The past few weeks have seen many of the pieces of the drupa jigsaw drop into place as vendors define some of what they will introduce and offer in May. There are still a few announcements to come with HP and Xerox making their announcements soon.

From the announcements so far it could be said that this will be a "me too drupa" as many vendors decide they too will be players in the high-speed inkjet market. I think that this shows that many vendors who doubted whether inkjet would challenge offset printing have realized that the switch away from offset in a number of markets is already under way. Last year manroland announced that it would be working with Océ to enter this market, however I think that this project has probably been moved to the 'back burner' recently. KBA has announced its plans to launch an inkjet press at drupa and recently it gave a hint in the German press that this will be a 30 inch wide color presss. Last month Komori announced that it is working with Konica Minolta to finally enter the digital printing market. Initially this will be with a version of a Konica Minolta electrophotographic press, but that later it would bring an inkjet press to market. Heidelberg has already reentered the digital printing market with its agreement to OEM a number of Ricoh electrophotographic presses that now will go under the Linoprint brand. Also under this brand are Heidelberg's own label and packaging presses using UV curable inkjet technology. Will Heidelberg also enter the high-speed inkjet market? See my thoughts on this in a following paragraph. Timsons have announced the launch at drupa of their very ambitious inkjet book press. This is a 50 inch wide press using two of the Kodak Stream inkjet heads used in the Kodak Prosper 1000 press. This is driven by a Kodak Prinergy system and linked with Timsons own folder and a Kolbus book binding system. This looks to be a real challenger in the high-volume monochrome book market. If I have missed any developments from other offset vendors moving into inkjet printing I apologize.

There are many other new inkjet developments to be seen at drupa. One of the most significant may well be from Domino. My reason for saying this is Domino have probably more experience in developing and implementing inkjet than any other supplier. Their launch of the inkjet label press at IPEX was more a testing of the water. This press has now been fully tested and redeveloped and will be a key showing at drupa. I am however keen to see Domino's high-speed press where the specification is comparable to the presses of the current market leaders. Xerox will certainly be showing the Cipress 500 waterless inkjet press but will they also be showing the Fuji Xerox 2800 press that is OEM'd from Miyakoshi? Océ will show its range of JetStream and ColorStream presses and it will emphasize its systems for the monochrome book market with three different 30 inch wide presses. Screen will show its established range but will put emphasis on its completed B2 sheet fed inkjet press, as well as its working relationship with head manufacturer Epson. Epson will also be demonstrating its expanding range of technologies for widening its market position. Fujifilm will finally bring their B2 sheet fed inkjet press and state they will also be showing a new B2 press for the folding carton market.