4/3/01 - Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg)'s appearance at CeBIT ("Centrum der Büro- und Informationstechnik"), which ended yesterday, was a resounding success. The level of interest among customers and visitors in Heidelberg's solutions for the graphic arts industry by far exceeded the company's already high expectations. "The number of visitors to our new stand is well up on last year", said Marketing Director Holger Reichardt. "Heidelberg and its solutions occupy a very successful position in the IT industry". The company presented itself as the supplier of hardware and software products and services in the prepress sector. With this year's exhibition presence, one which far outshone previous years, Heidelberg has underlined its position as the world market leader in the graphic arts industry, highlighting the company's expertise in offering customer-focused solutions across the whole of the prepress and press sectors. The highlight of the exhibition was the new software for Heidelberg's digital Digimaster 9110 black and white press, which features the capacity to recognize and process practically all the popular file formats used in computer centers in industry, administration, banks and insurance companies. This takes Heidelberg into a market which, up till now, was almost exclusively served by Xerox. "In the medium term, we anticipate a share of 30% in this market segment, whose current volume is estimated at around 12,000 installed machines", explains Reichardt. Visitors to CeBIT expressed particular interest in Heidelberg's prepress solutions. These solutions configure equipment and software to suit customers' particular needs, thereby enabling the technical generation and management of digital data and its transfer into the printing process. The undisputed star at Heidelberg's stand was the new digital color printing press, the NexPress 2100. Shipping to customers will begin in September of this year. CeBIT was the first opportunity to see the NexPress 2100 in action. Immediately after capturing images using the digital Colorcam camera, the NexPress 2100 went straight to print, producing a brilliance which is unparalleled on other machines in this market segment.