The announcement that Hewlett-Packard has signed an agreement to acquire MacDermid ColorSpan shows, lest there be any doubt, that HP is continuing to play for all the marbles in digital printing. Nothing wrong with that, and no one can say HP doesn't focus on its primary markets.

This move increases the depth and breadth of HP's products and capabilities in wide format, one of the fastest growing segments of digital print. HP's present wide-sized offerings are primarily thermal head, roll-fed machines using dye-based and pigment inks. The acquisition of Scitex Vision a couple of years back gave the company an entrée into solvent inks and super-wide formats but there was still a noticeable gap in the product line-up. And in a realm of digital printing that spans posters to vehicle wraps to billboards, that gap was crucial.

The space in question is sign-shops, enlightened quick printers, small to mid-size sign-making and screen-printing firms, places where UV-curable ink jet rules and flat-bed printers are pretty much a given. Some of these establishments already have HP equipment but use other devices, including those from MacDermid ColorSpan, for printing on solid substrates such as foam core, plexiglass and the like, and for the many signage applications that need the durability of UV inks. ColorSpan's devices have always been top performers and a good value, but in today's marketplace they need the clout of a firm with a truly global reach and the resources to ensure its market share remained intact and its technology continued to develop. That's what HP brings to the party.

"The acquisition will enable HP to expand into that market with a known and proven product line, and be able to play in the low-end of the flat-bed space," explained Enrique Lores, HP vice president for wide-format printing. Lores also said the acquisition means HP will be bringing its expertise to bear on UV-curable ink technology, expanding distribution, improving manufacturing and --as HP has always done-- leveraging the technology for use on other products. Or just expanding the market --what HP calls "digitizing analog prints." In this case that means taking more and more jobs that would otherwise be printed some other way --perhaps silk-screening in this instance-- and putting them on a wide format printer.

Taking good products, making them better, and growing digital printing. Works for me.