Further to the matter of Xerox's decision to stop selling wide-format

Further to the matter of Xerox pulling out of the wide-format market in 2011 in the U.S. and Canada …. this morning, one of my very-frequent blog visitors (who is the President of a reprographics company) sent me an e-mail to let me know about a post about Xerox on another blog site.

In that post, the author talks about Xerox’s decision to pull out of the wide-format market and, in addition, talks about other issues Xerox has had to deal with, both in recent times and past times.

Here’s a (click-on) link to the post on that blog:

http://www.industryanalysts.com/IA10/Blog/Entries/2011/3/8_Xerox_Exits_Wide_Format%2C_Layoffs_%26_More.html

After reading that post, I’m not sure how much knowledge the author has about the “wide-format” equipment marketplace. For example, I was not aware that Heidelberg manufactures any “wide-format” systems. (If someone knows anything about a wide-format system from Heidelberg, I’d sure like to know where to find information about it!)

Now, that I’ve mentioned the word, “Heidelberg”, that reminded me of the time I visited Heidelberg, Germany with four reprographer friends, back in 1984 …..

In 1984, not long after we founded ReproCAD, several ReproCAD guys – Sol Magid (NRI), Bob Neely (Neely Repro), Paul Koze (BPS Repro), and Dick Wittrup (Carich Repro) and I, went on an exploratory trip across the big pond (that’s the Atlantic Ocean) to “discover” imaging equipment being developed by European companies; equipment not available in the U.S. All of us visited with Harper-Tunstall in England. Sol Magid, unfortunately, could not join us for the second leg of the trip, which was to Germany.) In Germany, we “discovered” Meteor-Siegen. (Not long after the trip was over, ReproCAD began importing Meteor-Siegen diazo equipment into the U.S.) Anyway, on our trip to Germany, we eventually wound up, after our “business” was concluded, in Heidelberg, Germany. Heidelberg is a “university” town. It is located on the Neckar River. So, on the last day of our trip, we (Paul, Bob, Dick and I) sat in the beer garden of a restaurant that overlooked the Neckar River. It was a beautiful sunny day, clear skies and fantastic icy-cold German beer. Prior to heading south to Heidelberg, we stopped to visit Dick Wittrup’s cousins, who owned a used-Mercedes “workshop”. While there, I, totally on a whim, purchased a re-conditioned 1964 Mercedes 220SEC coupe. I wish I still had that car!