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By Kevin Keane, IAPHC CEO More on Sheepskins "Thanks as always for the TMN. With regard to the comments on the origin and evolution of books, you might like to try 'A History of Reading' by Alberto Manguel. He mentions that the number of times the skin was folded when making the book gave us the sizes quarto, octavo etc. Regards from Paris." Peter Herman of Sinapse in an e-mail from Paris, France dated 18 March, referring to the lead item in last week's Tuesday Morning News (TMN)-- 'In Paddy's Time.' Kodak plus Heidelberg equals NexPress In the last several issues of TMN, we have been following the saga of Eastman Kodak's copier business. In a rather anticlimactic announcement on 17 March the deal was finally done with Heidelberger Drucksmachinen AG acquiring Kodak's digital printer, copier-duplicator and roller assembly operations. The reports in the Rochester, New York Democrat and Chronicle on 16 March actually got the name of the new digital copier wrong. The correct name is the DigiSource 9110. According to the Kodak news release, the 110 copy a minute machine is designed to support both centralized printing and print-for-pay environments with on-demand printing and duplication. A very notable aspect is that the new copier/printer has a web browser based interface, which means that the DigiSource 9110 can print from stored files, the Internet, an Intranet or from data processing streams. Those last few statements are worth some contemplation. Long time readers of TMN will recall that industry consultant Terry Nagi said after IPEX '98 in Birmingham, England last autumn, that Xerox had become the second most dominant printing press vendor, trailing only the redoubtable Heidelberg. As we have been talking about in this space, Xerox is very well versed in providing printing solutions to the enterprise world, those firms with massive data dumps that need high speed duplication solutions. And of course, in recent years we have seen more and more traditional printers also employ Xerox hardware. The good folks at Heidelberg have embarked upon a single source of supply strategy which means they market solutions in the prepress, press and postpress areas. In a nutshell, Heidelberg is an omnipresent vendor in the print-for-pay segment, i.e., commercial printing. But heretofore, they haven't been involved in the enterprise world. Now, with the addition of the DigiSource 9110 they are, almost overnite, able to sell into that market, which the Kodak news release calls 'centralized printing from data processing streams.' On 19 March, the Gartner Group offered its analysis of what this transaction really signifies: "... real impact lies in the changes to NexPress, which was formed (as a joint venture between Eastman Kodak and Heidelberger) to develop and market digital color-printing offerings for the graphic arts industry. NexPress will now become a developer and supplier of color high speed printers as well as black and white copier-duplicators and printers..... Contrary to expectations, the announcement does not say that Kodak will exit the imaging business. It lists the Office Imaging unit's operations that Heidelberger will buy, but says nothing about Kodak's intellectual capital." Where does Danka Business Systems fit into the this mix? Importantly, Danka will not have an exclusive to sell the DigiSource9110. In last week's TMN, we reported the news that the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle had speculated on 12 March that Danka would sell its facilities management (or outsourcing) business called Danka Services International (DSI) to Xerox. However, yesterday, 22 March, Danka said it had entered into a non binding letter of intent under which Danka will sell DSI to Schroder Ventures which is reputed to be one of the world's leading private equity providers with $3.5 billion of funds under management. Whatever happens with Danka, the news of the addition of the DigiSource 9110 to the NexPress product line means that the anticipated introduction of the NexPress digital color press at Drupa 2000 in May of that year (May 18 - 31, 2000) becomes even more intriguing. The Scene at CeBit, (A R.O.O.M with a View) Speaking of trade shows and Heidelberg, there were several announcements of interest at CeBit, the big technology fair for office and home that winds up in Hannover, Germany tomorrow. One) First off, we had mentioned in TMN a few weeks ago that Heidelberg was apparently going to be changing the name plate on the Quickmaster line of presses to Printmaster. CeBit is the first time we have seen confirmation. In Hannover, the Printmaster QM46 was being shown as a digital solution for quick printers. Go to www.heidelberg.com/printmaster Two) Also oriented towards the smaller print shop was the CeBit unveiling of a new offering from the Heidelberg Prepress Business Unit. The ColorFlash 731 is a new hardware and software module of the Delta Technology RIP system which can fully integrate a color copier into the R.O.O.M concept (Rip Once, Output Many). According to Heidelberg this allows one to use a color copier as a digital in-house alternative to the printing press for preliminary or small production runs of high quality prints. ColorFlash supports the Canon CLC 1000, 1000S and 2400. 3!!!) Our reports on news from IPEX '98 last autumn caused one reader to comment: "The other thing that was rampant at IPEX, that I didn't see mentioned in the TMN was the amount of CIP3 activity. Everyone is getting onto this bandwagon, and it will be a big factor in increasing productivity in the next few years." An e-mail of 30 September from John Berthelsen of Suttle Press in Madison, Wisconsin. In the 1999 GATF Technology Forecast, Dr. Daniel Wilson, Assistant Professor of Printing and Publishing Technology at Penn State University wrote: "The fruits of CIP3 (Consortium for the Integration of Prepress, Press and Postpress) have yet to impact the sheetfed printing market. The idea behind CIP3 is to develop standards to link prepress, press and finishing operations by embedding job specifications via CIP3's Print Production Format (PPF) into the digital prepress file.....Most buyers of printing equipment are not looking to replace their entire equipment line, so it may be some time before an impact by CIP3 is made. However, the automation of the printing process with such standards will certainly take hold within the next ten years." At CeBit, Heidelberg says it became the first manufacturer to show CIP3 PPF running live. Heidelberg along with its sister enterprise Polar-Mohr were able to showcase the entire digital workflow -- digital imposition in prepress, automatic ink zone presetting for the press and fully automatic cutter setup for the postpress department. The CIP3 consortium was founded under the aegis of the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology and Automation in Stuttgart, Germany. Dr. Hans-Jorg Bullinger is the head of the Institute: "Scientists at our institute have developed a model for 'dual track production.' The model presupposes that most printing companies will still be using film as well as digital data beyond the year 2000, at least as a backup in the event the CTP system should fail unexpectedly." A reader of last week's edition of TMN called us to say we had really hammered loud and long on digital issues. We suspect we will continue to do so. Digital is not going away. Is Magnetic Ink losing its Magic? Many years ago, this writer presented a marketing seminar at which one attendee indicated he was employed by Universal Pensions Inc., in Brainerd, Minnesota. Turns out the firm had a large in-plant shop and which later became a full service commercial printing facility. And a good one. Last January, the same man was in an audience of award winning printing professionals at the Central Minnesota Club's Gallery of Superb Printing Banquet, at which this writer was the guest speaker. On 17 March, Universal Pensions announced that it had formed a strategic alliance with Jack Henry and Associates which allows Jack Henry's customers to print the forms required to open deposit, lending or individual retirement accounts. In other words, the printer who used to print these forms just lost a portion of their business to end customers of Jack Henry who will now print on demand, in quantities of as little as one, the particular form needed. Jack Henry is a purveyor of hardware and software solutions for banks. In a related vein, we ran across an interview published on 17 March with the CEO of Bottomline Technologies, Mr. Daniel McGurl. His company focuses on enterprise payments and electronic commerce. "The real big thing we're very excited about right now is the opportunity to transition our customers from the inefficient (printed) paper check system which dominates the payment structure in the United States today, to the more efficient electronic payment technologies.....you have about 9 out of 10 payments made today, are still made by check. And, there are about 70 billion payment transactions at the enterprise level today." The US Federal Reserve has contracted with Bottomline Technologies to develop software for up to 12,000 banks, to improve their facility to handle electronic payments. McGurl also said: "Canada is the first market where we're having good success..... We have a business partner there, which is Moore Corporation. It used to be known as Moore Business Forms." Yet another solutions provider to the financial services industry, NCR Systemedia Group, a subsidiary of NCR Corporation, was in the news yesterday, 22 March: NCR and Master Graphics announced the formation of a partnership that will enable their customers to consolidate their supplier base and cut costs while boosting the quality of their printing. The alliance combines NCR's expertise in media and document management and Master Graphics expertise in commercial printing to provide a seamless printing solution for the end customer. As we noted in last week's Tuesday Morning News, several of the firms in the Master Graphics group of companies including Woods Lithographics in Phoenix, Arizona and The Printing Company and White Arts, Inc., in Indianapolis, Indiana, have exhibited their world class printing ability through their entries in the International Gallery of Superb Printing. Other Industry Tidbits Reality check? A leprechaun we know recently marked a birthday. What is worth chewing on, is the fact that the ancient one received more electronic greeting cards than printed greeting cards. Master Graphics announced on 23 March that it had acquired Columbia Graphics Corporation in Chicago, Illinois, a well established high quality commercial printer with annual sales of $28 million. Master Graphics has now put together a network of 19 highly regarded printing firms with projected combined annual sales of more than $290 million. Yo-Yo's. We heard on CNBC on 19 March that Adobe Systems, Inc., saw its stock price hit a 39 month high. Meanwhile, Consolidated Graphics, Inc., which hit a high of $74 a share in mid-January has slumped to under $46. On 19 March, Xerox Engineering Systems, introduced a new entry level digital engineering copier. The ACE market (architects, contractors and engineers) is one with a tremendous amount of printing needs, but one little targeted by traditional printers. The use of an engineering copier to gain entry to the ACE market isn't a bad move. In an unrelated announcement, Xerox said that it has brought to market an improved color transparency film for the DocuColor 40 digital color copier. The new films run at a speed of 15 cpm. James Lesko of Xerox Supplies Group said: "Running color transparencies on the DocuColor 40 is now second only to plain paper in popularity, and analysts believe that the color transparency market will grow by 70 percent through 2001." We had mentioned in the last TMN that Applied Graphics Technologies in New York had trumped the offer of Schawk, Inc., located in the Chicago suburb of Des Plaines to acquire Wace Group, Plc., the digital imaging services firm based in Britain. Now, as of 17 March, Schawk has raised the ante again. It is unclear whether AGT will offer a still higher premium for Wace.
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