Komori's Jacki Hudmon talks about their digital strategy

Jacki Hudmon, SVP of Sales & Marketing at Komori, talks to Cary Sherburne and gives an update on things that came out of drupa including establishing a presence in the digital market and partnering with Konica Minolta and Landa.

Cary Sherburne: Hi, I’m Cary Sherburne, Senior Editor at WhatTheyThink and I'm here with Jackie Hudmon who is the Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Komori.

Jackie Hudmon: Hi there.

Cary Sherburne: Welcome.

Jackie Hudmon: Thank you. Thank you.

Cary Sherburne: So we talked a few months ago about some planned digital initiatives at Komori and a lot’s happened in the last few months. Maybe you could update us on some of the things that came out at Drupa and maybe anything else new that you have to share.

Jackie Hudmon: Sure. Well Drupa really is where we launch our whole digital strategy. We went from really heavy no market presence in the digital press to now suddenly having a plethora of options. Starting with the KM relationship – our relationship with Konica Minolta, I’m sorry, Konica Minolta. We are selling – we have an OEM relationship with them so we’re selling their C8000 which has been extremely successful for our sales organization not only in the United States but throughout the world. The second tier of that is our relationship that we’re taking to the digital inkjet technologies. Again, that’s a partnership with KM and they’re developing the head technology while we make the press platforms.
Cary Sherburne: And that’s the Impremia.

Jackie Hudmon: That would be the Impremia IS29.

Cary Sherburne: The sheetfed.

Jackie Hudmon: Correct. So that’s still in product development. We hope to launch that – the idea is to launch that at Print 2013. So another year from now that product will be available in the United States.
Cary Sherburne: Okay.

Jackie Hudmon: In addition to that we announced our relationship with Landa which is pretty exciting. We’ve been working behind the scenes with Landa Corporation for some time. So we are offering a variety of solutions now that can relate to either the packaging market, the publishing market and the specialty market for digital presses.

Cary Sherburne: And then finally you have some webfed inkjet.

Jackie Hudmon: Right. So we showed both the sheetfed option which was the IS29 and then on the web side we actually showed a 20-inch-wide web using Panasonic head technology.

Cary Sherburne: Okay.

Jackie Hudmon: So that product probably won’t be available – we actually might look at incorporating Landa technology into our web offering as well.

Cary Sherburne: Okay.

Jackie Hudmon: Because his solution of dealing with aqueous ink technology on a digital press platform is quite revolutionary and certainly makes sense on that platform.

Cary Sherburne: Well that’s great. That’s a lot to happen in a few months. You know, you’ve been working on it longer than a few months but, you know, to have nothing and then boom.

Jackie Hudmon: Well, the Komori’s culture is we really try to spend a lot of time on R&D and not really announce things until we’re ready to do that. So there’s been many, many years of a lot of effort gone into this project and we’re just now seeing the fruits of the labor, our labor.

Cary Sherburne: That’s great. Well, we’ll look forward to seeing those announcements at Print 2013.

Jackie Hudmon: Yes, one more year. Stay tuned.

Cary Sherburne: Thank you.