Océ has for a long-time been a company that had excellent communication with its clients. For many years it has run an annual event, the Océ OpenHouse. This was a multi-day event at which Océ’s customers and prospects were invited to attend, plus a large number of analysts and press also attended. It was claimed that this was the largest digital printing fair in Europe. At this Océ and its partner companies would show the latest in their printing technologies and associated workflow and finishing products. The last OpenHouse was held in March 2007. Océ did not hold an OpenHouse in 2008 because of scheduling conflicts with drupa.

This year Océ has changed and is not running the OpenHouse event any more, at least that is my understanding of the situation. It has instead decided to run more targeted smaller events, these being the Océ Home of Color, with an emphasis of showing the growing importance of color in Océ’s operations. Océ is the world leader in continuous feed monochrome printing systems, and is a very key player in the sheet fed monochrome digital printing market, so the emphasis of the role of color in Océ’s ongoing business is very important. The first Home of Color was held in March this year, and the latest one was held last week at the headquarters of its printing operations in Poing, near Munich Germany.

This was great timing as it followed Print’09 and allowed us to see the latest Océ presses that were shown in Chicago, plus a number of presses that were not shown there. It was also great timing as it coincided with the biggest event held in Munich each year, the Octoberfest. This is a huge fair that celebrates the coming of October, but for most people it is a huge celebration of German beer drinking. This event goes on for more than two weeks and is packed solid every night with party going Germans plus a large number of international visitors. The Home of Color started with an evening at the Octoberfest, and naturally being polite people we felt it only polite to try the beer! The Germans tend to have a reputation of being serious and not enjoying themselves, however I think the Germans attending the Octoberfest did not quite conform to that and everyone was having a wild time. It was a great way to start the event.