Boiling down Drupa to a short, sharp summary is no easy task. Wandering the 17 bustling halls of the Messe Düsseldorf, it could be hard to see the forest for the trees, to see the trends for the technology. In some halls, the talk was all about disruptive technology. In others, the rise of the Asian manufacturers. Look again, it seemed the overall trend was one of vendor consolidation.
Putting aside trend spotting, there was one theme that unified Drupa 2012 – optimism. It’s no surprise why. There were tens of thousands of people from all walks of the greater printing population, all under one roof, pulling in one direction. In our day to day, print is a channel under threat: from dwindling advertising budgets, from overcapacity, from new media. But within ‘fortress Düsseldorf’, every visitors and exhibitors was an ambassador for the printed page, determined that it will remain a relevant and viable medium.
How to gauge whether this optimism was real? For suppliers, the measurement was leads and orders. Within days of Drupa’s opening, exhibitors had begun to talk up the success of their presentations. Kodak, one company that needs successes more than many, claimed to have reached 50% of its overall sales target by day four. Major sales announcements from the bright yellow booth included the fourth Prosper 5000XL press bought by 50,000-staff Japanese giant Toppan Printing.
Kodak has already vocally stated that its strategy is to move closer to Asia, where its business is strongest. Kodak staff donned badges on their lapels speaking of the company’s Asian focus. Lois Lebegue, managing director of Kodak Asia Pacific, said the sale to Toppan was a clear example of the way Kodak is getting closer to customers in both mature and developing markets in the region. “It tells me our Asia-Pacific strategy is working,” he said.
The bigger the Drupa booth, the higher the bar for return on investment. One HP customer whispered to ProPrint that the digital manufacturer’s massive presence, the second after Heidelberg, had cost $20 million. It would take a whole lot of Indigo, Scitex and inkjet sales to drive a profit. But there seemed little doubt the US company would hit its targets. The aisles of its stand were overflowing. If one can measure success at Drupa by how many elbows and shoulder barges it takes to cross a stand, HP looked certain to return from Düsseldorf a winner: the centre of Hall 4 was consistently one of the busiest parts of the show.
On day two, HP announced the sale of a whopping 11 of its new B2-format Indigos to US corporation Consolidated Graphics, which has 70 sites across North America and worldwide. HP has made a big talk of its closeness to customers. Consolidated Graphics is part of the manufacturer’s customer panel and had helped steer development of the new, larger-format Indigos, which were one of the big launches at Drupa.
Australians were among those shopping for HP kit at Drupa. John Duplock, managing director of Magnify Media, cracked open the bubbly with the HP team to toast its third Scitex FB 7600.
Secret sales
Did other Aussies sign up for equipment at Drupa? Undoubtedly, but it’s unlikely we’ll ever know exactly how many and what they bought. The low-key nature meant that the locals ProPrint spoke to preferred to keep their acquisitions to themselves. Andy Vels Jensen, managing director of Heidelberg ANZ, said the German vendor had locked in a sale to a local printer early in the show, but they were keeping it under their hat.
The opposite was true of UK-based direct mail powerhouse Anton Group. It has become a trade show tradition for the major Heidelberg user to announce an eye-watering spend on Speedmasters. At Drupa 2008, it was £17 million. At Ipex 2010, they spent £12.6 million. And they didn’t disappoint at Drupa 2012, with £14 million on three new perfectors. We can be sure that Heidelberg chief executive Bernhard Schreier wishes there were more customers like them.
Schreier, who is also chairman of the Drupa 2012 exhibitors advisory board, said: “Overall we are expecting this year’s Drupa to stimulate positive energy for us and for the industry as a whole, and to strengthen confidence in our industry once more.”
So it is clear exhibitors at the 2012 trade fair has had their share of successes – at least from the major vendors ProPrint spoke to – but Drupa isn’t necessarily renowned as a “selling show”. People come to Düsseldorf with an open mind as much as an open chequebook. This explains the evergreen trend to put a label on each year’s Drupa, whether “the JDF Drupa” or the “inkjet Drupa”. What are the big picture trends? Where is technology taking us? What’s next?
Certainly digital is a key trend. But as a number of vendors pointed out, it remains just 2% of the overall market, with 98% of work still produced conventionally.
For the months leading up to this trade show, the clear favourite was for a “B2 digital” theme to the exhibition. When the gates opened, sure enough there was a multitude of machines on display to offer short-runs and variable data across a larger sheet size.
With so many vendors having poured millions, perhaps billions, into R&D and marketing, you can be sure they wanted the “B2 digital Drupa” tagline to hang over the show. But all this pre-show hype was sidelined by our industry’s own Steve Jobs, Indigo creator Benny Landa.
Walking the aisles, his name was on everyone’s lips. Benny and his incredible “nanography”. The manufacturer was showing B3, B2 and B1 sheetfed perfecting presses that operate at up to 11,000 sheets per hour. The queues for the daily presentations at the Landa booth were more like a movie premier, people lined up to clap eyes on the space-age presses, with their soft curves and giant touchscreen displays occupying the entire façade of each machine. “Smaller is better with nanography but bigger is better with the interface,” said Landa.
An operator will be able to sift through the production schedule as easily as flicking between album cover in iTunes. Landa expects one handler to be able to run four machines.
Another touch of genius is the ink containers: the barrels are made from flexible plastic that is also recyclable: as the ink drains during production, the vessel concertinas into a flat disc that can be thrown in with the plastic recycling. So far, so environmental, but Landa did admit there could be questions marks over de-inkability of print produced by nanography, a problem that still exists in his previous invention, Indigo, as well as inkjet. But he claimed: “Because our ink is on the surface of the paper, it will be immeasurably easier [to de-ink] than with inkjet.”
He readily admitted the technology is not ready. But he said to expect a tried-and-tested commercial product when the presses do start to ship. Landa said he had learned a hard lesson in the early days of Indigo, launching too early and taking a battering from the market when the presses didn’t live up to the hype. “We put Indigos out too early. I try not to make the same mistake twice. There are enough new ones I will make,” said Landa in self-deprecating fashion.
But such is the confidence the industry has in Landa that his firm was filling up its order book with ‘letters of intent’ from customers keen on the first shipment of machines. (ProPrint is told that when speculative buyers met with Landa reps to sign the letters of intent, there was a $10,000 down payment to be made before the price would even be discussed.)
Some of the biggest manufacturers in the industry have also put their considerable weight behind nanography. Over the first three days of Drupa, three announcements came out of the Landa camp, revealing that first Komori, then Manroland Sheetfed and finally Heidelberg had all signed strategic alliances to license the Landa technology.
Landa said he wants to make nanography the industry standard. He drew a comparison to the evolution of electrophotographic printing. For years, Xerox had exclusivity, he said, and this limited the spread of toner-based technology. It was only after the likes of Konica Minolta and Canon began producing machines that the market ramped up, creating competition but also winning widespread acceptance of toner.
Of course, it is not a philanthropic exercise. NanoInk, which is the real breakthrough in nanography, will remain a patented Landa technology, manufactured by his company and sold to partners and end users. That’s where the real money is.
Offset process
Why did three offset manufacturers become the first to shake on deal with Landa? There were a number of theories being thrown around at Drupa. Nanography is essentially an offset printing process, with an image sprayed onto a blanket using inkjet-style array
then transferred to the substrate. It would make sense for offset manufacturers to combine their decades of experience with high-speed paper handling with the Landa printing heads and NanoInk.
This combination of offset paper handling with inkjet printing is behind the partnership between Konica Minolta and Komori. At the Konica Minolta booth, visitors could see the Japanese firm’s first own-brand inkjet machine, the KM-1. The concept device is meant to create “a revolution”, according to Akiyoshi Ohno, the self-proclaimed “Mr Inkjet” of Konica Minolta.
The KM-1 was joined at Drupa by a host of other B2 devices. On the inkjet side, there were also other concept presses from Miyakoshi and KBA, while Fujifilm and Screen were showing commercial machines ready to be ordered. There are also the HP 10000, 20000 and 30000, which use the vendor’s ElectroInk (another Landa invention) as well as the Xeikon’s stab at B2 using toner technology.
There were also large-format digital presses from lesser-known manufacturers. Up until now, Switzerland-based Graph-Tech had been a behind-the scenes firm that built inkjet heads for other manufacturers, but at Drupa it showed off its own press, the MonoCube 1505D. Meanwhile, Hong Kong-based Jadason was demonstrating the QPress, a B2-format press that produced 20 sheets – the equivalent of 100 A4 pages – per minute.
But with so many concept machines on show, there’s a risk that analysis paralysis will stymie investment as printers sit in their hands rather than back a certain platform. This was the view from two of the industry’s great brains, Frank Romano and Andy Tribute.
Tribute said he thought the vast array of “concept” technology at Drupa could put the brake on investment as printers play the waiting game. He was particularly critical of manufacturers who showed machines early in their development then failed to deliver a product to the market quickly enough. “If you are going to introduce a product at Drupa, make sure it is ready by the next Drupa,” said Tribute.
Romano did not think nanography would fall into this camp. “Benny would not have put up so much of his own money if he didn’t think he had something.”
More disruption
With all the talk of Benny Landa and nanography, visitors could be forgiven for forgetting about the other potentially disruptive inkjet-based technology at Drupa 2012.
Memjet isn’t a new technology. A number of devices have cropped up over the past few years that utilise its proprietary Waterfall print head technology, which promises photorealistic quality at blistering speed. But considering its promise of lightning-fast printing of the highest quality, commercial products have been few and far between, leading some to suggest Memjet had failed to live up to the initial hype.
According to Memjet president and chief executive Len Lauer, any doubters were just being impatient. He said Memjet has finally broken through to the mainstream at Drupa 2012, calling the exhibition a “coming of age” for the San Diego-based company.
Major digital printing market leaders have thrown their considerable weight behind Memjet. Drupa 2012 was the first time the market heard about these top-level relationships. They don’t come much bigger than Canon-Océ and Fuji Xerox, both of which were showing wide-format devices based around Memjet printheads.
At the Canon stand, visitors clapped their eyes on ‘Project Velocity’. This machine combines Memjet inkjet heads with an Océ chassis and workflow to create a large-format device that churns out up to 500 A0-format colour prints per hour. Or, as Canon describes it, “it can print the equivalent height of the Eiffel Tower in half an hour”.
At the Caldera stand, visitors were being given a sneak peek at a Memjet device co-developed with Fuji Xerox. Printers in Asia-Pacific will be the first to get their hands on the machine when it starts commercial shipments “at a future date to be determined”, according to Fuji Xerox.
There’s an argument that our industry is too obsessed with newer, faster presses, when in fact investments in new software systems or finishing could provide a better business boost without breaking the bank. For instance, Xerox was showing a new digital finishing sheet feeder from CP Bourg that can automatically switch between online and offline operation.
On the software side, the halls were packed with developers whose hoped to lure in printers with new systems that promise increased brainpower rather than production brawn.
By all measures
Did Drupa 2012 tick all the right boxes? New technology? Tick. Show sales? Tick. And what about optimism, the other barometer by which to measure such a major event?
Print faces two enemies: the cyclical fluxes of the economy and the structural changes in the way people consume media. The anxiety about new media is a real fear, one that spans the globe. Many exhibitors at Drupa had taken an “if you can’t beat the, join them” view to the internet age. For instance, ProPrint got an audience with the two men heading up Pitney Bowes Volly digital mailbox business, who revealed that their recent deal with Australia Post is “the biggest of its kind anywhere in the world”.
Guy Gecht, chief executive of EFI, said the threat is not all-encompassing. He used his press conference to talk about the shifting window of opportunity.
“The people who do not renew themselves or transform themselves are dying or getting left behind, but if you are in the window of opportunity, you are doing quite well,” he said.
“Every industry goes through transformation. The window is shifting. As long as you continue to figure out where the window is moving, you continue to prosper,” said Gecht, who illustrated the plight of print by drawing drew comparisons with other industries.
Follow prosperity
He pointed out how the music industry went from gramophones to cassettes to Walkmans to Discmans then mp3 players. “In the music industry, if you sell Walkmans, not that many people are buying them. But if you move to digital, you are in the prosperity area. Just ask Apple.”
He added: “The music industry is only one tenth the size of printing. So when we talk transformation, the opportunity is 10 times bigger with our industry.”
The internet offers another example, said Gecht. The winners and losers have changed as the window shifted, from AOL to Netscape, from Yahoo to Google and now Facebook and social networking.
“Online advertising, the market that feeds Google, Facebook and the rest, is one-eighth the size of our industry. If you think about the great opportunities people have there, remember that they are eight times bigger in our industry.”
Xerox chief executive Ursula Burns claimed there have never been more opportunities for smart operators. She told an auditorium packed with customers, including many from Australia: “Times are tough and this is one of the best times to differentiate yourself. Weak players will fall by the wayside.”
If you ask the star of Drupa 2012, Benny Landa, he would agree that the industry remains full of opportunities. “One day printed paper will be replaced by digital media. But that will not happen for many decades,” said Landa.
He stressed that even the most foresighted of us should focus on the horizon, which is they next 20 years. “If I believed digital media would take over from print in our lifetimes, why would I be here? Those who are depressed that iPads will take over from paper are looking too far over the horizon.”
VOX POP #1
FRED SOAR, SOAR PRINTING, NEW ZEALAND
Which years have you been to Drupa?
This is my third: I also came in 2004 and 2008.
What was your biggest investment due to Drupa?
I ordered my first Indigo eight years ago at Drupa and ordered a Heidelberg Anicolor at the last Drupa.
What are you looking at this year?
Heidelberg XL 75 and a HP Indigo 10000.
Seen anything particularly interesting so far?
The nano print technology from Benny Landa and label presses from Indigo.
Are you doing anything else while you are in Europe?
I have been on the Top Tech Tour with Heidelberg across Germany.
What is your top tip?
Plan where you go before you start walking. And get home before midnight!
VOX POP #2
GAVIN ALLEN, CRYSTAL MEDIA, BRISBANE
Which years have you been to Drupa?
2000, 2008 and 2012.
What was your biggest investment due to Drupa?
I don’t think we’ve ever made a big investment at Drupa. I use it more for fact-finding and to see trends in the printing industry.
What are you looking at this year?
I’m looking at anything that’s digital. If you think digital isn’t the future, you’re kidding yourself.
Have you seen anything particularly interesting so far?
Not yet, but I’m planning to look at Canon-Océ, Landa’s nano and Epson.
Are you doing anything else while you’re in Europe?
I’m only over for four days so there’s not enough time to do anything else.
What’s your top tip?
Don’t go too hard too early.
VOX POP #3
TOM TJANARIA, NEXT PRINTING, SYDNEY
Which years have you been to Drupa?
This is my second. I also came in 2004.
What was your biggest investment due to Drupa?
In 2004, I bought an EFI wide-format machine, which we saw on the internet and came over to look at.
What are you looking at this year?
Technology for textiles and soft signage.
Have you seen anything particularly interesting so far?
The Indigo 10000 and Landa.
Are you doing anything else while you’re in Europe?
No – just Drupa.
What’s your top tip?
Stay in Düsseldorf, not outside.
VOX POP #4
MICHAEL WARSHALL, PICPRESS, MELBOURNE
Which years have you been to Drupa?
This is my first.
What was your biggest investment due to Drupa?
At this stage, nothing.
What are you looking at this year?
I had no idea what to expect, so looking at everything, especially digital printing and finishing.
Have you seen anything particularly interesting so far?
New HP presses and the Scodix digital embellishing technology.
Are you doing anything else while you’re in Europe?
Going to Italy after this to see my new Lamborghini at the factory. Then going to Russia – I haven’t been back since I came over to Australia 50 years ago.
What’s your top tip?
Wear soft shoes.
VOX POP #5
MARK CAMPBELL, INDEPENDENT PRINTERS WORLDWIDE
Which years have you been to Drupa?
This is my first.
What was your biggest investment due to Drupa?
Nothing – I’m not here to buy.
What are you looking at this year?
Workflow automation and integration, especially Kodak and EFI and integration between the two.
Have you seen anything particularly interesting so far?
Landa technology. Nano printing is fantastic!
Are you doing anything else while you’re in Europe?
Italy. Holidaying on the Amalfi coast. I’ve already been there and going back for a week. My family is still there.
What’s your top tip?
The pork knuckle in the Altstadt (Old City).
VOX POP #6
JOHN DUPLOCK, MAGNIFY MEDIA, MELBOURNE
Which years have you been to drupa?
This is my second. I was also here in 2004.
What was your biggest investment due to Drupa?
I saw the Turbojet in 2004, made my decision, then bought it at Ipex 2006.
What are you looking at?
Everything! We just put in another HP Scitex 7600, so we’re more looking at the back-end, such as forme cutting.
Have you seen anything particularly interesting yet?
Not yet but I haven’t been here long.
Are you doing anything else while you’re in Europe?
I’ve been at Dscoop, the HP user group conference in Bonn. I’ve toured Cologne and sampled the Düsseldorf nightlife.
What’s your top tip?
Push the boundaries.
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