News
Back from the Ipex
04 April 2014
The Ipex 2014 was held in London last month, at the Excel. Even this smaller venue was not full. Big names pulled out 18 months ago: Ricoh, Kodak, Heidelberg, Canon, HP, Agfa and Xerox. Two points: the world economy, and particularly that of the UK, looked bleak in 2012; and Ipex 2014 was billed more to cover cross-media options for the print industry. But these brands’ absence was keenly felt, and overall attendance in 2014 was only about half that of 2010, with about half the footfall from overseas.
It was still a great show, and the exhibitors in attendance made the most of their presence in the newly optimistic economic situation. FujiFilm sold a Jet Press 720; Xerox resellers Xeretec made up for their brand’s absence with an exciting stand, and they sold an iGen 150 Press!
The breadth of Web2Print and production workflow systems is impressive. This is an area which has undergone a revolution since Ipex 2010. As well as some 50 stands held by developers of such software systems, there were training sessions throughout the venue. The largest was the World Press Summit. The message of Ipex 2014 was that printers need to adapt to the post-internet world, and remain agile enough to exploit new revenue streams as they come along. Key to this is being prepared to adapt and retrain - and to intensify business relationships with customers and marketing providers to become key partners in their customers’ cross-media marketing efforts. Print remains the only way to communicate quality, and is still the lead item in marketing campaigns. The new ranges of Web2Print systems provide not only the means to design and to produce printed products but also utilize the same design for email and web campaigns – which several of the Web2Print providers also offer, hooking up to “Big Data” providers to deliver one-stop shops for focused multimedia marketing. “Focused” implies short runs with variable data: digital.
Konica Minolta had the defining stand of the whole show. They capitalized on their competitors’ reticence. Their 1200 m² included the KM-1 “B2+” cut sheet inkjet press, which should be in beta testing by the end of 2014. The KM-1 has been jointly designed with Komori, employs a specific UV-cured ink and thus so can print on any paper (up to 0.6 mm) without bleed – and is designed to allow a maximum of maintenance by the operator. The new bizhub PRESS C1100 with its new low-temperature toner will surely become the lead machine in the color press portfolio. They also showed the bizhub PRESS 2250P monochrome SRA3+ digital press (250 ppm) which will be launched in May, the bizhub PRESS C1060/C1070 with its near-offset quality and the new bizhub PRESS C70hc (high chroma) machines – among others. The French company MGI has contracted to provide the Jetvarnish 3DS exclusively to Konica Minolta, and output from this device was one of the main takeaways we saw in the surrounding pubs and on the DLR.
The full breadth of Konica Minolta’s software portfolio was on show and being ably demonstrated. To name but a few: vPress looks set to become the new Web2Print suite, and conforms to the new “less touch” approach. Downstream there is PrintGroove JT Compile and JT Man 5, and the impressive Color Care 2 suite. Other Konica Partners with a substantial presence included VDP providers DirectSmile and PlanetPress.
Oki’s stand was impressive, and the selection of 5-color devices was going down well with the print professionals attending the show. The benefits of low-cost digital printing in white (or clear) have been well understood by printers – and the challenge for Oki is to keep up with demand!
Analyses of the new machines and the software tools on display at Ipex 2014 will be available to subscribers to DataMaster Online in the coming days and weeks. Check out www.Printer-Benchmark.com for more details.
DMO in under 2 minutes
DMO is the Benchmark service for digital printing and document imaging.
From machines to software products we analyze, test and evaluate features and functions, usability, security, productivity, print and scan quality, connectivity, flexibility, compatibility, and much more - all in real-world, business scenarios and in the context of this rapidly evolving market.
Totally independent, we provide you with an objective and critical view.
other news (80)
22 Dec 2014
19 Dec 2014
17 Dec 2014
15 Dec 2014
10 Dec 2014
10 Dec 2014
27 Nov 2014
26 Nov 2014
26 Nov 2014
26 Nov 2014
25 Nov 2014
20 Nov 2014
12 Nov 2014
07 Nov 2014
29 Oct 2014
24 Oct 2014
20 Oct 2014
10 Oct 2014
03 Oct 2014
29 Sep 2014
24 Sep 2014
23 Sep 2014
22 Sep 2014
19 Sep 2014
18 Sep 2014
18 Sep 2014
15 Sep 2014
15 Sep 2014
12 Sep 2014
10 Sep 2014
09 Sep 2014
05 Sep 2014
05 Sep 2014
02 Sep 2014
28 Aug 2014
27 Aug 2014
31 Jul 2014
30 Jul 2014
21 Jul 2014
18 Jul 2014
18 Jul 2014
25 Jun 2014
17 Jun 2014
11 Jun 2014
11 Jun 2014
05 Jun 2014
04 Jun 2014
30 May 2014
26 May 2014
22 May 2014
16 May 2014
12 May 2014
30 Apr 2014
29 Apr 2014
25 Apr 2014
18 Apr 2014
17 Apr 2014
11 Apr 2014
10 Apr 2014
09 Apr 2014
27 Mar 2014
20 Mar 2014
13 Mar 2014
12 Mar 2014
05 Mar 2014
14 Feb 2014
14 Feb 2014
13 Feb 2014
12 Feb 2014
12 Feb 2014
05 Feb 2014
05 Feb 2014
31 Jan 2014
29 Jan 2014
23 Jan 2014
16 Jan 2014
16 Jan 2014
08 Jan 2014