ROCHESTER, NY—January 28, 2008—PODi, the Digital Printing Initiative, today announced the release of the second PPML Interoperability Report. PPML (the Personalized Print Markup Language) facilitates creating personalized high-volume print campaigns by service providers, enabling meaningful one-to-one “conversations” for their customers. This new report provides detailed results of interoperability testing across the products of ten leading printing device vendors using PODi’s PPML Consumer Test Suite. The report provides the marketplace with a valuable resource for developing and implementing PPML-based workflows that will perform reliably across multiple brands of printing devices. Test results demonstrate the high level of interest and cooperation among vendors in pursuit
EFI
WASHINGTON, DC—January 28, 2008—Membership in the organization that is promoting the marketing and promotional power of print continues to grow. Jet, Inc. and Lake County Press have joined The Print Council as full members. Jeff Norby, Jet’s President, will also serve on the Marketing Steering Committee to the Print Council’s Board. “Jet joined the Council because we are quite aware and concerned that print has become somewhat marginalized or commoditized in the eyes of both clients and suppliers,” he says. The Print Council is working to turn that perception around. “We believe in the value of print as a very important component in a
PITTSBURGH—January 25, 2008—The Technical Association of the Graphic Arts (TAGA) announces the release of the conference agenda and the addition of Lambertus Hesselink, PhD. to the list of keynote speakers at this year’s Annual Technical Conference. This year’s conference begins on Sunday, March 16 with a series of keynote speeches “that are deliberately aimed to be out-of-the-box,” according to TAGA’s President, Anthony Stanton. “This is why we are proud to announce the addition of Dr. Lambertus Hesselink.” He will be speaking on his work in the area of holographic data storage, a new information storage and retrieval system that records digital data holographically. Hesselink
WASHINGTON, DC—January 8, 2008—The Print Council, a national business development initiative created to help promote greater use of printing and print media, today announced that GLS Companies and The Hickory Printing Group have recently joined the organization. As new members, the companies will work in concert with other member companies of The Print Council on initiatives to help develop, maintain and expand the market for printed materials. Members of The Print Council include commercial printers, paper manufacturers, press, ink and equipment manufacturers, publishers, industry associations, ad agencies, and public relations firms. Through advertising and speaking engagements, The Print Council is a visible and leading
Open House Offers Cash Grab CHATSWORTH, CA—Impress Communications recently hosted an open house at its new facility here, which included a drawing to participate in a $50K Cash Grab Money Booth. Winners of the drawing had a chance to “test their skills” and grab as many airborne bills as they could in 15 seconds. Snatching cash was the perfect way to cap off the open house, which featured a variety of presentations, including: Web 2.0—The Current Era of the Web, Lighting for Digital Photography, Going Green/FSC Certification and Beyond, Single Message Marketing Strategies, and Specialty Printing Techniques. The staff at Impress offered Komori
FOSTER CITY, CA—December 5, 2007—EFI reported that family-owned Seifert Graphics, located in Oriskany, NY, acquired its second VUTEk superwide format printer in less than a year to expand its digital display graphics business. Seifert Quote “Today’s market is all about speed,” said Jack Seifert, owner. “I originally needed a solution that could deliver high quality display graphics at a high speed. The QS2000 meets those requirements, and with its white ink option and fast changeover from flexible to rigid substrates, it opens the door to many new applications. It has certainly lived up to its promise. Now with the addition of EFI’s VUTEk 3360
Commercial Web Printers Compare Notes CHICAGO—MAN Roland held its first Commercial Customers Conference as a way of getting its commercial web press users together in a forum where everyone can benefit from one another, explains Douglas Bradley, vice president of web service at MAN Roland. “We developed the conference to focus on the topics that have the greatest impact on the key metrics of their businesses. Through interactive discussion and structured presentations, we can share ideas to help everyone improve their operational performance.” The conference, held in conjunction with Graph Expo in September and conducted at Chicago’s James Hotel, was themed “A Partnership Focused
ROCHESTER, NY—October 3, 2007—PODi, the Digital Printing Initiative, will bring a distinguished slate of keynote speakers to the 2008 PODi Application Forum. The next annual digital print event is January 28-30 in Las Vegas. Two keynote speakers have been confirmed in addition to Rab Govil, PODi president, who will provide insights into the digital print marketplace. Rounding out the slate are Rick Smith, CEO of TASER International, and Joel Cartun, Founder and former Chairman of Vestcom. The gentlemen will speak January 30 in two general sessions. “Attendees will be pleased with the depth of knowledge and experience of these two speakers. Their stories will tell
PREPRESS USED to be a tightly defined process. Its evolution into “workflow” made the boundaries less clear cut, and they have been further blurred by the introduction of digital printing, variable data, Web-to-print and JDF into the production mix. Developments on all fronts could be seen around the show floor at Graph Expo 2007, along with a new potential wrinkle—Microsoft’s XPS (XML Paper Specification). Delivering on announcements made at last year’s show, a couple of vendors released upgrades to their workflow solutions that implement the Adobe PDF Print Engine (APPE) technology. It implements native PDF rendering, faster file processing and further JDF integration. Agfa’s
HP Empowers With Print 2.0 NEW YORK—On the 52nd floor of 7 World Trade Center, more than 700 guests and 100 Hewlett-Packard employees spent two days enjoying a room with a (magnificent!) view. The event was part of HP’s rollout of the “Print 2.0: Extending the Power of Print” strategy and provided a launching pad for a new $300 million, worldwide marketing campaign—“What do you have to say?” With New York City as a backdrop, the main attractions, however, were inside where HP staged an “Experience Center.” It resembled a Hollywood set complete with a faux bedroom, living room, home office, business office, retail
