SOLANA BEACH, Calif.--Nov. 7, 2005-- (See WTT Analysis at the end of this press release) -- Today, Printable Technologies(R), Inc., the world leader in Variable Data Printing (VDP) solutions and Web-to-Print workflow, dramatically reduced the price of its latest release of FusionPro(TM) Desktop to $399 to put VDP on every desktop and accelerate the adoption of personalized and variable printing past Geoffrey Moore's technology "chasm." "Why hasn't this industry moved VDP from 'early adopter' to 'early majority'? What is it that seems to be preventing the wholesale adoption of variable printing?" said Coleman Kane, President and CEO, Printable Technologies. "We are taking a bold step that will make sophisticated VDP technology affordable and available to any desktop user." "As industry leaders, we are forging the way for the rapid adoption of variable data printing. We believe that for one-to-one marketing to become ubiquitous, the tools to create VDP documents need to be powerful and inexpensive and they need to produce as many different output data streams as possible. By reducing the price to this level, we anticipate the market will quickly embrace VDP," said Kane. Pricing $399 -- FusionPro Desktop, backed by e-mail product support, access to a detailed knowledge base that includes a library of detailed JavaScripts, and peer support through a new FusionPro User Forum. $599 -- FusionPro Desktop with full telephone product support. No annual maintenance contracts are required. FusionPro Desktop Features Features in FusionPro Desktop include: -- 100% Adobe PDF workflow -- Adobe(R) Acrobat(R) plug-in for both Mac OS X and Windows -- InDesign(R), QuarkXPress(R), and other page-layout applications supported -- New powerful imposition functionality -- Input data formats: flat files, tagged, or ODBC -- Full copy-fitting capabilities -- Powerful business logic via industry-standard JavaScript interface -- Automatic generation of dynamic tables and charts -- Eight output data streams including PDF, PostScript, VDX, PPML, VPS, VIPP ----------------------------------------- Printable: Breaking the VDP Barriers? By: Cary Sherburne, WTT Senior Editor Today, Printable Technologies made the announcement it would be dropping the price of its FusionPro Desktop variable data solution from $4,999.00 to as low as $399. According to Coleman Kane, Printable’s President & CEO, “Malcolm Gladwell defined the Tipping Point as the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point, a place where the unexpected becomes expected, where radical change is more than possibility. It is a certainty. We think that with the slightest shove –in just the right place –VDP can be ‘tipped,’ and we are giving it a shove with the decision to drastically change the price point for FusionPro Desktop.” Kane points out that while variable data printing activity has certainly increased, it has not reached the critical mass the industry has been talking about for ten years, even though the benefits of variable data are common knowledge by now. Printable plans to target print service providers with this new application. Kane says, “Our primary customer is the printer, and we will continue to stick to our knitting in that regard.” Printers can use FusionPro Desktop even if they are not customers of Printable’s ASP offerings, FusionPro Server or FusionPro Web, although the company believes that FusionPro Desktop customers may be likely to migrate upstream as their variable data business grows. FusionPro Desktop is a VDP template creation and print-stream output tool based entirely on an Adobe PDF workflow. Templates with variable text, graphics, and charts, driven by advanced business logic, can be merged with tens of thousands of data records to create print-ready output streams. This solution was previously branded as Datalogics DL100 and has been in the marketplace for almost 10 years. With Printable’s acquisition of the business from Datalogics earlier this year, the product was rebranded to FusionPro Desktop. Printable reports an installed base of new sales of 150, plus an unspecified number of installations through the company’s OEM partners, and Printable is hoping its new pricing model will inspire printers who have been cautious about implementing variable data solutions to give it a try. Kane reports that similar applications are priced in the range of $5,000 to $15,000 and more, depending on the supplier and the options that are chosen. With FusionPro Desktop, Printable is providing a fully-featured and fully supported application that includes technical support, access to Printable’s Knowledge Base with a library of tested and reusable JavaScripts for conditional logic and rules for variables, peer support through the FusionPro Desktop Users Forum, and eight data output streams. There is no maintenance charge associated with FusionPro Desktop. The company will continue to upgrade the product, and at the time that there are enough upgrades accumulated, the printer can simply purchase another copy to take advantage of them. For a purchase price of $599, users have access to telephone support as well. Printable is breaking the mold with this offering and putting variable data printing within reach of even the smallest shop. Kane says, “We are not just throwing this product out there. We want to make sure it is properly supported and fully functional. We know that many of our core Printable customers are already doing variable data—in fact, more than a quarter of the jobs run through our system are variable. And we believe that taking away the cost barriers will encourage others to join the variable data printing community in large enough numbers to constitute a tipping point.” This is a bold move on the part of Printable, and it could make a significant difference in the variable data printing market. It allows printers to offer variable capability to customers with limited risk and significant upside. WhatTheyThink will be monitoring Printable’s results as 2005 comes to a close and 2006 begins to unfold. Maybe 2006 will finally be the tipping point for variable data printing.