“Our goal is to have the same strength in colour as we have had in monochrome,” says Océ director of business development, inkjet technology, Robert Köckeis. “We want to be market leader in the long term, but initially we want 25% of the market.”

Köckeis is conscious that the switch to colour could be disruptive, and there are no guarantees that clients will stay loyal. “Anyone with kit won’t automatically go back to existing suppliers. They will look at the whole market to see what best fits their needs.”

That’s one of the reasons why the JetStream range is unrivalled in the diversity of its configurations, speeds and price points using a single technology platform and offering full field upgradability.

The range is designed to support monthly page volumes from 4.8m to 80m depending on the hardware installed. It begins with the 750, a 100m-per-minute single-engined machine that can produce one-up duplex or two-up simplex work.

If there is a need for higher productivity, users have the choice of adding a second printing engine to form the JetStream 1500 or 2200, which print at 100m and 150m per minute respectively. Océ has also announced plans to introduce the 300m-per-minute 3000 and 3100 models over the next two years.

Image quality
The ink droplet size affects image quality and currently the JetStream machines offer user-selectable fixed droplet sizes between seven and 12 picolitres, which allows spot size to be optimised to stock type.

However, a forthcoming software and firmware upgrade will offer variable spot size within a job, which Océ claims, pushes the quality even closer to offset. Ink and paper stock also influence image quality and the JetStream has the option of either dye or pigment inks depending on application. So far, most users have opted for the cheaper dye inks, which deliver the highest quality results if used with special stocks, whereas the pricier pigment inks offer greater paper flexibility.

The JetStream stands out as the only machine, so far, with an optional fifth colour, which can be used for MICR inks or spot colours. This valuable option will be available in early 2009.

When it comes to inkjet it is important to consider their recyclability. As Köckeis says, “De-inking is a political issue, not a practical one. However, if we needed to use a coating to enable de-inking we could use the fifth channel for that.”

Environmental concerns
Power consumption is another environmental consideration that is becoming a more important factor in purchasing decisions. “Competitors claim our machine has a high power requirement,” says Köckeis. “They are only considering the power rating and forgetting that we can produce more pages in less time, which means less power per page. A fair measure is power consumed per million pages.”

Because of this, the firm is working on its figures in these terms, which are becoming a common measure and will help companies to assess carbon footprints for printed products in the future.

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