It was a spring-like day—and, within 24 hours, a winter-like day, with a blizzard on the way—as about 250 Kodak customers and employees gathered at the Kodak Center in Rochester, N.Y. Wednesday and Thursday of this week for an event that Kodak called “Taking Print Further.” The event was a combination of forward-thinking trend presentations (Frank Romano gave a keynote entitled “The Future of Print,” which—in a nutshell—will involve less ink-on-paper, more ink-on-just-about-everything-else), panel discussions, and several new product and technology introductions.

Perhaps the biggest announcement, if you check out today’s news feed, was a new digital press platform, the Nexfinity, the next generation of Kodak’s electrophotographic (EP) press line that was launched 16 years ago with the Nexpress. Not a replacement or successor to the Nexpress, the Nexfinity is Kodak’s high-productivity EP press, filling out the portfolio that includes the entry-level Nexpress ECO2500 and the mid-range Nexpress ZX class presses. Designed for million-impression-per-month volume, the Nexfinity includes a new LED-based writing system, and has been geared for high productivity, printing on a broad range of substrates so as to accommodate a wide range of applications, consistency, image quality, and low running costs (“running costs are consistent with medium-run offset,” said Chris Balls, General Manager, Equipment and VP, Print Systems Division, Kodak). The toner modules can be swapped out and white toner can be laid down first so as to allow printing on non-white substrates.

Customers have also been clamoring for more metallics, so gold is available and silver is in the works. “Designers want metallics and other kinds of special effects,” said Scott Gray, VP of Marketing and Sales for Mitchell Press, during a Nexpress/Nexfinity customer panel describing the appeal of the Nexpress. “so the fifth unit was attractive.”