Foster City, Calif. – Aug. 13, 2007– EFI, the world leader in color digital print servers, superwide format printers and inks and print management solutions, today announced the formation of the Franchise Printer Advisory Council and the inaugural meeting to be hosted at the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters on Aug. 15, 2007. Allegra Network, AlphaGraphics, Digital Quickcolor, Inc., Franchise Services, Inc., Mail Boxes Etc. (a UPS Company), and PostNet are among the first council members EFI will convene in its initiative to enable success across the growing franchise printer market segment.
In its July 2007 issue, Graphic Arts Monthly reported “Chains and franchises are aggressively pursuing print volume, intensifying competition in the small commercial sector…franchise outlets number over 2,000 and are multiplying. According to the International Franchise Assn., print franchises grew 27% from 2003 to 2005.” The objective of the Franchise Printer Advisory Council founded by EFI is to address the technology needs and other dynamics and enable continued growth for this industry segment.
“EFI is a valued strategic partner, always looking for innovative ways to help me succeed as a print service provider – and not only with their industry-leading technology,” said Tim Wood, vice president of technology, Allegra Network, one of world’s largest graphic communications franchises linking more than 600 locations in North America. “Their forming and facilitating the Franchise Printer Advisory council is another example of EFI’s continual efforts to propel my business, and the print industry in general.”
To increase the two-way exchange of information between EFI and its customers, and to facilitate communication among the market segment’s visioneers, the first Franchise Printer Advisory Council meeting will feature an agenda packed with business-influencing information and discussion. There will be open roundtable discussions among attendees and with EFI’s executive team, and presentations and question/answer sessions with EFI senior engineer and product marketing professionals regarding product development plans specific to the franchise printer market segment.
“In addition to training and industry insight, what our customers find invaluable about Connect, our annual users’ conference, is the opportunity to share ideas and best practices among themselves,” said Frank Mallozzi, senior vice president, worldwide marketing and sales, EFI. “We’re extending that idea with our formation of the Franchise Printer Advisory Council. What EFI gleans from the council meetings will impact our product development, development, particularly as we evolve our Fiery technology, which is widely used by the franchises represented on the advisory council.”
EFI offers a robust portfolio of industry-leading products designed to help franchise printers print to win. Integrated from creation to print, and delivering increased performance, cost savings and productivity, these solutions include: the Fiery Platform, which helps print service providers get the most out of their digital print production engine; Fiery JDF Connector, a client-server application that integrates Fiery servers into a JDF-driven workflow; EFI VUTEk superwide digital inkjet printers, renowned for speed, productivity and color quality; Jetrion industrial inkjet systems, optimized for outstanding image quality, performance, and wide substrate support; EFI Splash
Mac OS X-based workflow solution; Fiery -  Central production color and black-and-white production management and make-ready solution; EFI MicroPress raster-based production color workflow solution; PSI and Printsmith, among EFI’s print MIS systems that provide a business process foundation, including estimating and quoting, job tracking, dynamic scheduling, real-time shop floor data collection, inventory management, invoicing and receivables, payables, and analysis; EFI web-to-print solutions, including Digital StoreFront - ; EFI Bestcolor - -driven proofing and wide-format production solutions, including Colorproof XF and Fiery XF; and the EFI Color Profiler Suite profiling solution for graphic arts professionals.
EFI welcomes representation on the Franchise Printer Council from any and all of its applicable customers. More information is available at www.efi.com.