Following drupa, both Michael Mittelhaus, a highly respected German based consultant, and I both wrote pieces stating we saw a change happening in CtP. This was that thermal CtP was no longer being seen as the only long-term CtP solution. Instead violet diode enabled visible light CtP was a major success at drupa, and was a real alternative. It was likely to increase its market share in the future at the expense of thermal CtP. As expected, these comments (particularly those of Mittelhaus) drew immediate scorn from certain thermal CtP vendors, and in particular from Creo. It is interesting that Creo takes any opportunity to decry any form of CtP other than thermal based CtP, with what is confusing and often biased irrelevant information.

I remember when I became the first person anywhere to write about the potential of violet diode, long before any products had been announced. At that time Dan Gelbart of Creo referred to my article as a “red herring” and attempted to confuse the market with comparisons to expensive argon ion blue gas lasers. Since then Creo has continuously attempted to pour scorn on the violet diode developments. It is interesting that the “red herring” of 1999 is now having a significant impact on Creo’s business. In the CtP business, the one company that will be most hurt by the success of violet diode CtP is Creo, so naturally it will do anything in attempting to derail the progress of violet technology. It is interesting to see that of the major plate suppliers, even KPG who up to now have had a thermal only CtP plate strategy, is fully expected to introduce a violet photopolymer plate later this year. All the key plate suppliers will then be endorsing both thermal and violet CtP approaches. How much longer can Creo keep its head buried in the sand ignoring what is really happening in the market?

This article however is not about CtP developments, but is about Creo as a company, and what I see as the problems it is facing. I am not writing this as an isolated commentator. Financial analysts in North America who track the performance of Creo for their clients regularly contact me for discussions about the market. These analysts are all concerned about aspects of Creo’s business and how it affects their client’s investments. The information I am writing in this article is the type of information that widely circulates in the financial community, even though such information hardly ever finds its way into the graphic arts industry press. 

According to one analyst’s figures to be published in August, it is interesting to note that since the acquisition by Creo of Scitex’s prepress business, its total market share of CtP in USA (including the Scitex business) has dropped from 72% in 1999 to 32% in 2003. It has lost significant share to Screen who it is estimated now have a market share approaching 30% in USA. In Europe the situation is somewhat different and I have a non-corroborated estimate of market share for Creo around 25%. In Europe the impact of violet technology is greater, and Agfa, Esko-Graphics, Fujifilm, Heidelberg and Screen have very strong distribution to increase the competitive situation. In my opinion Creo has lost market share not only because of increased competition, but also because their products are no longer as competitive as before.