Richard Romano:  Hi this is Richard Romano from WhatTheyThink.com and we’re here at the latest Oce Wow Event in Boca Raton Florida.  And we’re talking with Oce VP of Technology and Solutions, Guy Broadhurst.  So thank you very much for talking with us.

Guy Broadhurst:  Thank you, thank you for being here.  I appreciate it.

Richard:  Now inkjet obviously is the hot topic in printing today.  It was inkjet i-Pad graphics that was highly inkjet.  Tell us a little bit about Oce’s inkjet strategy and where you see the market going.

Guy:  Wow, let me say that first.  I mean we transformed our company in three years.  We’ve been a toner-based organization, now we switched to inkjet completely and with the announcement, the North American announcement of the 3500.  Now we have two platforms that can build on the strengths of Oce and our current customers.  We got twin systems going down the 3500 route or in our commercial and transaction environment with the Jet Stream family.  And we will continue to build those products and innovate those products with known technology like our SRA Controller technology and with out Digi-Dot platform which is across both platforms like our SRA Controller is.  And we will continue to bring solutions our customers can use and build their business and become successful.

Richard:  So obviously you see inkjet rather than toner being the future of the industry?

Guy:  Well luckily for us it’s going to be both for some time.  I mean there’s no question that our CS10000 Flex and our VarioStream 8000 have been highly successful like our predecessor products like VarioStream 7000 and so on.  Customers will continue to have both products for some time, and luckily for us we have both of these platforms or three or four platforms which to choose.

Richard:  Well what do you see is the top applications for inkjet at the moment?  Where do you see the applications moving in the future?

Guy:  Well certainly our history has been in the transaction environment and over a period of time we’ve also moved our company from being transaction and direct mail based over to commercial printing as well.  So the platforms lend themselves very well to working in both environments equally.  So we’re building the graphic arts side, we’re continuing to innovate and bring those solutions to those customers and transaction side also is embracing inkjet rapidly to go to color really.

Richard:  Now the big unveiling today at this event was obviously the Color Stream 3500.  Tell us a little bit more about the machine in general.

Guy:  Well the 3500 is built on a couple of pieces of known technology from Oce.  The first one, of course, is our Digi-Doc technology which was first introduced on to the Jet Stream platform and the SRA Controller technology which has been around in our continuously black and white platform for some time.  But this time we were focusing really on our customers who have twin systems installed today and want to introduce inkjet technology to that same environment into a raised floor as an example or they have a certain amount of simplex applications where they want to run simplex or duplex backwards and forwards.  And it’s those kind of people where the 3500 really addresses that marketplace and gives them a platform to migrate to without having to look at something as heavy as a Jet Stream as an example.

Richard:  Now we’ll be seeing the 3500 in action in another one of these videos in this series, but can you tell us some of the specs; how many colors, the resolution of the machine, the speed, that kind of thing.

Guy:  Sure the machine is introduced today.  A little over 1,000 impressions a minute, 1,074 impressions a minute, running at 240 or so feet a minute, 75 meters per minute is the continuous feed speed for that machine whether its black and white or color.  Today we introduced the machine as a four over four.  The ability of the machine to run six over six is planned for future variance of the machine.  We sell it both as a simplex, obviously, and as a duplex.  We sell it as a L-Twin, an inline Twin and an H-Twin which again is important for our transaction market.  The machine runs from a right to left so it’s also contusive to using existing finishing solutions right there on current twins.  Machine is introduced with pigment and later on both dyed-based and MICR inks will become available.  So a wide range of applications can be printed on it; 21.25 inches wide is the print and paper width which is very unusual for an inkjet machine.  It comes integrated with a unwinder already and customer can have any type of finishing on the backend that they choose.

Richard:  Now inkjet has been notorious for being sort of picky about the types of substrates that it can print on.  How does Oce address this issue?

Guy:  Well certainly for our viewpoint when we first introduced the Jet Stream family we were able to produce on Mocha paper, the traditional paper that was used in our transaction and direct mail accounts.  And today with the 3500 we do exactly the same thing.  We can produce output both on Mocha paper, both on inkjet treated and some coder stocks in the same way we have and some heavy stocks as 9 point as an example, we could also print.  So a wide variety of substrates are available.  From our viewpoint we’ve tested hundreds and hundreds of stocks, both the Jet Stream and for the 3500 and we make that list available to our customers as necessary.

Richard:  And if customers want to use specific stocks they can send them to you and you’ll test them specifically for them, correct?

Guy:  Yes, it’s lucky for us we have an onsite paper lab and we turn around very quickly the ability to test some of that papers if they’re specific and we haven’t seen them before and we’ll give them the results in a very fast turnaround, yes.

Richard:  And in the same way if somebody wants to use specific pantone colors or logo colors you’ll also specially mix the inks for them.

Guy:  Yeah certainly.  As time goes on specialty colors especially in the transaction market where certainly the logos, the branding of that logo is particularly important where it can’t be reached with a full CMYK process, both with the 3500 series and our toner-based machines and the Jet Stream family we can make up a specific color that suits that customer depending on the model. Yes.

Richard:  Great.  Anything else you’d like to add?

Guy:  It’s fantastic, thanks for being here.  We appreciate and welcome to the Wow of Oce.