March is the traditional month of Océ's Open House, the company's annual exhibition of all things new at its centre in Poing, near Munich in Germany. But not this year.
Times are tough, but Océ nonetheless was keen to alert the international graphics industry that its R&D division had addressed a number of issues in technology streams, speed to market, and its role in the broad print market.
The Home of Color event in late March was an invitation only affair for present and potential customers, who were escorted through a series of presentations for a day, in regional groupings. During the week, visitors from Europe, the UK, the USA and Asia were guided through a stepped programme of Océ technologies and solutions, especially in the transactional, newspaper, direct marketing, book printing and graphics markets. Océ -Australia invited several key players in the ANZ high-volume colour market to the event, along with your correspondent for the media day in the middle of the week-long event.
Colour, colour, colour
The name of the event pressed home the primary goal of convincing clients (and media) that Océ had, through due consideration and R&D, devised a full and success oriented portfolio of technologies to bring colour to the marketplace. While the ColorWave 600, that wide-format printer which uses "marbles" of solid ink to print high quality prints for the display, proofing and sign sectors, was given an airing during the technology demonstrations, it was really all about the two technology streams with which Océ will continue to address the high-volume colour market -- the ColorStream toner range and the JetStream inkjet range.
The company is fully aware that while it has a lion's share of the global black-and-white digital print market, its share of the digital colour market is rather less. It's made considerable efforts to remedy that through ongoing investment in its two technology streams for the colour market, in inkjet and toner based systems. Both streams received new updates, as did its PRISMA workflow suite.
In his introduction to the day-long event, Crit Driessen, vice-president of marketing and strategy for Océ Production Printing, commented that "Océ's aim is to become the leader in continuous form colour in the world".
Executive vice-president of Océ Production Printing, Sebastian Landersberger, pointed out in his address that the combined offset and digital print market worldwide is presently about 510 billion. The key applications for the transfer of black-and-white printing to colour are the transactional, direct mail, book printing and newspaper markets, all of which were taking real strides in this migration.
Transactional print in colour is expected to grow from three per cent in 2008 to about 30 per cent in 2015, while direct mail is expected to post figures of 11 per cent in 2008 growing to 53 per cent in 2015. Those figures show significant growth in colour print, and it will be digital.
Chief technology officer/chief operating officer for Océ Printing Systems, Manfred Maier, told the media gathering that "Océ was committed to a technology pool from which specific colour platforms will develop for production, document and wide-format markets ... there is no ‘one-size-fits-all' technology for digital colour print". To that end, Océ commits seven per cent of its revenue to R&D every year.
It's getting wider
As an example of that, at its Home of Color event, Océ introduced the JetStream 2800 30-inch inkjet digital web press, targeted at full-colour book and newspaper production. Marginally wider than HP's digital inkjet press, Océ claimed its 2800 inkjet web was also the fastest in its class -- seven per cent faster than competitors -- bringing print speeds of up to 130 metres a minute, which is equal to 2,632 A4 pages a minute at 600dpi. The wider format supports digital printing of 12- and 16-page book signatures. The JetStream 2800 can be configured for black only, and upgraded in the field to five colours.
The 2800 brings new possibilities to both book printers and newspaper publishers through on demand printing cycles. Publishers can now print short runs and meet retail demand when required instead of warehousing thousands of books. Print on demand is breathing new life into backlists as well.
Newspaper publishers now have an opportunity to print shorter runs of newspapers out of geographic areas. Titles like Börsen Zeitung, the New York Times, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Toronto Globe and Mail can be read in many locations outside their home markets.
Newspapers can explore opportunities in short-run distributed print, niche publications or special editions, and micro-zone publishing. It may take newspaper publishers some time to shift their minds, and their business models, but Océ (and some others) are convinced that this model offers a lifeline to those newspapers which are facing oblivion.
The JetStream 2800 system is based on the company's DigiDot inkjet technology and SRA MP controller architecture found throughout the JetStream family. Océ DigiDot printing enables variable droplet sizes, from 7pl to 12pl, for less ink consumption and lower operating costs on media ranges from 64 to 157gsm.
Océ expects the JetStream 2800 to start shipping at the end of 2009, with broader availability in early 2010. Australia might see it in the middle of next year.
Direct Mail directly
Océ unveiled two other JetStream engines, the simplex 500 and duplex 1000, which it is targeting at transactional direct mail printing houses with monthly print volumes up to 20 million impressions.
"According to Caslon, the number of offset produced pages in 2009 for transaction, transpromo and direct mail will be approximately 610 billion in the USA and Europe," said Crit Driessen. "It is expected that in the next five years, more than ten per cent of offset volume will transition to digital print."