Discussion

By Andrew Tribute on Aug 14, 2017

Great piece Frank. It was interesting to look back on some of the early work done by US based Xeikon users.

I have great memories of Xeikon and was the first analyst to see the machine in mid 1993. I wrote an article for The Seybold Report to be published at the same time as Xeikon announced the press prior to its IPEX 1993 launch. At the time Indigo was preparing to announce its first machine, and I took the opportunity immediatly following Xeikon's announcement not to break my NDA with Xeikon to call Benny Landa to tell him Indigo would not be the first to announce a color digital pres.

As Frank mentioned Xeikon presses were sold through a number of channels, one of which was Xerox who took the press as the Docucolor 70 and 100. Unfortunately Xeikon could not see Xerox making its own press and they launched their only sheet fed digital press almost at the same time as Xerox launched its Docucolor sheet fed presses. These presses were far better than Xeikon's sheet fed press, and they came to dominate the digital press market. The Xeikon sheet fed press became a total failure and was largely contributary to Xeikon having to be financially restructured.

The restructured Xeikon continue to be a success concentrating on niche market areas rather than competing in the main digital press markets against HP, Xerox, Canon and others. Today's Xeikon under new ownership is a very successful company within its specific markets.