Pat Henry:  Hi, this is Pat Henry, What They Think, in Munich, Germany, with Print City Alliance for their pre-drupa briefing.  This morning, we are talking with Roland Stasiczek.  Roland is the Director of Marketing for Continuous Feed Inkjet Printing Systems, Océ.  Roland, thank you for speaking with us this morning.  

Roland Stasiczek:  Thank you.  It’s a pleasure for me.  

Pat Henry:  In the briefings that we heard earlier, you said that Océ anticipates that digital printing will account for 14 percent of global printing revenues by 2014 and just wondered if you could talk about what is driving that growth in digital printing.  

Roland Stasiczek:  Yeah, there are different trends ongoing in the market which drives the growth of digital printing.  And, of course, there are different reasons, but three major trends stand out.  And the first one is the increasing media fragmentation and more and more communication channels emerge and the digital printing or the printing industry has to adapt to that development and this leads to a decline of run length for printing communication and I think digital printing is a very powerful technology to serve this development. 

The second trend is the omnipresent information supply and demand.  So information is retrieved and supplied in seconds and also to this trend digital printing has to adapt and this leads or requires more and more in on-demand production of printing communication to be able to compete with electronic media. 

And the third trend is the trend for more personalization, more individualization, and I think this is an overall trend in every aspect of life and this trend doesn't stop for digital printing, so therefore highly relevant and highly targeted to print products can add additional value in nearly every business.  

Pat Henry:  And, Roland, we also talked yesterday about patellar opportunities for the kinds of high-speed, continuous inkjet systems that Océ and mass personalization and industrial-scale production.  Can you be a little bit more specific about those opportunities?  

Roland Stasiczek:  Yeah, these are two, let’s say, buzzwords.  Of course mass customization is - the vision of mass customization is around since years.  But I think with the new inkjet technologies with high-speed inkjet printing, it’s the first time that we can really see an industrialization of digital printing.  So high-speed inkjet printing adds a new dimension with higher productivity at the same time combined with lower running costs this allows a real mass customization and a real industrial-scale production of, let’s say, books, magazines or other graphic arts types of applications. 

So the new thing is not the benefits of our digital printing.  These are well known and around since 20 years.  But the new thing is that we reach a completely new productivity level which allows and industrial scale of production.  

Pat Henry:  I know that at drupa Océ is going to have a lot to show and a lot to talk about in its continuous inkjet systems, but one particular.  You have announced the introduction of a new addition to your ColorStream line, that would be the ColorStream 3700.  I know that Andy Tribute has written about it and what they think already, but wonder if you could just talk to us about some interesting features of that machine that we were briefed about earlier.  

Roland Stasiczek:  Yeah, the ColorStream 3700 is a great new product.  It’s an extension of the ColorStream 3500.  It’s a faster model, so the ColorStream 3700 is running with a speed of 100 meters per minute, so it offers more than 30 percent higher productivity compared to the ColorStream 3500. 

And we introduced that systems because many of our customer requested a higher productivity.  They loved the unique features of the ColorStream 3500, but they ask for a higher speed.  And therefore, we said, okay, let’s deliver what our customers require and produce that model. 

And these unique features are, for example, paper waste-free stop and stop.  I think this is a very unique feature in the industry and this means that you can stop the machine for, let’s say, a quick quality check or to adjust some sensors and you can start the machine once again.  And during the startup and slowdown phase, the machine is not creating any white pages, which is usually the case on any other inkjet printing system.  

Pat Henry:  So no matter whether the press is running fast, running slow, started or stopped, you’re always going to get an image?

Roland Stasiczek:  Yes.  So we guarantee, let’s say, a Page 1 quality print.  So right from the beginning, we can create sellable printed documents out of the ColorStream without any paper waste.  And this has three main advantages.  The first one is, of course, you don't throwaway unused paper, which is very green, of course.  It increases the uptime of the machine because it don't lose unproductive time.  And the third one is with regards to finishing.  Usually, when you have to handle or sort out white pages, 10, 20 meters, 10 meters, 20 meters white pages, you usually have to sort it out in the finishing equipment and it usually causes some trouble.  So overall, I think these unique features covers a lot of benefits for the customer. 

Pat Henry:  And, finally, where can we see Océ at drupa?  I believe you're going to be exhibiting in two locations and not just one.  

Roland Stasiczek:  Yeah, this right.  Of course we are Canon, so we are at the Canon booth in Hall 8A and there we are showing the ColorStream 3700, so our newest family extension.  But around drupa we also introduced two other models who are making the first time public visible.  It’s the JetStream 1900 and the JetStream 4300 mono, which is black-only variant of the JetStream wide series with a speed of up to 200 meters per minute at the 30-inch wide web.  So this machine is particularly suited for the book printing environment and especially for this segment we also are cooperating with manroland.  And at our side event at Poing our international custom experience center, we will show the first time the JetStream 4300 mono in combination with a manroland book folder.  

Pat Henry:  And that will be available as a side trip from Messe Düsseldorf out to Poing during the event?  

Roland Stasiczek:  Yeah, that's right.  We are using this existing customer experience center and offer our customers the great opportunity to see our entire continuous feed production lines.  So we will show six production lines, including finishing and including the world premiere of the 4300 mono with a manroland book folder.  

Pat Henry:  That will be a must stop on the itinerary of a lot of people at drupa and we thank you for giving us an advanced description.  

Roland Stasiczek:  Thank you very much. 

Pat Henry:  Roland, thank you, again.  Pat Henry, What They Think, thanks for watching.