The violet CtP plate revolution was started by Agfa, and for quite some time Agfa was the only serious supplier of such plates. It was also the leading supplier of violet diode enabled platesetters, however there were a number of other companies supplying such devices. Initially because of the low laser power of early violet diode platesetters, only highly sensitive silver based plates were available. Violet photopolymer plates did not become available until some years after Agfa launched its violet silver plates. This meant that up to the IPEX exhibition in 2002, Agfa largely had the violet plate market to itself. In that time Agfa established violet CtP technology as a viable alternative to the then dominant thermal plate technology. With only one major plate supplier, and with only silver plates being available, the violet CtP market was always going to be a secondary market. Silver plates were not the preferred choice of many printers because of environmental and run length concerns.

In the past three years the situation has changed. Violet diode imaging has moved from being an alternate technology to being a mainstream technology. It is achieving a substantial market share of the platesetters sold, and similarly achieving an increasing share of the plate supply market. Why has this happened? The reason is that the plate supply situation changed in that further suppliers entered the market. All of these suppliers offered violet sensitized photopolymer plates. In this the key player was not Agfa, who had introduced their own photopolymer plate, but was Fujifilm. Agfa’s photopolymer plate was largely aimed at the newspaper market, where Agfa was the dominant supplier of platesetters, Fuji’s initial plate, the Brillia LP-NV, was predominantly aimed at the commercial printing market. In late 2004 Kodak also entered the violet plate market, and targeted the newspaper sector, with commercial printing becoming available later. This further confirmed the importance of the violet plate market. The ‘Big Three’ are not the only suppliers of violet imaged plates, and some other smaller suppliers have also entered this market.

It is my perception, but I have no detailed figures to confirm this, that Fuji has established itself as the key player in the commercial printing violet plate market. In this it is like Agfa, both a plate supplier and a supplier of violet diode enabled platesetters. These platesetters are all made by the Fujifilm Electronic Imaging (FFEI) subsidiary. FFEI has just announced the manufacture of its 1,000th violet CtP system, this being the latest technology Fuji Luxel V-6 machine. While Fuji does not disclose market share figures, it is my understanding that in the B1 (8-page) format market in the UK it is now the leading supplier. I also understand that it is achieving substantial success in North America in the B1 and B2 markets. One of the reasons claimed for the success of Fuji’s violet technologies is that it has a lower cost of ownership than that of thermal CtP. In fact at drupa in 2004 Fuji claimed that its experience of selling both violet and thermal systems and plates showed that thermal cost an extra £1.00 ($1.82) per square feet of plate imaged than violet technology. This was brought about by the substantially lower costs of maintenance and plate processing of violet photopolymer based systems.