In our continued effort to compile the best content for our members, WhatTheyThink.com and Xplor have teamed to bring certain articles to enhance your knowledge. Each quarter, Xplor publishes Xploration - The Journal of Electronic Document Systems. Xploration delivers straight-talk interviews with movers and shakers in the print and publishing industry. Periodically, WhatTheyThink.com will republish certain articles from Xploration that will benefit your business.

Reprinted with permission, Fall Issue of Xploration.

Xerox Corporation helped initiate our industry with some of the first cutsheet production printers in the 1970s and continues to be a leading supplier today. Now, Xerox is emerging as a leader in new areas, such as digital color printing.

Anshoo Gupta, president of the Xerox Production Systems Group, recently shared his views on the impact digital color printing — and other recent developments — will have in shaping future directions in our industry.

Q. What do you see as the major trends in data center and transactional printing operations today?

A. The IT-savvy nature of data centers and service bureaus put them in strong positions to capture two of today’s greatest emerging opportunities. One is that the highest-value graphic output increasingly incorporates customization and personalization. The other is that electronic presentment is growing tremendously as a complement to printed output. Many data center-based operations have successfully grown by leveraging their longtime expertise in database management and variable data printing to offer full-color and more graphically rich personalized output, as well as alternative forms of electronic presentment. In the process, they are pioneering valuable new services that are beyond the scope of less data-savvy graphic arts providers.

Q. How do you see full-color color printing fitting into data center and transactional printing environments today? What applications are likely to be done in color?

A. Digital color represents a tremendous growth opportunity for selectively adding value to transactional applications done cost-effectively today on monochrome and highlight color printers, and for expanding into publishing applications. For in plants, such expansion facilitates the strategic consolidation of data center operations and central reprographics departments.

We are seeing financial services companies build the loyalty of their very top customers by providing higher value services, such as full-color statements. These statements are more attractive and easier to read than the more cost-effective one- or two-color statements that most customers continue to receive.

Many companies are using digital color printing to customize and personalize inserts included in invoice mailings. This makes them more relevant to recipients while streamlining invoice production with all-digital processes. Eventually, we expect inserts to be incorporated into the actual invoice, further streamlining production, while making insert information harder to ignore. Many direct mail operations are running webenabled direct mail programs that use the web for target and leads management, and digital color printing for delivering graphically rich, customized direct mail pieces.

Q. Most digital color printers and presses were developed for publishing environments. Will digital color become more transactional-friendly in the future?

A. Yes, and it will happen in several ways. One is that Adobe’s PostScript will continue to build momentum as the datastream of choice for new application development as in-plant data center printing operations and central reprographic departments (CRD) increasingly merge. Like CRD printers, most digital color printers and presses already are Postscript-enabled. Tools like Xerox VIPP make PostScript variable data printing as efficient as mainframe datastreams for transactional printing, and VIPP now supports color and images, as well as monochrome data.

At the same time, more digital front ends (DFEs), or controllers, will reach the market that process mainframe datastreams for digital color printers and presses. At the Xplor 2001 Global Electronic Document Systems Conference & Exhibit, for example, Xerox will introduce new color DFEs that support IBM AFP applications and Xerox LCDS datastreams. In addition, we are announcing that our common controller, DocuSP, will soon drive the Xerox DocuColor 2000 Series of Digital Color Presses for operations that want to standardize on one familiar workflow across monochrome cut sheet and continuous feed, as well as color printing.

Q. How good is the output quality produced on today’s digital color printers and presses?

A. Readers can judge for themselves, because portions of this magazine were printed on the industry’s leading digital color press, the Xerox DocuColor 2060 Digital Color Press. It is one of two models in the DocuColor 2000 Series of Digital Color Presses, which has more than a 70 percent market share and more than 3400 placements in less than two years since its introduction. Readers have the current benchmark in digital color image quality in their hands.

We also judge image quality against industry standards. This summer, a short run color printing and proofing solution from Xerox and Imation Corp. was certified by SWOP, Inc. as the first and only printer/ copier system to meet the rigorous Specifications for Web Offset Publications (SWOP). The certification means that prints created on a properly calibrated Xerox DocuColor 12 Printer/Copier using the Imation Matchprint Professional Server can be suitable for proofing color in a press run. That’s a huge breakthrough, and strong testimony to the consistent quality we’ve been able to achieve with digital color. And, by the way, the DocuColor 12 is based upon the same print engine technology as the DocuColor 2000 Series.

Q. In the face of this digital color revolution, what can we expect to see in the way of further development of monochrome printing technologies?

A. As long as there are advantages to printing monochrome or highlight color—such as lower cost and higher productivity—print operations will continue to use these devices and vendors will continue to develop them. Xerox absolutely will continue to develop new monochrome and highlight color print engines and technologies. The most recent evidence of our commitment is the new family of four continuous-feed printers we rolled out this year. They offer true differentiation through a number of innovative Xerox technologies — including a next-generation alternative to the hard-wired de facto industry standard IBM Type One interface between print engines and their feeding and finishing devices—which has limited the flexibility of these systems.

Q. What is the most innovative application you’ve seen developed this year?

A. It’s hard to single out any one application, but I will say that I’ve been pleased to see more innovative use of Xerox DataGlyphs technology. DataGlyphs embed machine-readable data into paper and electronic documents far less obtrusively than bar codes—they are barely detectable to the human eye, so they can be placed nearly anywhere on a page. They’ve been used to ensure package integrity for years, and now our customers are using them to automate “turnaround documents” —response cards from direct mail that can be processed automatically by reading the embedded glyphs with optical scanners. For instance, SCICOM Data Services in Minnetonka, Minn., is using DataGyphs to help a major insurance company cut costs, labor requirements, and errors in processing return cards, while also complying with federal and state laws regarding confidentiality and non-disclosure of consumer information.

Q. What can customers expect to see from Xerox in the future?

A. Xerox is committed to developing innovative technologies and to supporting them with services, solutions, and other offerings that help Xerox customers profit and grow by bringing new value to their customers. For example, we recently announced the innovative new imaging technology behind our next-generation digital color press platform, the DocuColor iGen3, that will set new benchmarks for image quality, applications flexibility, productivity, and low operational cost when it is launched next year. To support our customers’ use of innovative equipment like this, we are aggressively helping them build their digital color printing volume today with offerings like the recently announced Variable Information Business Accelerator Kit (VIBAK). VIBAK is a collection of materials on CD-ROM designed to help Xerox customers learn, use and sell color variable data printing applications, which typically require new skills in development, sales and marketing. This exemplifies the way that Xerox plans to continue offering its knowledge and its people to help its customers develop successful services based upon innovative Xerox technologies.