EFI, the dominant player in the color server market, has had a busy 2002. In addition to adding new capabilities to its portfolio of servers and boosting the number of supported devices, the company also received the Specifications for Web Offset Publications (SWOP®) seal of approval for its Fiery® Z5 color server with Fiery System 5 software, signifying that the system is capable of predicting final printed color in a Web offset environment. Another addition was support for printing from IBM AS-400s and mainframes.

EFI also moved squarely into the virtual world with PrintMe Networks going live, its acquisition of Unimobile, and its Device Relationship Management (DRM) offerings for bi-directional, Web-enabled remote diagnostics and management of output devices.

Most recently, EFI announced the acquisition of Best GbmH, a leader in inkjet proofing systems, significantly boosting EFI’s proofing product line. WhatTheyThink spoke with EFI’s CEO, Guy Gecht, to get the latest on the Best acquisition and preview what we might expect from EFI in 2003. In Part two, Mr. Gecht explains EFI's wireless and mobile printing strategy.

WTT: PrintMe Networks has been in the field for nearly a year now, and seems to be gaining traction with partners across a wide spectrum. How is that going?

GG: PrintMe Networks is certainly something that fits into this long-term vision. When we first announced PrintMe about a year ago, we told people that we saw professional people moving rapidly to the world of mobile devices. Since that time, the trend has escalated. It used to be that everyone had pagers; now it is evolving to cell phones with text messaging and mobile Internet. Palm and BlackBerry have experienced great success. Most industry analysts agree that within the next few years, most mobile professionals will routinely use one to three different devices that allow them to interact wirelessly. But what has been missing from this picture is the ability to print from a mobile device. In order to print, you have to have the right driver and the right connections. That just doesn’t work in a mobile world.

As a printing solutions company, we feel an obligation to help solve that problem and PrintMe Networks is that innovation. We have been very pleased with the acceptance in the marketplace from our partners, and from end users. IBM, Yahoo!, Adobe, Palm, Microsoft, Xerox and Canon – these are just a few of the partners that are buying into the concept.

With PrintMe Networks, I can print from any wireless device to any PrintMe-enabled printing device with access to the Internet. I personally use it from my PC, inside or outside EFI’s firewall, because I like the idea of not needing a driver to print. Even though PrintMe has been in the field less than a year, page volumes through the system are growing month after month, and I feel very good about where we are heading.


WTT: How are end users actually using the service? What are the applications, or the problems being solved?

GG: We’ve done particularly well in the hospitality industry; it’s really a no-brainer example of how this solution adds value. The audience there is the business traveler utilizing the hotels and other facilities – whether they are actually staying at the hotel or just conducting a meeting. It used to be that hotel guests would fax documents to themselves at the hotel in order to get hard copy while on the road, and they just had to deal with the inherent quality issues when printing that way. Now these wireless warriors are able to use PrintMe Networks right from their hotel room to obtain their printed documents with a lot less hassle.

This is an audience we don’t have to work hard to convince – they already understand the problem – they live the problem every day! And the hotels are very open as well as they continue to look for additional services to make their facilities more attractive to the business traveler.

Other examples of mobile workers who benefit from this service are auditors, consultants and others who visit companies for short periods of time to work on specific projects – auditing financials or executing a consulting project, as examples. IT departments are often reluctant to provide these workers with full intranet access just to allow them to print. With PrintMe Networks’ guest printing capability, it becomes easy for these outsiders to gain the access to print what to do their jobs effectively, while at the same time respecting the concerns of the IT department relative to access inside the firewall.

And increasingly, businesses like Starbucks have Internet connections for their customers, as do airports. By adopting PrintMe, they can add printing to the list of conveniences they offer business customers. Ultimately, mobile workers should be able to roam freely and print from anywhere! And PrintMe makes all the decisions relative to formatting the file for the target printer, regardless of manufacturer, or whether the printer is color or black & white.


WTT: Do you have any way of estimating the volume of print the service is currently handling?

GG: We don’t disclose those numbers, but we have sites that are printing thousands of pages a month, others that are printing hundreds. Over time, you are going to see this capability in more and more places. I’m very encouraged by the volumes – we only went live with PrintMe in March and most locations have only had the capability a few months. We are seeing volume and location increases every month.


WTT: What’s next for PrintMe Networks?

GG: We expect to make a lot of customer and partner announcements in 2003. We envision deploying specific versions of PrintMe Networks for specific types of customers and we will add more functionality, continuing to make sure there is more and more value to the service.


WTT: Unimobile was another interesting acquisition. What’s happening there?

GG: As we began to look proactively at being a player in the mobile industry, it became clear to us that there is not nearly enough technology and support in getting data to mobile devices. Today you can get messages and e-mails, perhaps some Internet access depending upon the device, but if you want to get company information, such as getting an update on inventory levels or retrieving a technical data sheet for use in a field location, you cannot do that efficiently from a mobile device with today’s technology.

Unimobile provides a unique interactive method to retrieve information from back-office systems. And it plays well with PrintMe – Unimobile retrieves the information and PrintMe prints it. An example might be a service technician who needs to retrieve the latest service bulletin in order to make a complex and unanticipated repair. If the facility doesn’t have a PrintMe printer, the file can be printed to a fax machine, since any fax machine will act as a PrintMe printer. We are seeing good traction with this concept. We have numerous customers deploying, piloting or exploring Unimobile’s services. This functionality is clearly a key element of EFI’s vision about mobility. We would like to make this type of mobile communication as simple as today’s phone system: If you want to call me on the telephone, all you need to know is the number. You don’t need to know who my carrier is or what model of telephone I have.


WTT: You announced last summer that Virgin Mobile USA, the first mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) in the United States, will integrate EFI’s Unimobile messaging and Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) infrastructure products in its new, youth-focused cell phone service. How is that being received in the marketplace?

GG: The CIO of Virgin Mobile and other executives there are extremely happy with the capabilities. This is a respected carrier that decided to use Unimobile for a mission-critical application that has to be up every day of the year. It’s one more testament to the power of EFI’s mobile applications.


WTT: And what about the Microsoft Windows® Powered Smartphone utilization of PrintMe Networks? What’s the adoption rate there?

GG: Microsoft began deploying the Smartphone-based cell phone at the end of 2002. Having PrintMe invited to help launch this initiative clearly shows how important providing mobile printing is for a company like Microsoft.

I believe mobility is the most important play in technology today. Once Microsoft puts its weight fully behind it, adoption rates will increase.


WTT: EFI has begun to move aggressively into the Device Relationship Management (DRM) arena. What’s your strategy there?

GG: This is another part of our commitment to this industry and our partnership with major players. We want to invest in and build technology that will let print engine providers and print device providers manage devices remotely -- to be able to look at status, perform diagnostics and respond to any problem in the field.

This huge infrastructure called the Internet has changed the way we work, and our industry has not taken enough advantage of its power. With DRM we can use the Internet to remotely provide patches and other types of support, determine which devices are being used efficiently, and much more. Access to this type of information is valuable to both manufacturers and users, allowing them to optimize the devices end-users have spent so much time and money buying and installing.

Companies can save tons of money if they understand how their printers are actually being used. I’m sure it would shock most companies if they understood how often a print job is sent to the wrong device, generating unnecessary excessive costs by printing, for example, multiple copies of a long document on a local or small workgroup printer, rather than shipping that document to a lower-cost-per-copy centralized machine. Our vision of DRM is to provide data that can help in making cost-effective business decisions as well as making the service and support of those devices more effective. Much like you receive credit card bill every month, and sometimes even a summary that lets you know what you spent by category, you should be able to get the same type of information relative to distributed print devices throughout the enterprise.


WTT: Tell us how Unimobile fits into your Device Relationship Management strategy.

GG: As we discussed earlier, Unimobile is an excellent tool to bring data from an enterprise to the mobile device. Mobile workers who need to access inventory numbers, repair instructions and other information can use Unimobile technology to connect to a corporate content management system, and then to print that information using PrintMe.


WTT: There are certainly a lot of new products incorporated into your portfolio over a short period of time. What percent of your revenues come from controllers today, versus these other types of workflow offerings, and how do you see that ratio changing over the next two to three years?

GG: While we don’t disclose the percent of revenues from new products or non-controller products versus controller products, we can say that we expect growth from both parts of the business. And we expect the mix in the future to lean a lot more toward Velocity, PrintMe, Best proofing, and other software products and services. By creating seamless links among our family of offerings, we can help our customers be more productive. For example, we see variable data applications finally gaining traction, and we plan to play a leadership role there, linking Velocity to Fiery and enabling wireless devices to interact as well. Our goal is to enable more users to easily do one-to-one marketing by combining all of these capabilities seamlessly. That means we continue to see good growth in the controller market, as well as tremendous opportunity for the new products and services we are bringing to the market.


WTT: WhatTheyThink would like to wish you and the EFI team the best with the "Best" acquisition and all of the other exciting initiatives EFI currently has in play. What concluding words of wisdom would you like to share with our readers?

GG: I know that for many people 2002 was a tough year, and early indications are that 2003 is not going to be a great recovery year from an economic perspective. But we all need to feel good about the fact that the printing industry has terrific potential and vitality if we relentlessly focus on making our customers and our customers’ customers happy and satisfied. My advice is to focus on long-term opportunities, and to invest for the long term. We should expect to see more innovation in our industry, and EFI will continue to bring a lot of that innovation to the market.


Guy, thanks for your time today.