The battle between EFI and Creo (over Printcafe) becomes more interesting as each hour passes. There should never have been a battle for Printcafe after Creo declared last month: “Creo Increases Stake in Printcafe to 55%.” As reported by WhatTheyThink.com, majority ownership would have almost guaranteed that Creo would be able to acquire the rest of Printcafe’s shares and become the new owner without competition.

The only problem is that while all of us received the press release from Creo - someone high atop the Creo management chain forgot to complete the transaction. So the whole thing actually never happened as implied by the headline in Creo’s news release. Creo still posts the headline at the news section of its site.

I believe this and other actions will cost Mr. Michelson (CEO of Creo) much more than embarrassment should Creo lose the bidding for Printcafe. Creo now has to pay at least $3.00 per share for Printcafe when just last month they almost had it for a $1.30 per share. Creo has invested nearly $100 million into Printcafe already.

We should not forget that this is the same leadership that quickly dispatched with the best folks from Scitex sending them packing. I believe that Scitex always had better management, sales and engineering teams and made better products than Creo. Even when Creo severed their relationship with Heidelberg after the Scitex merger, it was handled in such a way to inflict as much embarrassment upon Heidelberg as possible. Let me be the first to say that if EFI has control of Printcafe it will be Heidelberg’s chance to dance again.

The real story is about the rise to power of EFI, the company I wrote about last month. I believe EFI has the financial resources and management skills to fully integrate Printcafe’s products for better performance. This would finally provide printing organizations with the product they were promised three years ago. EFI will not stop there but integrate all these solutions into their Velocity workflow solutions.

The Myths About EFI Come to an End

Both Creo and EFI have excellent products and very smart people creating those products. Yet, some believe that EFI can not give Creo a run for the money in the commercial printing industry. I disagree.

Myth #1: Creo Has An Advantage in Color Accuracy Over EFI

Some pundits and others mistakenly believe that Creo has some mythical advantage over EFI in the field of color accuracy. Great color is the result of hard work by the artists that make up the prepress side of the business, not some magical button that Creo or some other company has. These artists could use a Creo solution, or an EFI solution and produce equally accurate color. Yes, some solutions make it easier for prepress professionals to produce accurate color and others make it more difficult. But Creo does not have any mythical technology advantage that makes them any more proficient in color than EFI.

Myth #2: EFI Drives Copiers Not High End Devices.

EFI has been restricted by the limited functionality and technology of the color copiers they were driving, not their technology. If you look at the actual results that EFI has been able to achieve on production machines from Xerox and Canon, the output is actually quite impressive. It is far more difficult to create consistent color on a copier than an imagesetter or CTP device. EFI has proven that in the most difficult of environments, they can provide the type of solutions that provide consistent and accurate color regardless of the limitations of the device.

EFI has shown they have the ability to compete with the best in the commercial printing workflow world too. In Phase Two of the Seybold Shootout, EFI scored better than Creo’s Prinergy solution. It was Creo’s Scitex Brisque solution that narrowly edged out the EFI solution.

It should also be pointed out that while Creo’s press release boasted about their dominance in these tests, both Creo’s Prinergy and Brisque solutions have been on the market for years. You would think based upon Creo’s years of experience in producing commercial quality color and the claim that they produce more accurate color that they should have sent EFI back to the drawing board.

Myth #3: EFI Has No Commercial Print Industry Experience

There is a major problem with this assumption. When a designer or corporate print buyer decides to print 3,000 four-color brochures on a Xerox 2060 or similar device driven by EFI technology, those in commercial printing do not recognize this work as “commercial printing”. For years CAP Ventures has correctly recognized that many on demand printing companies are commercial printers based upon the type of work they produce, not the type of device they print on.

Winds of Change Blow in EFI’s Direction

As I stated in my previous article, ("Traditional Printing on the Decline: From The Ashes Emerges A New Industry") the printing industry is undergoing a major change. It is this very change away from traditional sheet-fed printing and to the communications model that provides EFI with its greatest opportunity and presents Creo with its greatest challenge.

Creo makes excellent workflow solutions, but they are not in the same league as EFI in terms of technology. Creo still operates very much like a traditional print industry manufacturer and this is another reason they were never able to help Printcafe reach its potential. More important, it was the reason they never developed a cohesive strategy for the new business of printing as it relates to the enterprise world of Corporate America.

A vast majority of today’s commercial printing companies are not prepared for the world of 1to1 marketing and just-in-time printing. Communication companies and Corporations will have to take the lead and shoulder most of the early development. This plays right into EFI’s hands. EFI can and will leverage its corporate relationships to establish itself as a leader in the new market.

EFI has the management team and corporate culture in place today that is well prepared to lead their organization to the top of the commercial printing marketplace. I believe Creo will lose Printcafe and that would be good for Printcafe’s customers, employees and the industry. And in a few years, we may all look back and see these events as a turning point for a new market leader.