As has been the tradition for the last two decades, the event kicked off with a CEO keynote, this time with new CEO Jeff Jacobson, with the theme of the “Now and Future Pendulum.” Jacobson spent time talking about the 30-year history of the industry’s analog-to-digital transformation and his role in various stages of it, and insisted that we should be focused on both being in the now and the future (though he talked a lot about the past!). He identified four pillars of futuristic thinking:

About 800 people attended the event, down from last year largely due to the reduced number of journalists and EFI salespeople attending. The number of customers was roughly the same.

One area that could have been addressed more deeply in the keynote—and a topic clearly top of mind for customers in attendance in light of the company’s recent acquisition by Siris Group—was more specificity about the Siris strategy for the company going forward. With private equity, there is always the concern that the company will be split up and sold. However, later in the program, there was a fireside chat between EFI COO Marc Olin and Al Zollar, Executive Partner at Siris. I heard from many customers in attendance how impressed they were with him—his background (more than 30 years at IBM), his intelligence, his curiosity about the company, and where it can play in the future. Based on what I heard from him, and from attendees, I believe his session reassured customers that their investments were safe.