Cary Sherburne:  Hi.  I'm Cary Sherburne, Senior Editor at WhatTheyThink and I'm here with Hamilton Costa, who is with AN Consulting in Brazil. Brazil

Hamilton Costa:  Brazil.  Good to see you, Cary.

Cary Sherburne:  Good to see you.  And we're here at drupa 2012 and I'm kind of curious from a Latin American perspective – and there are a lot of Latin American attendees here, right?

Hamilton Costa:  Yes.

Cary Sherburne:  Do you know how many approximately?

Hamilton Costa:  The expectation of the fair that would come about 4,000 Brazilian people.  Probably 1,500 or 2,000 or more Latin Americans.  But we still don't know how many are coming, but it's not going to be so far from that.

Cary Sherburne:  Yes.  I've been hearing a lot of Spanish on the trains and I ran into some folks from Chile yesterday.

Hamilton Costa:  Yeah.  Spanish.  Portuguese people.  I think they are buying a lot of machines.

Cary Sherburne:  I hope so, or else the vendors hope so.

Hamilton Costa:  Yeah, yeah, especially, especially.  Even the traditional machines, even the digital machines.  But I'm passing by the floor we could see something ringing on and say what's this?  Another machine sold to Brazil?

Cary Sherburne:  That's great.  And so, as you had time to walk around drupa and look at everything what would you say are the top two or three things that the Latin American market should learn from this show?

Hamilton Costa:  The show shows a vitality that's interesting, even that we are in this crisis in Europe.  It come ups of vitality that for one side but one side it's very good, especially for emerging markets that are still looking for new presses and refurbishing their plants.  On the other side, it's a little bit confusing for them.  I've been talking with some of them because those that have to make the transformation of the business when they came here thinking to see only digital they still see some life around the traditional presses.  So sort of a little bit confusing.  And not those that are very focused they know very well what they have to do.  But those that have to – they're thinking or thinking their business.  So where do I go; if I go to digital I have so many options now.

Cary Sherburne:  Yes.

Hamilton Costa:  That I don't know what to go.  And if I go to the traditional there is still life.  So do I have to change?   You now, so we could talk with some of them because they have so many options now and in fact that's on the other hand's a good thing and way to have to rethink in fact their business and find the right market niches and understand better their customers from that point of view to understand what technology will serve them from now on.

Cary Sherburne:  But it's almost a little bit unfortunate that they're seeing – that they're thinking, oh, I can just stay with offset.  That's kind of unfortunate.  I mean not that offset is gone but they should be thinking a hybrid model.

Hamilton Costa:  For sure, for sure.  But when they see that, they see so many options as I said that they are a little bit confused as where to go.  I have to go to inkjet; do we still have to stay or have to go to toner first.  And word of advice is first look to our markets and that way you have the answer for that, okay.  But on the other side in the traditional, let's say, printing they still have a lot of work because many, many plants are not productive.

Cary Sherburne:  Right, they haven't automated.  

Hamilton Costa:  So when we talk to them and say you have to – okay, you are looking for offsets, etc., but look for all the automations.  You look for the new dryings for inks, you have to look for productivity most of all.

Cary Sherburne:  Okay.  Oh, that's good advice.

Hamilton Costa:  You have to look for all the software that you can plan better your plant; you can control better your plant or can lower your costs because if you are in the traditional side you must be a very good productor, very good manufacturer.  

Cary Sherburne:  Manufacturer.  Yeah.

Hamilton Costa:  Unless you're not going to have the good cost that will charging for.

Cary Sherburne:  So that'll be the message that you'll be carrying back to Latin America from this show.