate. This when heated had the same effect as applying ultra violet light to the plate. A problem with this was the solution had to be specifically formulated for every different plate on the market.

It will be interesting to see if Glunz & Jensen's approach is more successful than that of Pisces. It will also be interesting to assess whether printers will perceive ink jet quality on the plate to be acceptable with its non conventional screening approaches required because of the lower imaging resolutions of ink jet heads.

It is another fascinating development for the smaller printer. drupa is becoming a very interesting show for smaller printers. Let us hope they turn up to see what is new for them.


SureFire - Is it Really New?

In an announcement yesterday, Presstek ups the level of anticipation at drupa. Its new SureFire technology is stated to set a new standard for low cost chemistry free plate exposure. SureFire is put forward as an unknown technology. We had heard about ProFire Excel, Presstek's high performance laser imaging subsystem that is used in yet to be announced Ryobi D.I. presses and Presstek Dimension CtP engines. SureFire is stated as new and as yet unknown, but it sounds like an entry level thermal imaging subsystem. This is a market opportunity and one wonders if Presstek has developed a technology that will challenge violet diode visible light imaging in the low cost CtP area. In its press release Presstek states SureFire will be shown in a CtP device by an as yet unannounced vendor.

This looks to me to be a wonderful piece of marketing spin in reintroducing an established product that did not get good coverage first time it appeared. If I am not mistaken this is all about the agreement with AB Dick for the Vector 52 B3 (2-page) format platesetter, and the Freedom chemistry free plate. This was announced at GraphExpo in September 2003. The Vector 52 uses lower power thermal laser diodes than the ProFire imaging heads used in the D.I. presses and Dimension platesetters, and the Freedom plate requires only around one third of the imaging power needed for Presstek's Pearl Dry, Anthem and Applause plates. Freedom is stated to be a phase change non-ablative plate, which just requires a water wash (no chemistry) after imaging. The plate is specified for runs up to 25,000 impressions, which is long run for this area of the market.

Nice piece of marketing by Presstek just before drupa but in reality I guess that we should look at AB Dick's stand to see SureFire in operation and launched into the European market.

Archives: May 6-10 | May 11-15 | Home

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Attributes Associates is an internationally oriented consulting company specializing in marketing and technology issues for the printing, publishing and media markets. The Managing Partner of Attributes Associates is Andrew Tribute, who is recognized internationally as one of the world's leading authorities on these industries and subjects.

Attributes' client base comprises a large number of publishers and printers as well as a significant number of industry vendors. In most cases consulting is carried out at high level to assist such organizations in the selection and adoption of technology, or to define ongoing business strategies covering the likely future directions of the markets.

Attributes have been in the forefront of technology changes and market developments from the time it started in 1984. It has been involved in assisting both users and vendors through the changes in these industries since then. This has included desktop publishing; PostScript imaging; changes in working practices in newspaper and magazine publishing; adoption of digital printing and computer to plate imaging in commercial printing; and more recently the impact of the Internet on publishing and printing markets.

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