As I start this series, I think about Drupa 2008 which was billed as the event where inkjet was going to be the prime focus—“The Inkjet drupa.” While there was production inkjet technology there, it was probably more of an intro to inkjet event rather than an event focused heavily on inkjet technologies and products. Those of us who were there did get a chance to see some interesting technologies, but only some of it ever made it to the marketplace—or should have.

By drupa 2012, production inkjet began to hit its stride, albeit with limited application. While it might sound like a strange thing to say, it is probably good that there wasn’t a big push to mainstream production inkjet in 2012. After all, it would have been a heavy lift at that point in time. 

A wide range of EP (electrophotographic) digital production printing presses was finally coming into its own, after their initial introduction in 1991, and they are still a major force today in production print. There are many reasons for this. First is the quality level, or, more accurately, the comparable quality level to offset print that had effectively reached its goal at that point. The other big reason was lower capital cost of EP over inkjet. It’s not that inkjet didn’t produce at an impressive cost; rather, it’s more that in order to mainstream production inkjet, a number of things needed to be in place.