Last summer, David Zwang and I joined a small group of industry influencers to learn first-hand about the company’s printhead/ink evolution – DuraLink. This was just prior to Print 17, where Memjet planned to officially launch the new line. I was curious to see how that had gone, and where the company’s strategies would take it next.

Eric Owen, Memjet’s Commercial Press General Manager, was quite bullish about the industry response to DuraLink. “In the approximately 100 business days since Print, we have met with – not just identified – 73 interested parties, some of which we reached out to, and others that contacted us. About 50 of them have moved to the interest stage and many of those are on their way to executing a Non-Disclosure Agreement so we can move to the next steps. We’ve been all over the world talking with folks, and it’s been really exciting and rewarding. It’s truly remarkable uptake.”

Based on this response, and understanding how long it takes for potential OEM partners to get through the process, Owen gave a directional forecast for the future. He states that OEM’s in the latter stages of evaluation have provided Memjet with a range of expected unit sales – from a dozen very high-volume, large format machines to as many as 30-50 narrow mid volume devices. All told, Memjet sees an abundance of opportunity for the DuraLink technology for applications ranging from direct mail, lettershop work and transactional documents to full commercial print, including publications, books, and other general commercial print, as well as packaging. In packaging, discussions are ongoing relative to everything from labels, corrugated, folding cartons and flexible packaging to direct-to-shape for applications such as printing on cans. In fact, I was able to see the test bed for direct-to-shape, and it’s pretty impressive.