Sunday, November 30, 2014

What are reprographers thinking about HP PageWide wide-format printing technology?

In early June 2014, HP announced its PageWide wide-format printers, indicating that this new generation of wide-format printers would not be released until the second half of 2015.  So, over a year away from the announcement date! 

(During the month of June, I put up several posts about HP’s Page-Wide wide-format printers.  You can easily find those posts, if you want to look back at what those posts said.)

When I wrote about the (over one year) gap-in-time between the announcement date and the release, I speculated that many reprographers would, for the next year, hold off on orders for wide-format equipment – hold off on ordering OCE, KIP, Canon, Xerox, Ricoh (and other brands of) wide-format equipment – not wanting to invest in wide-format equipment that may, essentially, become obsolete because of HP’s PageWide wide-format technology.  In particular, that reprographers would hold off on orders for black-and-white-only wide-format printers and KIP color wide-format printers.

At the time HP announced its PageWide wide-format technology, HP essentially claimed that its technical document PageWide wide-format printers , which, per HP’s claims, will print b&w and color technical documents for the same cost, will be far faster than anything else on the market and that the cost of operating its printers would be equal to or less than the operating costs of non-HP black-and-white-only and color wide-format printers.

Well, it’s been six months since HP announced its PageWide wide-format technology.

What are reprographers thinking?

How about taking the brief, confidential survey I’ve just posted on-line?

Link to Survey:


SURVEY IS NOW CLOSED, LINK REMOVED!  RESULTS WILL BE POSTED SHORTLY.

Thursday, November 27, 2014

And, the "word of the year" is.......

Word of the Year

Check out this post on the best economics blog out there:



Happy Thanksgiving

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Nemetschek acquires Bluebeam

This was reported (by other publications) in October, but I’m just finding out about it now.

“Customers of both companies will benefit from the addition of Bluebeam PDF expertise and Nemetschek adherence to open standards. 

German software vendor Nemetschek AG announces it will acquire Bluebeam Software, a leading developer of PDF-based collaboration tools for AEC.

The purchase price is $100 million.”

Link to full article (at the web-site where I found this news):



Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Mimeo.com Appoints Steven Brown as Senior Vice President of Business Development

From a press release from the issuing company

Innovator of online managed content distribution and printing hires industry veteran to spearhead channel partnerships and expand enterprise sales 

NEW YORK, Thursday, November 20, 2014.....

 -- Mimeo.com, the innovator of online, on-demand managed content distribution and printing of customized business documents and marketing materials, announced today the appointment of Steven Brown as the company’s Senior Vice President of Business Development. Steve joins Mimeo with over 27 years in sales and business development.  

Brown will lead Mimeo's efforts creating strategic partnerships with Global 1000 companies using Mimeo’s cloud based solutions. He will be a senior member of the sales and services management team helping drive go-to-market initiatives, both domestically and globally.

Read more at this link:


Wednesday, November 19, 2014

On the subject of "Tuck-In" Acquisitions

This article is now up on the blog-site known as The Digital Nirvana:

By Tom Cobery
Presently there are two major methods in which a merger or acquisition occurs in the graphics industry. It is either strategic or a tuck-in. Today I will address the tuck-in method. A tuck-in occurs when a Buyer is seeking to merge with or acquire a company whose earnings are weak or non-existing. The Buyer is...
Link to full article (and be sure to read the comments posted below the article):