The new high-speed color presses, both inkjet and the toner based Xerox 490/980 Continuous Feed Color System were in the fore at drupa, and were producing a range of interesting samples. We had really excellent newspaper printing on proper newsprint paper from HP, Océ and Screen. Agfa even sold a Dotrix system to a Portuguese newspaper for newspaper printing. We saw good looking transactional print samples, and both Xerox and HP showed great examples of taking the print into a finishing system for adding value with inserting the data into marketing envelopes.

None of these high-speed continuous feed color systems that were available to purchase or would be available within a year, showed anything like real offset quality. Kodak's STREAM Concept Press, a press unlikely to be available in my opinion until at least 2011, (although Kodak is stating 2010), showed the potential of quality comparable to that of most xerographic sheet fed presses.

We saw the start of a new type of digital color press, this being the B2 sheet fed presses. There were three such presses at drupa, two of them from Fujifilm and Dainippon Screen were using inkjet technology, and the third from Hong Kong based Jadason used xerography. The potential quality from these inkjet presses looked good but I am not sure if it matched the best of the xerographic presses. Also only Screen expects to ship within one year, although Jadason is ready to ship. I liked the potential of the Jadason QPress but all these three presses did not appear to be competitive against good xerographic technology presses. This was because of their lack of being able to print duplex automatically, of not being able to run more than one substrate at a time, and having no potential for inline finishing.

So what did we see in xerographic or electrophotgraphic presses. We saw a further move forward in quality and functionality. HP Indigo introduced its 3rd generation of presses with the new HP Indigo 7000, and previews of the new HP Indigo WS6000 label press and HP Indigo W7200 continuous feed press. The new 7000 had number of new features but the main development of this and the other two new engines was a doubling of imaging speed. This makes the new HP Indigo 7000 a real competitor for the Xerox iGen4. Kodak showed enhancements to its Nexpress S3000 to create the S3500 that will print at 120 pages/min that will be available in 2009. There was a great demonstration of the use of the Nexpress fifth print station to print a texture onto the substrate and this was demonstrated with a picture of oranges. The print felt like an orange and I wonder if Kodak will add a six print station to print a smelly toner next. If that was the case I'm sure we would have been eating this print sample! Xeikon's new 8000 press sets the speed standard for offset quality xerographic presses with really good quality at 230 pages/min. This will be challenged next year when the production version of the Xerox Concept 220 using iGen4 engines and the HP Indigo W7200 become available. Xerox's new iGen4 I felt was a significant development as it cleared one of two of the limitations of the iGen3 in printing of certain very high quality jobs. It also showed how to build the press of the future by largely eliminating the need for a skilled operator, or even an ordinary operator.

So was it the inkjet drupa? No not really as other technologies were showing that there are still real alternatives to inkjet particularly if real quality color is needed. There was also the problem that was identified of possible environmental problems with inkjet printed papers where they are seen by some organizations as an ecological dead end as the dyes in water based inks pollute the whole deinking process of recycling paper. I expect that the inkjet suppliers that use aqueous inks will get around this problem. I think however I will go back to my earlier statement in saying that drupa 2012 will be the real inkjet drupa. We will see offset quality printing at speed from a range of inkjet products. We will also see new technology inkjet products, such as Xerox's gel inks, that will open up new markets in industrial printing for inkjet.

So there we are, and may I be the first to make the prediction. 2012 will be the inkjet drupa!

Andrew Tribute
Managing Partner
Attributes Associates