Belgium, Lier, February 19th 2004 – Xeikon International today reveals a brand new full colour digital print solution designed to set new market standards for quality, productivity and cost of digital production colour printing. The Xeikon 5000 is the culmination of more than 10 years of experience in digital colour printing. Designed from the ground up, the Xeikon 5000 comes with a brand new digital front-end and numerous state-of-the-art components to make the Xeikon 5000 what it is: the first digital colour press designed to produce impeccable quality colour printing during short print runs and throughout print volumes running into the millions. For a start, the Xeikon 5000 has all the features that have become Xeikon’s trademark: true One-Pass-Duplex, a unique width of 500 mm combined with virtually unlimited sheet length and the capability to print onto a wide variety of substrates. But there is more: The Xeikon 5000 comes integrated with the brand-new digital front-end Swift, a fully redesigned front-end to support and enhance the capabilities of the Xeikon 5000. The Swift DFE delivers an improved toolbox that enables faster and better integration of applications and equipment into a seamless workflow thanks to the implementation of open standards. The Swift DFE easily processes PostScript, PDF, PPML and PPML/VDX files at high speed and is designed to support future JDF-based digital printing job tickets. With the Swift DFE, Xeikon has realised a quantum leap in terms of processing power: the controller can easily handle graphically complex variable data print jobs of more than 1 million records per job. Being web-fed, the Xeikon 5000 is intrinsically fast: it can print multi-page documents at a speed of 7,800 full-colour pages per hour (130 A4 pages per minute). But speed isn’t everything. As Frank Jacobs, Marketing Manager at Xeikon explains: “The Xeikon 5000 has been designed to combine the best of both worlds: quality and productivity. It meets users’ deep wish for a reliable, productive and stable press. With the Xeikon 5000 we have developed a digital colour engine that is pre-eminently suited for long duty cycles. It can easily handle monthly volumes of up to 3 million A4 full-colour pages, at an unprecedented cost of 0.02 EUR per page.” This drastically increased productivity has been realised through the combination of improvedreliability, operation efficiency and a considerable reduction of downtime caused by maintenance. To support its superior uptime, every Xeikon 5000 comes standard with the Axeda DRM , a client-software solution that runs on the digital front end and which is complemented by Acunia’s wireless technology, allowing the Xeikon service organisation to remotely monitor press runs and proactively intervene. Amongst the numerous improvements to raise image quality to a higher level, is the in-line densitometer, offering perfect front-to-back and colour registration as well as colour matching without the need for time consuming, manual intervention. The Xeikon 5000 can be equipped with a 5th (duplex) colour station to add spot colour, special toner for security applications or MICR toner, without impacting its printing speed. In brief, the Xeikon 5000 stands for - Improved, consistently high image quality - Substantially increased productivity - Absolute ease of use - Improved workflow automation and integration - Enhanced variable data handling capabilities - Considerably reduced Tcop Frank Jacobs adds: ”The Xeikon 5000 can print on a broad range of paperweights from 40 to 350 gsm, a spectrum yet unmatched. In combination with all other features, it opens up a host of new, value-adding possibilities for our customers.” Drupa preview The Xeikon 5000 will be Xeikon’s “pièce de résistance” at drupa 2004, Europe’s largest print exhibition held in Dusseldorf, Germany from 6 to 19 May. Visitors to the show will get a good idea of the dazzling capabilities of the Xeikon 5000. In addition, Xeikon will be demonstrating a selection of its entire portfolio of products and solutions. For more information, visit Xeikon in Hall 7, booth C06.