Printing World articles from June 2000

Printing World archives from June 2000

No surprises Drupa makes commercial headlines.
June 5, 2000... The hype and the hysterics are finally over, and what has been an exceptionally successful Drupa for exhibitors has passed into history. And now the industry is asking what the show meant: was it truly the Digital Drupa? Which products point...

Inca aims to become a digital print force.
June 5, 2000... Inca Digital has spun off as a separate industrial inkjet printer manufacturer after winning #2.6m backing from venture capital company Advent Venture Partners. Inca gained its independence after splitting from Cambridge Consultants, the...

First Heidelberg Mainstream for Trafford Park Printers.
June 5, 2000... The first of the seven Heidelberg Mainstream newspaper presses ordered by the Telegraph group will be delivered to Trafford Park Printers in September, 2001. A three-month build and test programme is anticipated before the first of the five...

Software safeguarding images on the web.
June 5, 2000... The Robert Harding Picture Library now has 2 million images at its disposal, and in a move to digital, is using Signum VeriData software to safeguard its images on the web. The company's website - www.robertharding.com - has been developed with...

Varn and Sun Chemical sign #20m global deal.
June 5, 2000... Varn International and Sun Chemical have signed a worldwide deal for pressroom products worth an estimated #20m each year. The new arrangement comes after extensive negotiations between the two companies following Sun's acquisition of Coates...

Ferag lines up Recmi kit from France.
June 5, 2000... Ferag is continuing its attack on the medium run print market after picking up the contract to distribute horizontal log bundle stackers and palletisers made by French company Recmi to commercial printers in the UK and Ireland. The move is a...

BPIF exchanges contracts on Bedford Row headquarters.
June 5, 2000... The story in Printing World last week about the #4m-plus sale of the BPIF's Bedford Row headquarters building was spot on. The federation confirms that it has now exchanged contracts for the sale, but has until the end of the year to vacate the...

Royal London ponders its print set-up.
June 5, 2000... Mutual life assurer Royal London has proposed cutting over 300 jobs and contracting out its printing and stationary requirements, following its #1.6bn purchase of struggling home sales insurer United Assurance in April. Reports say the jobs of...

SMG puts new #5m mailroom up for grabs.
June 5, 2000... Having signed the contracts for presses worth #18m from KBA, Scottish Media Group, the owner of The Herald, Evening Times and Sunday Herald, is now inviting tenders for further mailroom and despatch equipment valued at #5m. "We have sent...

BPIF leads fight over 6% write down threat.
June 5, 2000... Tomorrow the BPIF, backed by Picon, goes into battle to save printing equipment from the Tax Man. The move by the federation and its printing allies follows a tip that the Inland Revenue is contemplating the reclassification of printing...

Trader Media puts Apple's Alan Turner in charge.
June 5, 2000... Trader Media Group, the new Auto Trader publisher formed in a #1bn deal between the Guardian Media Group and BC Partners last month, has ordered a production shake-up that will see many of Auto Trader's 17 regional editions swapped between the...

Walsall Litho drives exports up 10%.
June 5, 2000... Walsall Litho in the West Midlands is building up its exports. In the past financial year, the company has seen export turnover rise from 1% to 10% within an overall company growth of 35%. Walsall has trade partners in Russia and Mexico...

Origin foothold in Dublin.
June 5, 2000... Mark Finlay-Mulligan strikes a creative pose, as the man recruited by Hull company Origin to lead its new operation in Dublin. Origin already has a foothold in Dublin through a new partnership with self- adhesive label printer, Label Art. An...

Printing World - a Drupa winner by a mile!
June 5, 2000... Once again, the UK graphic arts industry has clearly indicated its preference in its choice of weekly news magazine. Printing World led the way in its Drupa editorial coverage both in its previews of the world's biggest graphic arts event and...

Price pressure means mixed fortunes for Polestar.
June 5, 2000... Polestar dished up a mixed bag of performances in its interim results for the six months to April 3, released last week. In an adequate, but lacklustre, set of figures the UK's largest printing group announced total operating profits of #30.6m...

Chromoworks and Colibri share 12m NHS leaflets feast.
June 5, 2000... Printers in London and Nottingham pulled out all the stops last month to print and despatch 12 million NHS consultation leaflets in order for them to be filled in and returned by the June 5 deadline. So tight was the timescale that the last...

Pretty Damn Quick goes fast in Dundee.
June 5, 2000... A small printshop in Dundee says that it is better off as an independent printer rather than part of a chain, having doubled its turnover since going it alone and now buying its third AB Dick press. PDQ Print Services was part of the...

Kay slaps Government on the pound.
June 5, 2000... Stefan Kay, managing director of specialist paper manufacturer Inveresk, has called on the Government to give industry a "fighting chance with exchange rates". Further, he believes the Government could be guilty of "dereliction of duty" if it...

Aktrion takes a bow.
June 5, 2000... Meta Management Services, a specialist supplier of outsourcing services to newspaper publishers, has been incorporated into an ambitious new business services group as part of a #22m merger. The group, known as Aktrion, is seeking to develop...

Kall Kwick approval for the Quickmaster DI.
June 5, 2000... Kall Kwik has followed the example of several other copyshop chains by recommending a manufacturer to its franchisees and negotiating discounted prices for them. The company has endorsed Heidelberg Quickmaster DI presses for their "exceptional...

Which paperback printer is to fall over next?
June 5, 2000... The UK's major paperback book producers are living on a knife edge, according to Peter Palframan, UK managing director of CPI. "It is just a matter of time before someone falls over again" he claims. "Over the past few years, it has been...

CreoScitex wrestles with routes to market.
June 5, 2000... CreoScitex has still to confirm its routes to market in the UK for the Trendsetter and VLF platesetter products following the merger of the two companies earlier this year. Discussions during Drupa proved inconclusive, leaving work to be done...

Variquik rises from the ashes.
June 5, 2000... Four months after Strachan Henshaw Machinery was liquidated, its famous Variquik book press is rising from the ashes with a model being built at Scottish bookprinter Thomson Litho, which now owns the Variquik rights. Thomson, which already owns...

One man, one machine, Friedheim promises the Ancient House Press.
June 5, 2000... When Friedheim International wanted to sell the latest MBO T800 folding machine to Ancient House Press in Ipswich, the MBO agent had to make some determined promises. "The major reason we chose the MBO was the fact that Friedheim was the only...

Purup first in Coventry.
June 5, 2000... Coventry prepress specialist Lithocraft has ordered the UK's first Purup-Eskofot B1 thermal ImageMaker ctp system, along with a B1 ctf ImageMaker. The order was part of the #1.6m worth of UK sales the Danish company won at Drupa. Among...

Six per cent? The very cheek of it!
June 5, 2000... Get your accountant to tell you what a restriction to 6% on the value of your printing machinery you can write off each year would have on your business. The thought is not a good one. The Inland Revenue's suggestion of moving down to 6%...

On display, warts and all.
June 5, 2000... The fact that Heidelberg spent a reported Dm90m in the two weeks of Drupa will come as no surprise to anybody who saw the scale of their operation. Halls 1 and 2 were the preserve of the German press giant, which owns part of the Messe Centre,...

A warning on wealth.
June 5, 2000... Small and medium sized businesses are being warned that they can be dogged by late payers unless they make credit management a top priority. The Director General of the Institute of Credit Management says this country has a late payment culture...

Letter: Are we missing the stakeholder point?
June 5, 2000... I read with some interest the recent letter "stakeholder pensions confusion" supplied by Paul Cooper of Bland Bankart. As an adviser to the Printing Industry Pension Scheme (Pips), I can quite understand the views expressed by both Bland...

Letter: Printers asked to back cancer ride.
June 5, 2000... I have been a printer since I left school 15 years ago and this year I am going to cycle from Lands End to John O'Groats to raise money for Breast Cancer Care. I was wondering if your readers would like to help lend your support for this...

Convoys to end its Thames river deliveries.
June 5, 2000... The old tradition of London's newspaper printers receiving paper deliveries via the Thames looks set to end later this year with the relocation of paper merchant Convoys out of the capital. Convoys, a subsidiary of News International and paper...

UK is still a prime software piracy target.
June 5, 2000... Financial losses to software piracy were greater in the UK than in any other European country last year, despite the fact that piracy rates are lower here than elsewhere. The findings, which put the UK rate of piracy at 26% - down 3% on last...

Two Pagestreams for Mailcom, Milton Keynes.
June 5, 2000... Mailcom has installed two Oce Pagestream 440 laser printers, which are in parallel configuration to allow both sides of continuous stationery to be personalised. The duplex printers have a capacity of up to 52,000 A4 images an hour - equating...

PAPER NEWS.
June 5, 2000... AssiDoman delivers more, earns more AssiDoman's interim results for the first quarter of 2000 show a substantial increase in earnings. Profit after net financial items rose by 209% to Skr565m (#42m), compared with the same period in 1999,...

Metsa-Serla goes for European top spot with MoDo purchase.
June 5, 2000... Metsa-Serla is to expand its printing paper activities and divest itself of non-core businesses in an effort to become the European market leader in coated and uncoated fine papers. The corporation is to acquire 100% of MoDo Paper, which it...

SYMP's numbers up.
June 5, 2000... Ross Porter of Harveys, the Loanhead printer in Midlothian and the outgoing president of the Scottish Young Managing Printers has been playing the numbers game. Reporting on his presidential year at the organisation's recent annual meeting, Mr...

Catalogue runs cut by e-com?
June 5, 2000... Britain's largest catalogue retailer has announced plans to move away from print and into dot.com distribution to escape the worst effect of the "declining world of catalogue shopping". Great Universal Stores, which owns Kays and Argos,...

Compulsory winding up.
June 5, 2000... * The following case is due to be heard at the Royal Courts of Justice, Strand, London WC2A 2LL PSI Publishing Ltd Unit 3B, Centaurs Business Centre, Grant Way, Isleworth, London TW7 5QD on June 14 at 10.30am. Petition by Customs & Excise

Appointment of liquidators.
June 5, 2000... Stitch & Trim Ltd Magazine binder. Liquidator: CD Faulds, Radfords, 12 Portland Street, Southampton SO14 7EB Perrymill Press Ltd Printer. Liquidator: BJ Ward, Ward & Co, Bank House, Shaw Street, Worcester WR1 3DT Integrated Print...

Meetings of creditors.
June 5, 2000... Court Publishing Ltd at Roger Thorpe Manor, Thorpe Lane, Pontefract, Yorkshire on June 9 at 11.30am Design Print (Sussex) Ltd at The Jarvis Hotel, 18 Tinsley Lane South, Three Bridges, Crawley RH10 2XH on May 31

Notices to creditors.
June 5, 2000... Victory Press Ltd Creditors to send in their claims to GD Harrison, Crane & Partners, Rutland House, 44 Mason's Hill, Bromley BR2 9EQ by June 30 Devizes Print Ltd Creditors to send in their claims to PM McConnell, 38- 42 Newport Street,...

Final meetings.
June 5, 2000... Paramount Design & Print Specialists Ltd at Arkin & Co, 23 Turnpike Lane, London N8 0EP on June 27 at 2pm for members and at 2.15pm for creditors Getset (Bowden Typesetting Services) Ltd at 5 The Chambers, Vinyard, Abingdon, Oxfordshire...

Taylor Bloxham passes first test of Investor in People status.
June 5, 2000... Leicester colour print specialist Taylor Bloxham has passed the first test of its Investor in People status since achieving the standard three years ago. To celebrate, the firm's human resources director April Richardson and officer Emma Wixey...

Quad Graphics signs mega deal with MAN Roland and Heidelberg.
June 5, 2000... Quad Graphics, one of the largest privately held commercial printers in the world, stormed Drupa with a massive order for web presses potentially worth up to #100m. The deal, described as one of the largest ever signed at the show, is for 18...

Unavailable, but Ryobi 3404DI wins orders.
June 5, 2000... Ryobi has taken orders for the Ryobi 3404DI, a new digitally imaged press, even though the machine will not be available until the end of the year. The compact four-colour press shares a similar configuration to the Scitex/KBA 74Karat, but with...

MAN Roland DicoWeb sales run at one a day.
June 5, 2000... News of the man Roland order from Quad Graphics came just a few days after the company announced the sale of four 64pp MAN Lithomans to Vittorio Farina. The Italian web printer has also taken an option on two more Lithomans. Three of Vittorio...

Heidelberg press ordered.
June 5, 2000... Sales director Kim Naylor points the way for the new #2m Heidelberg CD 102-6L press, ordered at Drupa for Philip Myers Press in Warrington. The company is building an 8,000 sq ft extension to the factory to house the new press which comes with...

Komori poised to run with Project D.
June 5, 2000... Komori's Project D Lithrone 40 direct image press played to packed demonstrations throughout the show and immediately after Drupa, the company's executives will be considering what price the market might pay for what would be the first 40in...

Seeing the wood for the trees.
June 5, 2000... John Mansfield Group just has emerged as the UK's third largest printer. But it sees more mileage in the Internet than in print capacity, the team tells ALEX GRANT David Jones, Michael Mitchell and Stuart Wallis run a former timber company...

KBA reports record year - is a prepress merger on the cards?
June 5, 2000... KBA has hinted that it might acquire or merge with a prepress supplier after making record profits last year, and clocking up Dm500m worth of orders at Drupa, its best sales at the exhibition. Orders worth more than Dm400m were taken in the...

`Pre-owned' press sector moves back from the cold after 18 year absence.
June 5, 2000... The secondhand machinery sector returned from the cold this Drupa after an 18 year absence, but the UK companies remained bitterly divided about who deserved the credit. Mike Steele, head of the British Used Printing Suppliers' Machinery...

Paint dries on HighWater and Heidelberg Platinum co-operation.
June 5, 2000... HighWater supplied two of its B3 Platinum platesetters to the Heidelberg stand to demonstrate the viability of imaging and printing from Agfa's violet laser plate, but had to deliver plates to the Heidelberg halls from its own stand in Hall 9....

Heidelberg happy with #1bn in orders.
June 5, 2000... Heidelberg claims to have booked orders worth more than #1bn during Drupa, tripling the amount it took during Drupa 95. Chairman Bernhard Schreier says customers were impressed by the company's new strategic orientation. For the first time...

CreoScitex plays the good news.
June 5, 2000... For CreoScitex, which is now calling itself the world leading prepress company in terms of size, revenues and range of products, the task of Drupa was to convince visitors that the merger combining the two firms two months ago was good news....

Presstek sings Anthem as it moves to new Dimension.
June 5, 2000... Drupa 2000 has been a victory for Presstek, Efrem Lieber claims. "Dimension is a hit, Pax is a hit, Anthem is palpable," he says. "Every major platesetter manufacturer wants to qualify this plate - including CreoScitex. We are absolutely...

Drupa cracks 400,000 mark.
June 5, 2000... On the penultimate day of the exhibition, Drupa cracked the 400,000 mark in terms of visitors. The total at the end of the day reached 402,766 and this rose to a tally of 413,500 by the time the show finally shut its gates last Wednesday. More...

Agfa shifts 200 ctp systems at Drupa.
June 5, 2000... If exhibitors have been wondering where the British visitors had got to, then the chances are they were all on the Agfa stand. The company has reported "exceptional business", and at the close of the show had sold 200 ctp systems, 23 of them to...

Visitors stick to Karat.
June 5, 2000... TEN THOUSAND Drupa visitors made their way to the Karat Digital Press stand to see the much-hyped DI collaboration between KBA and Scitex which was launched at the show. Nine companies signed an order for the press, built at KBA's Radebuel...

Indigo courts suitors as digital comes of age.
June 5, 2000... Indigo founder, chairman and chief executive Benny Landa has made his strongest hint yet that he could be looking for a partner to take the company on to its next stage of development. Speaking exclusively to Printing World at Drupa, Mr Landa...

Unveiling of iBusiness Zone.
June 5, 2000... Gretag Macbeth went to town on its visuals at Drupa in creating its iBusiness Zone, unveiling a raft of new products for colour management and control. For the creative market, it introduced iCSync, a low cost ICC monitor profiling system,...

Sales leads delight AB Dick.
June 5, 2000... AB Dick's biggest Drupa sale came from its Swiss distributor, Bigraph, which bought five 9995A two-colour offset presses, being shown for the first time at the show. The 9995A features the firm's Ink Control System which takes image colour data...

The customer's own customer man.
June 5, 2000... Terry Ulrick meets George Booth, one of the best known figures in the Polestar Group George Booth, known to many as one of the nicest guys in print, retires this month after 50 years in an industry, which he says, has allowed him to enjoy...

Quality, not quantity for mag publishers.
June 5, 2000... IPC and Emap, TWO OF the UK's largest magazine publishers, issued figures last week showing them to be in rude health, even if profits are increasingly flowing from cover price increases and more demand for advertising space rather than...

The great outdoors.
June 5, 2000... Outdoor advertising is still a booming business area which ironically owes much of its success to the big marketing budgets of Internet ventures, according to Maiden Group which has predicted a 29% rise in sales this year. Some 70% of Internet...

Indigo looks to big time.
June 5, 2000... Indigo has bitten far further into the offset printing preserve than ever before with its press launches at Drupa. At 140 pages per minute and 280ppm respectively, the Publisher 4000 and 8000 presses are up to four times faster than any of...

Bloomsbury's Who's Who.
June 5, 2000... A&C BLACK, THE Who's Who publisher, looks set to be taken over by Bloomsbury after a #16m offer was recommended to its shareholders. They will get 1.47 Bloomsbury shares for each A&C Black share under the deal. The deal should be confirmed by...

John Mansfield's debut.
June 5, 2000... John Mansfield Group, the acquisition vehicle that has taken over both Waddington and Rexam's old printing division in the past six months, is now the UK's third largest printing group. Unlike Polestar and St Ives, however, it is very...

Rogue mail.
June 5, 2000... Calls are growing for the Royal Mail to change its rules and pay compensation for consequential losses when print buyers' direct mail campaigns are lost in the post or delivered late. At the moment, the Post Office does not meet consequential...

Reflec reflects.
June 5, 2000... REFLEC, THE MAKER of reflective inks and coatings, has reported pre-tax losses of #742,000 in the year to February 29 and a fall in sales from #1.29m to #1.19m. However, chairman Alan Edwards says that the company has a "bright future," with...

Closing the curtain on perfect binding.
June 5, 2000... Perfect binding lines may be able to increase their speeds with aid of a powerful, highly directional air curtain developed by Meech Air Technology. Meech claims that because its system produces such a high volume of air, directed into an...

A safe Prediction - PGI has a proofing winner.
June 5, 2000... Polaroid GraphicS Imaging Systems appears to have come up with a winner with its Prediction oversize B3 proofing system. PGI is an independent company from the Polaroid Group following an mbo, and is dedicated to develop and exploit the laser...

From chaos to order.
June 5, 2000... JONATHAN DUFFY takes a look at some of the confusion associated with Digital Asset Management and offers some advice to consider when selecting and implementing a solution Digital Asset Management is the hot new game in town, and seemingly...

Swings and roundabouts.
June 5, 2000... The end of the long hours culture has been signalled, with some big name employers recognising work-life balance. MARION WILSON reports Whether you belong to the "live to work" or "work to live" school of thought, there is a growing belief...

Cooking up a storm.
June 5, 2000... JAQ BAYLES investigates the British love affair with cookery books, and discovers that it is the new "illicit pornography" Cookery is the new rock 'n' roll. It pouts and struts across our tv screens like a young Mick Jagger, demanding...

GETTING THERE... Alan Miller, PCC chairman.
June 5, 2000... Alan Miller has served on the Printers' Charitable Corporation's council since 1994 as honorary treasurer and has recently been appointed chairman. He has been involved in the financial side of the newspaper industry throughout his career ...

Designs on a better workplace.
June 5, 2000... Badly designed offices can mean poor health for employees and poor performance. MARION WILSON looks at the benefits of changing rooms The design of our homes has never been a hotter topic with programmes like Changing Rooms attracting huge...

PEOPLE NEWS.
June 5, 2000... * The Anton Group has recruited four more people to its 20-strong sales force. Alistair Nash takes on the role of sales director with specific responsibility for corporate account development; Paul Baily, formerly of Premier Metropolis, will...

CoE is answer to CUP prayers.
June 12, 2000... The printing division of Cambridge University Press (CUP) has won a prestigious contract to print and bind the Church of England's new service book. The value of the initial direct-to-plate print run of 300,000 copies of Common Worship is over...

Wyndeham's glowing results impress City.
June 12, 2000... Wyndeham has once again impressed the City with figures that show substantial sales growth and if the operating profit did not grow as steeply, there are valid reasons for that. But just as importantly chief executive Bryan Bedson is able to...

Litho Supplies pleased with online trial.
June 12, 2000... Litho Supplies is to open an Internet site to allow its customers to place orders for consumables on line. A successful trial period with ten printers has been completed and now the site, www.litho.co.uk, is open for business. Joint...

Berry gets the Vision after trip to Drupa.
June 12, 2000... Northern Ireland's Berry Print Group has confirmed an order for a four- unit Drent Vision Westport, which it placed at Drupa. The press, which was chosen primarily for its proven shaftless technology, will be installed during the summer to...

W&G Baird encourage recycling.
June 12, 2000... When W&G Baird sponsored a competition to encourage recycling of old phone books, it approached schools in and around Antrim and ended up with 3,000 old books. Here Baird's managing director Diarmuid McGarry is pictured with Greystone Primary...

Scitex users look to swell ranks with Creo's UK user base.
June 12, 2000... The Scitex Users Group, for many years one of the most active user groups in the industry, is expanding into the CreoScitex Users Group to accommodate a wider group of companies using Creo as well as Scitex equipment. User group chairman...

XPS buys seaside rival.
June 12, 2000... XPS, a digital printer near Brighton, has bought its rival B&H Reprographics and will now specialise in longer-run work, leaving shorter runs to B&H. Based in Portslade, XPS will keep B&H's premises in the centre of Brighton open without any...