Kodak's Duncan Newton

Duncan Newton, Kodak - Digital Without Compromise: the Answer is “Yes”

By Duncan Newton, Eastman Kodak, Application & Business Development, Asia Pacific

It’s interesting the difference it makes when someone like me is trying to introduce new technology to someone who does not have English as his or her first language. I’m based in Shanghai, but my responsibilities stretch from the Pacific islands to Pakistan, embracing half the world’s population and so many languages even the academics lose count.

Since many of my business contacts have limited English vocabularies and I have little or no knowledge of their language, I can’t impress them with complex, copywriter-honed marketing-speak. I just have to show them what Kodak technology has to offer, give them a few relevant numbers and then stand back and let them see for themselves.

Introducing Kodak Prosper 5000XL

Which is why I have been having so much fun introducing people across this vast territory to the Kodak Prosper 5000XL. Because, to a large extent, its “digital without compromise” value proposition speaks for itself.

Printers know what they are looking for. They see the image quality and the color, nod and grunt, and get out their loupes to take a closer look. You see the smiles breaking through and you pick up the odd word of English that seems to be used everywhere.  “Offset?” you hear them ask since they have not seen dot shapes like this from inkjet before - and they are impressed.

Color Quality

You show them the Prosper 5000XL in action, running at a rate that would deliver 7 miles of 24.5 inch color quality, on coated or uncoated paper, every hour.

Then the questions start:

What are the economics of handling high-volume transpromo work in color, compared with black and white?

What about short-run books and print-on-demand work?

Where are the cost crossover thresholds in general commercial printing, as compared with offset?

How realistic is the potential duty cycle of 120 million pages a month?

Wherever you are in the world, these are the kind of business questions every printer needs to consider.

Four-Color Inkjet

Those who are thinking of racing to the front of the line, like the Australian, Japanese, and Korean customers who have already bought or signed letters of intent for the Prosper, don’t need much prompting to grasp the potential of a fast high-quality four-color inkjet machine that can match offset running costs.

Those who are just looking – who may not currently be in a position to invest in this transformational technology – are equally keen to hear the answers, because of their need to anticipate the direct competitive threats that will arise in their market areas.

Across the breadth of Asia there is the most extraordinary variety of equipment in use, from the hundred-year-old offset machines I’ve seen in the Philippines to the highly automated, capital intensive systems the leading Indian print companies have invested in.

Stream Inkjet Technology

Printers have a variety of ingenious and unexpected business models. They also have a number of approaches measuring the capital and labor investment trade-offs. But there is no doubt that the Prosper 5000XL and the color Stream Inkjet Technology it brings with it will trigger or accelerate change in many different territories and many different market niches.

The sheer versatility of a press that can tackle books and catalogs, magazines and direct mail is important – especially when it can do all these things with offset-like quality at offset-like costs.

Regaining Competitive Advantage

Traditional commercial printers in every country are being squeezed by aggressive providers emphasizing volume, throughput and low unit costs, or by companies that focus on flexibility and smaller, specialized jobs with a high customer service component. A Prosper 5000XL could let these companies regain the competitive advantage by migrating projects from offset, without paying a cost premium, while exploring and exploiting the added-value potential of variable data.

The world has only scratched the surface of what can be done to target, personalize, and tune printed material using variable data. We have seen how transpromo techniques applied to bills and statements have allowed utilities and financial services companies to improve response and boost customer loyalty. What we haven’t seen yet – except in some small experiments – is the one-person newspaper or the intelligent catalog that edits itself to reflect my choices, preferences, and past purchases. They will come very soon. 

There’s almost nothing printed on paper that can’t be made more specific and relevant through the use of variable data. And that doesn’t only apply to marketing activities and the pampered consumer markets of the most developed countries. I can easily imagine regional governments using variable data techniques in Indonesia, which has 600 languages, or India, which has 800, to help ensure that ethnic and rural communities do not feel sidelined or isolated. 

The size and diversity of the Asia Pacific region always makes generalizations suspect but I have watched the immediate enthusiasm the Prosper 5000XL has generated and it is pretty clear to me what my customers see in it.

• They see a real, all-round printing press, capable of running alongside offset in some companies or replacing it completely in others.
• They see the flexibility to respond to changing business environments and market demands, coupled with great productivity, superb color quality, and running costs that make sound business sense.

From Australia and India to China, Japan and Korea, the industry’s leaders are reshaping their plans in the light of a new concept – digital without compromise. 

Let me know your opinions on Digital Without Compromise via the Prosper 5000XL and how it affects your business.