The cynics amongst us may say why is this important since manroland has been in the digital print business before without any real success with agreements for selling Xeikon based presses and with the Dicoweb D.I. Web offset press.

It is important because of the changes in the market, and the type of products that are being handled. manroland is the market leading supplier of web offset presses for the commercial printing market, and co-leader of the market for newspaper web offset presses. It is these markets that are seen as key markets for continuous-feed color inkjet presses.

For Océ manroland is a key partner as Océ main experience is not in these markets but in the transactional print markets. So it opens up a new channel to market. This however is not just a sales and distribution agreement, but also a co-development agreement between the two companies. Océ has what many perceive as the leading workflow for the transactional and direct mail markets with its Prisma workflow, but this is not really seen as a key workflow for graphic arts applications. manroland will now be working with Océ to define how Prisma should be extended in areas such as color management to be the same as for web offset presses and to provide full graphic arts functionality.

At this time Océ does have a good presence in one area of graphic arts and that is in on-demand short run book printing with it’s monochrome cut sheet and continuous feed electrophotographic presses, but at this time has had limited success in sales of it JetStream and ColorStream inkjet presses outside of the transactional and direct mail markets. manroland’s market reach into its large user base should accelerate sales of these presses into graphic arts areas. For manroland this will be a major move to extend it’s offerings and it will differentiate it from its competitors like Goss and KBA, who at this time have no digital printing strategies.

Océ has now sold 141 JetStream press engines with 71 customers. 120 presses are operational. Of these 65 per cent are in Western Europe, 30 per cent in North America and 5 per cent in the rest of the world. The latest sale announced is the first of the 30-inch wide JetStream 3300 presses. This has been sold together with a Muller Martini Sigmaline book making system to Moscow, Russia book printer Musterdrukerei Moskau. The first of the new Océ ColorStream inkjet presses is being installed in Paris based transactional printer Corus.

Kodak Sets Up Consultancy Practice

Kodak has announced that it is operating a consultancy practice within its operations for the printing and publishing markets. In this it has four business practices. These are document management, print services, packaging services, and enterprise marketing services. This is a significant development that differentiates Kodak from its competitors. The practice goes under the name of MarketMover. I personally feel this name does not really show what the service does since MarketMover is also the name for the service operated with the Nexpress operation to assist customers enter digital printing. The new consultancy operation has in fact been operational for some time and Kodak has a large team of industry specialists in their team already providing this service.

This is aimed at helping customers change their business operations in becoming multiple media communications companies and optimizing their use of digital printing and workflow operations. This service is not just another approach to sell Kodak equipment, but to help customers optimize their business practices. This is targeted at all sizes of customers and at Kodak’s analyst event we heard from three organizations that had used the service. These included the world’s largest transactional printer DST Output and two commercial printers H.O.T. Graphics and The Bureau. The two commercial printers had worked with Kodak to get help in changing their business models to allow them to become multiple media communications providers with full campaign management capability.

I think this is a very significant development as up to now there has been no major sized operation providing such a service. Up to now vendors have services such as Kodak’s MarketMover and Xerox’s Profit Accelerator providing a tool kit to help companies enter digital printing and learn how to sell such printing and start with personalization. Canon also has its Essential Business Builder programme that links in some independent consultancy to its offerings to help build up a customer’s digital printing operations. The major consultancy companies also do not have the expertise in printing and publishing markets and applications to offer an equivalent service.

The service is already in operation in North America and Europe and Kodak has an impressive list of clients including major enterprise organizations that want to enhance their printing operations. Unlike other companies Kodak is not offering a print or business process outsourcing operation but is working with its customers to make them more competitive.

One area however that Kodak is doing is offering a Managed Campaign Services operation hosted by AT&T to provide its campaign-managed services that allow printers to manage full marketing campaigns. Campaign management is also a key element of its consultancy operations in extending the Kodak workflows.

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