The deal for Manroland to sell the JetStream and the recently launched ColorStream 3500 machines is the first part in a three-part alliance.

The other two elements are joint research and development for future high-volume digital products and multi-disciplinary teams to support the sales operations.

"Drupa 2008 was a wake-up for offset manufacturers," said Océ senior vice president for communications Jan Hol. "If you are a commercial printer you need both offset and digital technologies. Any future investment has to be future proofed."

The deal, which was announced last week, is restricted to Océ’s high-volume continuous feed inkjet machines, with no plans for Manroland to sell any other Océ products, or those from its parent company Canon.

Machines will be sold under the Océ brand.

One area of development and collaboration that the companies confirmed was that Manroland would develop folders for the Océ machines.

"Manroland has expertise in highly productive offset systems as well as corresponding post-processing and finishing systems," said Manroland vice president of marketing Thomas Hauser.

Manroland will continue the development of an inkjet system for its newspaper presses with Kodak.

"There is no collision of interests," said Manroland’s Hauser. "With Kodak we developed an application, the Integrated Inkjet printing system. The agreement with Océ addresses a strategic cooperation in marketing, sales and service of industrial inkjet printing technology."

Meanwhile, Australia's first Jetstream 2200 arrived this week at Salmat's new Victorian operation in Ravenhall.

Salmat announced in September that it had ordered two of the high-speed inkjet machines. The second is due to arrive in January for installation at its Sydney plant. 

Read the original article at www.printweek.com.

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