DIGITAL digest

LOS ANGELES—Hewlett-Packard hosted an open house last month for industry press and analysts at O'Neil Data Systems, the first company to install an HP Inkjet Web Press (www.oneildata.com). O'Neil customers were invited to drop by the next day, and HP brought in prospects on the third and final day of the event.

Set for commercial release later this year, the 30?-wide, ink-jet press offers CMYK printing at a 1,200x600 dpi resolution and 400 fpm top speed. O'Neil Data Systems reports it has already been producing commercial work with its unit for some months, including health plan benefit materials and transactional documents. It is also printing "The O'Neil Database," a financial reference publication owned by William O'Neil & Co.

"This press and our HP Indigos represent a huge change in direction for us," noted James Lucanish, O'Neil Data president. "Our customers are better served with full-color content—personalized with the most relevant data—delivered as efficiently and as quickly as possible."

The printer, which currently has a roughly 290,000-square-foot facility, equipped with sheetfed and web offset presses in addition to color and monochrome digital machines, has been transforming itself into a digital operation. The shift has already had a dramatic impact on its inventory requirements, with warehouse space having been reduced from 40,000 square feet to the current 20,000, and projected to drop to 10,000 square feet in the next few years.

In a striking demonstration, personalized copies of that day's Investors Business Daily (a financial newspaper that competes with the Wall Street Journal) were printed on the HP Inkjet Web and delivered to attendees' hotel rooms in the morning.

As part of his opening remarks, Aurelio Maruggi, HP's vice president and general manager of Inkjet High-Speed Production Solutions (IHPS), announced that Consolidated Graphics and Courier Corp. have also agreed to become pilot program installation sites. They're scheduled to receive HP Inkjet Web Press solutions in the second and fourth quarter of 2009, respectively. In addition, the installation at CPI in France is on track for the third quarter, and HP still has a commitment from Taylor Corp.

Once the CPI and Courier installations are complete, the ink-jet press will be running at firms that collectively produce approximately 800 million books annually. These publishing customers see runs between 300 and 3,000 books as the sweet spot for the press.

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