Heidelberg

ARLINGTON, TX—The Imaging Bureau, a 29-employee shop based here that handles film output, ink-jet posters, digital and commercial printing, currently rents a 10,000-square-foot space. By the end of the year, however, that's all going to change if Brian Walden gets his way. "Our plan is to build a 50,000-square-foot building in Arlington that will include the new web press and require hiring 15 to 20 additional employees," says Walden, who started the company as a one-man operation eight years ago. The firm, which already runs a five-color Heidelberg sheetfed press, plans to add an eight-unit Heidelberg M-110 with double folder and UV coater.

BY DENNIS E. MASON A search for a modern printing company is not likely to begin in Columbia, SC. But it should end there, with Crowson Stone Printing. Founded in 1923 as Crowson Printing, Crowson Stone became the state's first offset printer in the 1950s. Still a family operation, it is led by John K. deLoach III, the third generation on the Stone side of the business. The 50 Crowson Stone employees generate annual sales of nearly $6 million. deLoach experienced other sides of business before taking the reigns of the family print shop, including earning a degree in business and finance. He then

The graphic arts world shifts its attention to Dusseldorf for the World Series of Printing. For some manufacturers, it's a coming-out party for new heatset web offset press hardware. BY ERIK CAGLE Don't worry, it's not too late to book a hotel within a half-hour commute of Dusseldorf for May's DRUPA 2000 exhibition. Should nothing be available, there's always nearby Brussels or Amsterdam. Yes, when it comes to attending the world's foremost ink-on-paper (et al) exhibition, early planning is absolutely necessary. The same can definitely be said for the many manufacturers, technology providers and assorted vendors that will be displaying their goods and

DRUPA 1995 was the beginning of the thermal computer-to-plate frenzy. Leading the charge: Creo and Kodak. Five years later, new platesetting initiatives are poised for DRUPA 2000. What digital platesetters will be announced at DRUPA 2000? Dusseldorf, Germany, holds the answers. BY MARIE RANOIA ALONSO At DRUPA 1995, a tiny Creo Products—tiny compared with the CTP giants Linotype-Hell, Gerber and Scitex— touted the production and workflow merits of thermal CTP for commercial printing. Creo's message was all thermal. Kodak consumables were Creo's enabling technology, bridging Creo's thermal output engines with the digital plate production demands of the average commercial printer. Who didn't take

Paper cutters do not advance as quickly as press and prepress systems, but competition for the cutting-edge is heating up. BY ERIK CAGLE In an age when high-tech gizmos have proliferated the commercial printing landscape, the paper cutter stands as a testament to meat-and-potatoes machinery, joining such luminaries as the internal combustion engine, the hammer and the light bulb. Monitors and computer automation have managed to sneak their way onto the old school tool, but in the end the cutter remains what it was 25 years ago—a cutter. John Porter, division manager of LDR International, the distributor for Itoh in the United States,

Tucked away in Upstate New York, 40-year-old Brodock Press has gone from a reclamation project to one of the leading commercial printers in the Northeast. BY ERIK CAGLE Lost in all the hype surrounding Broadway, the Statue of Liberty and even Jerry Seinfeld, lies a New York that is largely unheralded, dwarfed by the image of the Big Apple. Upstate New York, with its rolling hills, mountains and more than a few lakes, is as majestic and breathtaking as any site in the city of concrete and steel. Perhaps Utica, NY-based printer Brodock Press was also a victim of its environment—tucked far, far away

The sea of e-commerce companies is expanding; Seybold Boston was wired, so to speak, to the Internet. printCafe, a new Internet endeavor, captured the most attention at the Boston show last month, but so did new digital workflows, color management tools and Adobe's latest—a bridge for PDF. BY MARIE RANOIA ALONSO Walking into Seybold Boston last month it seemed almost unbelievable that the words Internet and startup are still synonymous. Everywhere you looked, it was dotcom this, dotcom that—if you stood still too long, you were at serious risk of finding a dotcom appearing after your last name on your Seybold badge. Then

You gotta love America. Only here could Bill Gates be watching almost idly as the Justice Department prepares to dismantle his empire just as changes in information technology were about to do it for him. Ironically, while Microsoft is about to be broken up into two or three pieces, just about every other industry seems to be moving toward larger and larger conglomerates in search of so-called synergies. That the payoffs are few and far between doesn't seem to dampen anyone's enthusiasm—and certainly not that of the investment bankers and corporate lawyers that put these deals together. Of course, this has been going on for some

Dozens of strategic meetings, several industry-wide rumors and (give or take) $537 million later, Vancouver-based Creo buys the worldwide digital prepress business of Scitex. How will this change the computer-to-plate market? What does this mean for Scitex digital prepress devices? Creo Vice President David Brown is the answer man. BY MARIE RANOIA ALONSO There are times in the commercial printing industry, specifically in the area of digital prepress, when breaking news tends to be slow. Manufacturers are quiet; there is nothing notable to report...business as usual. Then, Creo buys Scitex. Not completely out of left field but, still, in its own right, a

Digital prepress houses are recognizing the need to diversify and invest in additional value-added services. Topping the list, for some, is on-demand digital printing. BY MARIE RANOIA ALONSO In February 1994, William Staar found himself on the cover of Printing Impressions magazine. At that time, Staar was a strategic influence in his family's $7.3 million digital prepress firm. The company, Noral Color, which has since been purchased by a larger graphic arts service provider, was co-founded by Staar's father, Norman Staar. In 1994, William Staar represented a new breed of commercial printing executive. He was powered by the intrinsic desire to modernize. He was