Moser says he is currently in the process of appointing a managing director for the new subsidiary, but wouldn’t give any indication as to whether the new chief was someone with past association with the company or its former agent MAN Ferrostaal. Former MAN Ferrostaal web manager John Ostler has already moved to the new company in a similar role, and several service staff have already been recruited.

On June 1 manroland will open two new offices, one each in Sydney and Melbourne, with an initial focus on service for its existing customers. It will then be looking to extend its customer base, and set up a consumables business.

Moser says, “We will be aiming to replicate our worldwide success, and will be focusing on print service, print com, print net and print advice launched at drupa. One of the main themes at manroland is to optimise the benefits of our presses, to future proof them and to move away from CMYK and into value added processes.”

According to Moser the global trend is for printers to specify presses that enable a wide variety of printing options, such as inline foiling, so that printers have a much broader and deeper offering to the market. There are some 52 different options that printers can specify with manroland presses. Moser points to 17 unit presses that have just gone into the US and UK as indicative of future trends.

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