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By Kevin Keane, IAPHC CEO On Incunabula With the 55th celebration of International Printing Week being observed later this month, (January 17-23, 1999) a brief retro look on how far we've come seems appropriate. From the current issue of The New Yorker magazine: "Now that it's possible to buy a book with just a click or two on the net, it's comforting to know that there is at least one shop where you can hold a leather bound Book of Hours, printed in Bruges in 1465, which can be yours for a mere $780,000. This antiquated experience can be had in the hushed chambers of H.P. Kraus, the city's preeminent dealer in rare books....Its proprietor is Mary Ann Folter... Kraus's specialty, Ms. Folter says, while leafing through the pages of a sixteenth century Coverdale Bible ($285,000), is incunabula -- that is, books and manuscripts printed within fifty years of Gutenberg's invention of moveable type.....Finally, she brings out a relative bargain -- illuminated pages, taken from incomplete manuscripts, that start at $150. 'Framed, they make a great detail in any house,' she suggests." If you happen to have an interest in Incunabula, you might want to contact Aaron's Archives in Medina, Ohio, where Joe Davidson, an old friend of many of our members, has collected an incredible array of cigar box labels, Audubon prints, and a treasure trove of Incunabula leaves. The phone number we have is 216-723-7172. Of course, that was then and this is now. On 12-28-98, a member phoned with this poignant query: "Can you define digital for me?" Thanks for the Greeting Cards We saw an item that the number one web page for 'hits' in the month of December, is that of Blue Mountain Cards. We believe it! And we'd like to thank the many members who were so kind as to send electronic greeting cards over the recent holiday season. Your expressions of good cheer were much appreciated. No wonder, as we reported in the last issue of Tuesday Morning News (TMN), that Blue Mountain has filed suit against Microsoft for releasing its newest Internet browser with an automatic default command that reads Blue Mountain's e-cards as junk mail. Print: Prosper or Pullback? Digital or Die? Internet or Implode? We received a press release in Monday's mail regarding some stargazing prognostications offered up at Print Outlook 99 held in December. The PIA's Chief Economist Ronnie Davis predicts "a really good year in 1999" with 4 to 5 per cent revenue growth. Another speaker had some interesting takes on the Internet as it impacts the graphic arts industry. Vinton Cerf, Senior VP for Internet Architecture and Engineering at MCI/WorldCom offered up these nuggets: "There's a distinct possibility in my mind that none of the electronic media we rely on today is going to last very long. Either the medium itself is uncertain or the device for reading it is uncertain." Mr. Cerf thinks that print's permanence assures it a key role in the future. And hence the theme for 1999's International Printing Week: "Concept through Completion: Clear Communication Demands Print." However, the news release also quoted Mr. Cerf's observation that the Internet is having "a notable impact on the way we work." Technology research firm International Data Corporation issued its 4th Internet Predictions Report as the New Year began. Frank Gens, IDC's Senior VP of Internet Research said: "Not having an Internet presence and an Internet commerce strategy is a recipe for market share loss. In the US market, starting in 1999, the virtual market is reality." IDC also forecasts that 1999 will be the year in which women become more than 50 per cent of the online market and that for the first time more than half of all Internet users will live outside the US. Bloomberg Personal Finance magazine weighs in with its own Internet predictions in its January/February 1999 issue: "Business done on the Internet, known generically as e-commerce or e-business, will continue to expand as well." Of greater significance, the magazine quotes Brent Halliburton, president of Group Cortex, an Internet consultancy in Philadelphia: "The real action is in business to business e-commerce, a market expected to be 10 times larger than consumer e-business. Sites like Dell are doing billions of dollars in business, and other sites selling to business users , like VWR Scientific and Staples are growing very, very fast." Since even the most "retail" minded of printers, the quick print shops and Kinko's type of operation have determined that business-to-business is the way to go (as in the Kinko's 'Your Office' ad campaign) it will be interesting to see if there will be successful 'real action' in business-to-business e- commerce printing. By the way, while last year's Bloomberg 100 list of the hot stocks contained three printing related firms, this year's list had only one, Lason, which is a rapidly growing consolidator in the reprographics field. Lason according to its Third Quarter report is "a leading provider of integrated information management services for data and image capture, data management and output processing. Since its founding in 1985, Lason has grown to employ over 4,000 people with operations in 26 states and serves over 3,500 customers. The company currently has 55 multi-functional imaging centers and operates over 90 facility management sites located on customers' premises." The GartnerGroup has also offered some projections on the digital transformation of the printing industry. Among them: Non-digitally enabled printing will approach obsolescence and will eventually disappear, just as the traditional typesetting industry did in the 1970's and 1980's. Factors that enable the advent of digital printing and prepress include true device independent color, cost savings from direct to press digital printing, customer and client acceptance, and obsolescence and replacement of conventional offset presses." Both of these statements have a Gartner assigned probability of 0.8, which means very likely. We have said before that bandwidth will become the commodity of the new millennium. The January 1999 issue of Smart Money magazine opines: "The developing world needs to build up telecommunications services regardless or recent economic plight, Internet and wireless are merging, and the appetite for 'bandwidth' -- or bigger, faster connections --is heavier than ever." Mr. Halliburton chimes in from Philadelphia: with PC prices falling and people around the world starved for Web access, you've got a recipe for explosive growth. And, in an article titled "Beastie Bandwidth," Red Herring magazine interviews lead vocalist Mike 'D' Diamond, of The Beastie Boys in the January 1999 issue: Question: "Would you ever release a CD strictly on the Web, as The Artist Formerly Known as Prince has done?" Answer: "I'd have to say no, because right now there are just too many people who would be excluded from buying it. But in 24 months that could radically change." It is the increasingly rare printer who has not had to deal with accepting an electronic file from a client or becoming adept with PDF. WAM!NET has built an entire business based upon helping the graphics industry (as well as the medical and entertainment industries) to move large files. Can you say Bandwidth is a commodity? Pitney Bowes has created a subsidiary for those customers who are perhaps intimidated by sending files via the ether. Pitney Bowes system is called iSend (go to http://ww1.pb.com/isend/). Pitney uses Adobe Acrobat. The total price is $2.25 to send up to a one MB file, have it encrypted, and get a confirmation. The US Post Office is testing 'Post ECS' (Electronic Courier Services) which aims to make transmissions of files over the Internet more secure. A final comment from Print Outlook 99, this from Andrew Paparozzi, Director of the Economic Research Center at NAPL: "commercial printing is deeply divided between a small minority that succeeds fantastically regardless of how much technology, the labor force, the economy or society's communications practices change, and a large majority that struggles." Digital Press Purveyors... Given some of the above statements, we thought it might be useful to check in with the nice folks at Indigo and Xeikon to see how they have been faring as the pioneers of the digital printing press phenomenon. On 30 December came news that Indigo NV had appointed Rafi Maor as president of the entire firm, and had reorganized the firm's reporting structure. Indigo's website offers its own synopsis of buying in the online world: "Indigo's US and Canadian customers can now order Imaging Products through the World Wide Web. Some of the benefits of this application are: 1) Eliminates the need to fill in a paper form 2) Reduces human errors 3) Eliminates the need to fax forms 4) Reduces errors due to unreadable faxes 5) Reduces order entry error on the Indigo side 6) Gives the ability to see the quote before you order 7) Gives the ability to see the actual total charges, including freight 8) Provides on-line confirmation of your order via e-mail" As we have been reporting to you in the pages of TMN, Indigo's stock price has been trending up a little of late, although it's still around $4.00 a share. Meanwhile Xeikon saw its stock price rise more than 22% on 4 January to an all time high of more than $28. Doing the research for this item brought a couple of interesting things to light about web domain addresses. www.indigo.com is not the company we wanted. Instead, one needs to use www.indigonet.com Similarly, looking up www.printware.com will not take you to the site of the firm that makes Printware Platesetters. To get there one must use http://printwareinc.com Note the absence of www in Printware's web domain address. Digital Graphics Index In our search for insight about the digital printing world we came across an interesting web page sponsored by National Business Media. NBM publishes a series of magazine titles such as Digital Graphics, Screen Graphics and Sign Business, and also plays host to Digital Print 99 coming up in Orlando, Florida, April 8-10, 1999. The page is a periodic updating of 25 public companies comprising NBM's Digital Graphics Index. The page is at www.nbm.com/digitalgraphics/dgfinance.htm Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh My! CNBC's Squawk Box program on 4 January reported that the paper index is up 37% since bottoming in September. We have noticed that the outlook for a number of paper firms seems to be improving in recent weeks. On 24 December Gilman Paper Company, a closely held concern located in St. Mary's, Georgia said it was being eyed for acquisition by several industry giants including International Paper and Georgia Pacific. The intriguing part is that the late owner of the firm, Howard Gilman had left a will requiring that the assets of Gilman be sold and the proceeds be given to a foundation he had created. The foundation in turn will use most of the bequest to benefit a private reserve in Florida that houses zebras, giraffes and gazelles and where medical research takes place. Macworld New Products As no doubt you have been reading, the iMac computer has been a huge winner for Apple Computer with more than 800,000 sold since its August 15th introduction. Apple is said by some analysts to be well positioned for further recovery. Warburg Dillon Read analyst Charlie Wolf said on 5 January that he feels Apple is "perhaps best positioned and most attuned to exploit the growth of the Internet." The 4 January issue of the Wall Street Journal suggested that Apple may be able to do well in Europe as it is starting online stores in six European countries, timed to coincide with all the hoopla over the Euro currency. The huge Macworld show taking place this week in San Francisco has seen numerous new product announcements. Apple cut the retail price on the iMac to $1,199. And some 40 new USB (universal serial bus) devices for the Macintosh line have been introduced in the past two days. Among the notable items of interest to printers everywhere are an adapter for Iomega's Jaz drives called the Jaz USB dongle; and an upgrade for Epson Stylus Pro 5000. "One of the most important goals we have for the EPSON Stylus Pro 5000 is to deliver a higher quality digital simulation of the analog proofing process earlier in the design and prepress workflow. This type of color and print quality along with the new DuPont/Epson Proofing Media and ChromaNet color profiles makes the Stylus Pro 5000 the hottest prepress proofing system available." according to Mark Radogna, professional graphics products, Epson. The Stylus Pro 5000 also has received an EFI Fiery RIP upgrade called Color Wise Pro Tools. By the way, Prudential analyst Alex Henderson said on 28 December that 'The first quarter looks very robust." for Electronics for Imaging (EFI). Other Industry Tidbits On 23 December, Presstek said its sales of Quickmaster printing products to Heidelberg Druckmaschinen AG, which amounts to 80% of overall Presstek revenues, declined by some $35 million in 1998. We went to Presstek's website, but were unable to glean any more insight as to how the firm may try to make up this shortfall in the future. On 30 December, BCT International announced that it had rung up a 55% earnings increase for the first 9 months of fiscal year 1999. The company has also bought back a large chunk of its stock believing that at under $3.00 a share the stock was undervalued in the market. On 4 January, Deluxe Corporation announced that it had completed the sale of Current Social Expressions and PaperDirect to Taylor Corporation on 31 December. In the S & P 500 scorecard for 1998, the worst performing stocks for 1998 were led by two printing related concerns. Harnischfeger Industries which manufactures paper making equipment in its Beloit Division was down 71.2% for the year and IKON Office Solutions Inc's stock price was down 69.6% for the year.
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