The last couple weeks have been busy news weeks with Hunkeler Innovationdays and Dscoop back to back. Then on February 23rd, Heidelberg made its long-awaited digital partner announcement, with the “global strategicje cooperation” between Heidelberg and Ricoh. At Hunkeler Innovationdays, we saw another long-awaited announcement: the Xerox entry into inkjet with its waterless production inkjet printer. WhatTheyThink dug a little deeper into the Xerox announcement, and adds more opinion to the discussion about the Heidelberg/Ricoh deal.

WhatTheyThink was at Hunkeler Innovationdays where Xerox made its production inkjet announcement.  In talking to show attendees, both vendors and printers, several concerns were raised about the marketability of this product. We spoke directly with Xerox to obtain their position, and gain a little more insight into how Xerox views the long-term potential for this product.

First, we wondered why Hunkeler Innovationdays was chosen as the venue for this launch.  According to Jonathan Edwards, Vice President, Continuous Feed Solutions, “Hunkeler is the most important event within the business in which we are trying to be successful.  Everyone who comes is involved in the business, operationally or strategically, and it is almost a guarantee that everyone who comes sees you and you don't get lost like you can at IPEX and drupa.  Franz and Stephan have the gravitas to draw people in, the event is important, and we feel we are ready, in many ways more ready than others that are already out there.  We will complete our work in the next months, but we think we have a very strong story to tell, and we wanted to take people's attention.”