- While some printers can make those figures add up to profit, many are increasingly adopting an alternative route to the consumer market that some have dubbed B2B2C. In this arrangement, the printer partners with a consumer-facing retail company to share the cost burden - the printer handles the processing and production while the retail partner handles customer service and the incredibly costly customer acquisition.
- B2 or not B2? That is the question digital manufacturers have been asking themselves pre-Drupa and - for the most part - they have opted for the affirmative answer. So much so, in fact, that some are already calling Drupa 2012 'the B2 Drupa'. However, despite the best efforts of Fujifilm, Screen, HP, Xeikon, MGI and Landa, plus those of a Ryobi/Miyakoshi partnership, show director Manuel Mataré says the epithet is a little premature for the self-styled 'Olympics of print'.
- When it comes to magazines, print, essentially, is having its pockets picked. You see, as magazine printers walk down the dark alley of UK-wide economic uncertainty, preoccupied with depleting paginations and falling client numbers, Apple has snuck up behind them and is helping companies lift publishers right out of the printer's back pocket with a platform no one, initially, saw the point in: the tablet computer.
- Polyprint has premiered the TexjetPlus direct-to-garment printer on stand R45.
- Korean manufacturer Dyss has unveiled a new colour camera detection system, the X-Navi, for its full range of digital die-cutters.
- Essential Media Co has launched what it claimed is the world's first reverse-printed floor tile at Fespa Digital.
- All American Printing Machines and Supply (D47) has secured the sale of two Sequin Motif machines to an undisclosed Polish company.
- EFI has sold a Vutek GS3250LX to Danish printer Footprint at Fespa Digital.
- SwissQprint (J41) is showcasing a raft of new innovations for its 2.5m-wide Impala flatbed, including a thermoforming ink for 3D-effect applications and the addition of three new spot colours.
- Substrates manufacturer Guandong has unveiled its 'Made for Europe' special collection on booth F30.
- The UK's first colour supplement, The Sunday Times Magazine, is celebrating its 50th anniversary this month with an exhibition and commemorative edition.
