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By Kevin Keane, IAPHC CEO Time Delays Several of our loyal readers have inquired where TMN has been hiding. We were out of town last week for an unexpected family funeral; and this week's issue was postponed by an all out, last minute drive for International Gallery entries. There may be Hope for Ink on Paper Yet! Yesterday, Pitney Bowes released the results of a study it had commissioned to survey US households. A rather stunning 92.9 percent of those surveyed said they prefer regular or postal mail to e-mail when receiving bills, bank statements or other financial reports at home. Eighty percent said they consider regular mail more secure than e-mail. 76.5 percent said they prefer new product announcements in regular mail format also. However, lest one become too complacent, we remind readers of the transactional costs cited by Security Bank (a virtual bank owned by the Royal Bank of Canada): $1.07 for a banking customer to transact business at a teller window .54 cents to transact by phone .27 cents to transact at an ATM machine .01 to transact online Ironically, on 27 May, Pitney Bowes announced that it had entered into a software distribution agreement with @Work Technologies, which is a New York based provider of Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment software. The Rankings Long time TMN readers know that we find our material in all kinds of places. The June-July 1999 issue of Minnesota Law and Politics had an instructive listing. In Toronto, practitioners in the legal profession might turn to Bowne for outsourcing of printing and copying needs. In the Twin Cities, the top fifty law firms offered the following recommendations: 1) IKON Document Services 2) Night Owl Legal Copy Specialists 3) Merrill Corporation and Pitney Bowes (tied) Just more proof of our contention that the field of competitors in the graphic arts is changing to include some new and well heeled players. Speaking of Bowne and Toronto and new Players In the last TMN we mentioned a publicly traded firm called Zamba which had moved its annual meeting to the World Wide Web. And we offered the opinion that they would not be the last firm to do so. The very same day, Bowne & Co, Inc announced that its May 27th annual stockholder meeting was to be available via a World Wide Web broadcast. And once more we repeat the mantra of Bowne's mission: "Bowne & Co., Inc., established in 1775, is the global leader in the field of empowering information by combining superior customer service with appropriate new technologies to manage, repurpose, and distribute a client's information to any audience, through any medium, in any language, anywhere in the world." Every printer should tape that statement to the bathroom mirror. That is our future. Meanwhile the Sheraton Centre Hotel in Toronto recently unveiled a special dining concept -- a table-for-one area. The new restaurant includes the usual dining amenities for the solo business traveler plus a variety of tools including access to online connectivity, fax on demand and printing services. Yep, printing services. Your mother always told you to never print while eating. Consolidation Conga Line Forms to the Right Boy, just when you thought they might take a deep breath and absorb the various acquired companies cultures and systems, some of the leading Consolidators took another bite out of the universe of independent commercial printers. On 2 June Consolidated Graphics, Inc., announced it had signed a letter of intent to acquire Apple Graphics in Los Angeles, and the same day Mail-Well, Inc., said it had acquired Forman Lithograph in San Francisco and Avon Behren Printing Co in San Antonio, Texas. And on 3 June, Cunningham Graphics International said it had completed the acquisition of Bengal Graphics in New York City. Pulp flavored Vodka Several months ago we reported to you in TMN, that International Paper had invested $35 million to modernize a paper mill outside Leningrad. Today, International Paper said it had opened the production line at OAO International Paper Svetogorsk. The news release said: "Russia has the world's largest forest reserves, though many of its pulp and paper mills failed to adapt to free market conditions and closed after the abolition of central planning following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The country now mainly exports timber to foreign manufacturers. The new production line will specialize in the standard A4 paper for Russian and foreign markets." We see this as more proof that paper making will continue to grow in regions other than North America. Meanwhile, Milwaukee based Harnischfeger Industries filed for reorganization under the US bankruptcy laws on 7 June. The company makes both mining equipment and paper making machines. One key factor in the filing was a billion dollar order for four paper making machines which Harnischfeger had booked from Asia Pulp and Paper in Singapore just before the Asian Flu became a raging contagion. Asia Pulp and Paper eventually defaulted on $300 million owed for two of the machines. Retailing Rides Rotogravure In late May, Quebecor Printing announced a $45 million expansion of its Toronto based PE&E printing facility which is said to be the only facility in Canada using rotogravure. The investment will include the installation of two 91" wide web rotogravure presses. The company said the expansion is in response to retailers demand for increased page counts in their catalogs and retail inserts, and that rotogravure is a uniquely efficient process for printing four color, long run retail insert and catalog work. Books on Demand Several members sent us blurbs from the Wall Street Journal and Forbes last week detailing the news that Border's, the second largest bookstore chain in the US, had signed a deal to put print-on-demand equipment in Border's retail stores next year. Border's agreement is with Atlanta based Sprout, Inc. If a Border's customer wants a book that the story doesn't carry or have in stock, an employee checks the digital database of titles that Sprout licenses from publishers. If there is a match, then a digital file of the book can be downloaded and printed in the store. Sprout doesn't provide the actual equipment, but there is another start-up called Instabook, based in Gainesville, Florida, which according to Forbes can access a catalog of titles available over the Internet and custom print books in minutes on the Instabook Maker. Victor Celorio, president of Instabook says the cost to buy his machine is $29,000 and he estimates the cost to print, fold and bind a soft cover perfect bound 200 page book at .75 cents. Time elapsed for production? Five minutes. The article in the 1 June 1999 Wall Street Journal said "In one demonstration, the print was sharper and the photos clearer in the Sprout book than in its offset printed counterpart." Industry Tidbits - On 3 June, Agile Enterprise, Inc., a subsidiary of Applied Graphics Technologies (AGT) said it had inked a deal with Compaq Computer Corporation. The deal is a reseller teaming arrangement which will supply newspaper prepress systems in the US, Canada and Mexico. Agile Enterprise newspaper products include complete editorial, pagination and Internet delivery solutions. By the way, the share price of AGT has doubled in recent weeks. - On 1 June, Apple Computer said its line of Power Macintosh G3 machines, which are so popular in the graphic arts, are now available with even faster PowerPC microprocessors at the screaming speeds of 350, 400 and 450 megahertz. - Responding to criticisms that other paper companies have had a hard time running distribution businesses in addition to making paper, Georgia Pacific's top executive, Pete Correll, said on 25 May: "Georgia Pacific is unique in that we run a $4.5 million dollar distribution business in our building products division. Now this deal (the pending acquisition of Unisource Worldwide) is a cost story and we have a proven record of reducing costs in the distribution business --we've done it on our own." - On 3 June, Scitex showed its Pressjet wide format digital press which is aimed at short run lengths (150 copies or less) in the silk screen business. The new press can print on media as wide as 5.4 feet by 12 feet, with 330 dpi. - 30 June is the deadline for a Canadian Federal Government program offering small companies up to $7,000 towards the costs of upgrading computers to conform to Y2K. The 'rebate' is spread out over 3 years. - On 10 June, Indigo NV said it is offering a volume discount plan called Industrial Plus which it says will translate to the lowest cost per label in the digital color printing industry. Indigo's Omnius press has the ability to print pressure sensitive labels, shrink sleeves, and short run labels.
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