Benny Landa used the opening morning of drupa to restate his confidence in his nanographic printing technology, announce the first beta sites, and tell the world that online retail printer Cimpress will buy 20 Landa presses.
One of those may very well be coming to Australia, to the Vistaprint site in Melbourne, although nothing is confirmed yet.
The deal is part of a ‘strategic collaboration’, with a similar arrangement underway with Quad Graphics.
The first beta site nano presses will be at the USA’s biggest POS printer Imagine, when a single sided B1 S10 goes in during the middle of next year, and at Colordruck, a German folding carton business which is also taking an S10 and is building a 3000sqm digital printing facility to accommodate it.
Pan-European commercial outfit Elanders will take an S10P double sided press later in the year that will be used for a variety of applications.
At the same time both Heidelberg and manroland have ended their co-operation agreements with Landa that they signed at the last drupa four years ago.
Landa is launching a fourth press in its revamped line-up, the W10P, which is a double sided webfed press that is designed for the publishing market.
[Related: Landa says nano ready for order at drupa 2016]
The company has recently ramped up its sales size and structure with Michael Mogridge, who initially brought Indigo to Australia, being appointed the senior man for the Asia Pacific region.
The Landa press conference in the booth – which is the third largest at the show – took the unusual step of not actually having a press, it mainly focused on the rationale for nano and the credibility of Landa.
Landa’s nano technology is being used for a host of applications not just printing, although it is in printing that Landa expects to make the biggest impact.
Landa is facing an industry that is having its patience tested with the nano presses, which were first show four years ago at drupe 2012.
Landa demonstration at drupa
The company is hoping that this drupa will provide its customers – 400 of whom parted with $10,000 last time around for a place in the queue – that it is on track to deliver the technology, albeit a little later than first planned.
At drupa Landa says the nano presses are still on course to produce offset quality at offset speed, with the S10 presses to run at 13,000sph while the W10P will, Landa says, be capable of producing two million A4 pages in an eight hour shift.
[Related: All the news from drupa 2016]
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