It soon became clear, from the presentations of both printers and representatives of vendor companies, that there was a consensus on the major themes of exhibitors at drupa in May. One was that there seemed to no central trend at the show, making it unlikely that this drupa will be tagged with a moniker as previous drupas have been. The title of “the inkjet drupa” would probably not survive the reviews that have been presented here and around the world.
Agfa’s Garry Muratore noted four main trends at the exhibition in Germany. Print is growing, there is growing competition from other media and increased globalisation, technology life cycles are accelerating so that a cycle of a decade or longer just a few years ago is now much shorter, and the progress of digital is indisputable.
Snap Printing’s Simon Dodd pointed out that alliances and technology joint ventures were prevalent at drupa 2008. “No one company is trying to do it all,” he said, indicating the broad reach of print technologies at drupa, and how a single company cannot possibly hope to compete in R&D in every sector.
GEON Group’s Stuart Shirvington found a common thread through the exhibition of environmental concern, showing itself as relentless marketing during the show. While htis was admirable, he said, the print industry, especially, locally, had a long way to go to convince the general community that print was an environmentally friendly communications medium.
Other speakers at the breakfast included Glenn Plummer of Heidelberg, Steve Dunwell of the Currie Group, Herbert Kieleithner of Oce, Napil Abdel of Tharsten Australia, Brett Maishman of Fuji Xerox, and consultant Andy McCourt, who presented a neat wrap-up of the exhibition, mentioning the increased influence of reelfed technology in digital print, and even a pair of drupa thongs (as in footwear), which were won by Agfa’s Valerie Alderman.
Pictured are Presenters at the Sydney Drupa Unwrapped: (l-r) Stuart Shirvington, Napil Abdel, Steve Dunwell, Brett Maishman, Simon Dodd, Andy McCourt, Garry Muratore, Glenn Plummer, Herbert Kieleithner.
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