April 30, 2004 -- Lexington , Kentucky USA -- WhatTheyThink.com, the printing industry's leading source of news and information, delivered “Inside drupa 2004” on April 28 - a special webinar event, to more than 250 registrants. To help printing and publishing executives prepare for drupa, and to provide advance information for those unable to attend, Senior WTT Editors Cary Sherburne and Gail Nickel-Kailing provided an overview of the products, announcements, future vision and drupa plans for key drupa exhibitors. The event disclosed a number of previously unrevealed product announcements and included comments on the “JDF drupa.” See the archive - http://members.whattheythink.com/home/drupaw.cfm Inside drupa 2004 presented just a sampling of the more than 1,800 exhibitors who will be filling nearly 40 acres of trade show floor at the world's largest printing trade fair . Companies reviewed included Pageflex, Exstream, Serendipity Software, EFI, Kodak Polychrome Graphics (KPG), Presstek, Screen, Xerox, Mitsubishi, MAN Roland, KBA (Koenig & Bauer AG), Mohawk Paper Mills, Day International, and Sun Chemical. Heard first on WhatTheyThink.com PageFlex, a company focused on delivery of a Web-to-print enterprise platform for complex variable data printing used this forum as a platform to announce a new product called PageFlex StoreFront, an out of the box set of tools that enables a print provider to easily deploy PageFlex technology to manage the choice and ordering of variable data print jobs. Featuring an easy installation with a wizard approach, PageFlex StoreFront integrates with the printer's existing Web site and is designed for rapid deployment of complex variable data solutions. Another exclusive was the announcement of Serendipity Software's Blackmagic 3.0. The new Serendipity Blackmagic V3.0 software has the ability to “de-impose” complex post-RIPped imposed images for fast printing of proof samples in page order. This eliminates the need to manually cut and fold fully imposed low resolution print signatures produced on double sided plotters. A complete book can printed in page sequence starting from the back cover to the front cover, even when there are mixed signatures. The product includes a built in high speed direct driver which is capable delivering print ready files to the Xante CL30's hard disc for immediate duplex printing. Other products! Sherburne and Nickel-Kailing commented on these products: Exstream's Dialog WebVerse and AFP Studio EFI's 2000 page-per-minute transactional Fiery server Matchprint Virtual Press Side by KPG Presstek's DI and CTP platforms enabled by ProFire Excel, and internal cylinder metal plate CtP enabled by Presstek's SureFire Imaging. Superfast, super wide CtP systems from Screen and the new Screen TruePress 344 DI press Xerox's many new production color, highlight color, and continuous feed technologies and new developments in the Xerox FreeFlow Digital Workflow Collection Innovative variable cutoff and reusable plate systems from Mitsubishi MAN Roland's heatset DICOweb plate-free web press, and DirectDrive, which allows an independent plate change operation while the press is running KBA's next-generation Rapidas up to 81” wide 100% recycled offset printing papers from Mohawk Day International's Durazone technology for extended blanket life Sun Chemical's new “World Series” process inks Also, EFI will have its popular booklet ABCs of VDP available in both English and German. The drupa Buzz JDF, computer integrated manufacturing, processless plates, on-press re-imaging of plates and re-imageable plates were just a few of the hot drupa topics that were highlighted for participants. In its six weeks of free drupa coverage, WhatTheyThink will provide ongoing news and information as more announcements are made. WhatTheyThink will have a full team on-site at drupa, shipping late-breaking news home daily. Stay tuned to get the latest news as it is announced. To access a replay of this webinar, visit: http://members.whattheythink.com/home/drupaw.cfm