Will Heidelberg’s big gamble pay off?

Plenz explained that Heidelberg separates the digital market into five segments: office printers (largely irrelevant from a graphic arts point-of-view); entry-level machines in the 60ppm realm (also more relevant for the office, said Plenz, along with some tasks such as proofing); value devices producing 80-90ppm (such as the C901 of global partner Ricoh and the Bizhub C8000 of local ally Konica); higher quality performance machines such as the HP Indigo 7000 and Xerox iGen4 in the 120ppm bracket; and high-volume inkjet products rated at more than 250ppm.

While Heidelberg already has a finger in the inkjet pie through its LinoPrint venture, this is very much a niche business and not a fit for the majority of Heidel­berg’s customers in the commercial print space. Plenz freely admitted that when the offset giant first began revisiting digital, expectations automatically gravitated towards that ‘performance’ space.

“It seemed obvious that these perform­ance machines have the biggest footprint in our market and they produce most of the stuff, so we have to go for that,” he said. But when Heidelberg went back to the drawing board and analysed the short-run work mix of its core customers, a different picture emerged (more later).