Charlottesville, VA -- INTERQUEST, a leading market and technology research and consulting firm serving the digital printing and publishing industry, today announced the release of Digital Production Printing in the Federal Government: Market Update. The study is based on extensive, in-depth interviews with respondents from in-house printing facilities in executive branch agencies and quasi-government organizations. It complements a 2008 study which focused on government print buyers and third-party print providers.

According to David Davis, a Director at INTERQUEST, "This is the second time we've conducted an intensive study of this sector of the in-house printing market, so we now have a solid baseline of research which enables us to track trends and progress."

Digital Production Printing in the Federal Government: Market Update focuses on the equipment, applications, volume trends, and challenges faces government in-plant facilities. It also examines how in-house printing fits into the overall federal environment, especially the relationship between these facilities and the Government Printing Office (GPO).

Issues and topics related to digital printing include:

- The use of digital production printing, including monochrome, highlight, and full-color systems

- The dynamics of conventional and digital production

- Key applications and volume trends

- Primary opportunities and challenges faced by government in-plants

- The degree to which in-house printing facilities are using leading edge technologies such as variable data printing and JDF

According to Davis, "We find that for the most part government in-plants are fulfilling an important function and are operating well within their legislative mandate. Yet they face a challenging environment, including an aggressive move from all of government to migrate information on line, budget cuts, and competition from distributed devices. They are surviving, but the operations are taking on a distinctly different profile as time goes on."

The study finds that the number of government in-house facilities using conventional printing equipment has declined steadily in recent years. Although the offset equipment which remains is mostly used for high-volume work, lithography accounts for less than 30% of the printing produced in house. Although most categories of output at government in-plants are flat or declining, full-color digital printing is increasing as the cost to produce it progressively declines. This category of work now represents about 12% of the digital volume at the typical agency in-plant.

Digital Production Printing in the Federal Government: Market Update, is available for immediate order from www.inter-quest.com, or by calling (434)979-9945.