New PODi Report Confirms PPML Interoperability by Leading Digital Print Vendors

ROCHESTER, NY—January 28, 2008—PODi, the Digital Printing Initiative, today announced the release of the second PPML Interoperability Report. PPML (the Personalized Print Markup Language) facilitates creating personalized high-volume print campaigns by service providers, enabling meaningful one-to-one “conversations” for their customers. This new report provides detailed results of interoperability testing across the products of ten leading printing device vendors using PODi’s PPML Consumer Test Suite. The report provides the marketplace with a valuable resource for developing and implementing PPML-based workflows that will perform reliably across multiple brands of printing devices.

Test results demonstrate the high level of interest and cooperation among vendors in pursuit of proven standards. The report documents PPML interoperability across leading print devices from Xerox and Xeikon, HP Indigo, and the EFI Fiery-driven devices from: Canon, Fuji Xerox, IKON, Kodak Versamark, Konica Minolta, Oce, Ricoh, and Xerox.

Interoperability is the ability of printing systems from a number of manufacturers to produce, consume and print a properly configured PPML data stream without device-dependent customization. A “PPML Producer” is a software program that generates a PPML dataset (file), identifying each static, variable & re-usable object within. An image to be printed multiple times need only appear once in the PPML dataset. A “PPML Consumer” is a digital printing device that can consume the PPML dataset and print the results at much higher speed than alternatives.

PODi test suites make it easier for vendors and developers to successfully design PPML compatibility into their products. Service providers are assured of the integrity and openness of their PPML-driven workflow. In addition to commercial products that currently produce PPML for variable data printing, there are a significant number of print service providers that develop their own unique PPML-based solutions. Users find that when printing variable data, PPML’s caching of re-usable elements delivers up to 20X improvement in print speed versus simply printing a stream of static PDF or Postscript pages.

“Release of the report and the development of certification is a major milestone in the evolution and adoption of PPML as the open standard of interoperability in the rapidly growing variable data printing market,” said Rab Govil, President of PODi. “PODi Test Suites provide the first objective validation of consistent interoperable results from the many digital printing devices that consume PPML. The Interoperability Report provides experienced guidance, so developers who are currently building PPML solutions can enhance interoperability across devices.”

“The report provides specific guidance on interoperability, and the test suite validates results,” explained James Mekis, PODi Director of Technology. “For the growing number of service providers incorporating PPML into their workflow, this gives them valuable tools to move forward with strong confidence in the results.”

The PPML Consumer Interoperability Report is available at http://ppml.podi.org, under “PPML/ Specifications.” The PPML Test Suite is available for download at the same location, and is free for purposes of research, development and testing.

About PPML
Personalized Print Markup Language (PPML) supports mass printing of individually relevant images and text specific to a recipient, enabling 1:1 “conversations” with customers. PPML is a widely supported, XML-based print language developed by PODi. It is an open, interoperable, device-independent standard that enables the widespread use of personalized print applications in high volumes. It supports a full range of on-demand printing, ranging from the office environment to high-speed production operations. To that end PPML inter-operates with CIP4’s Job Definition Format (JDF), which provides bi-directional job ticketing, tracking, and workflow optimization.

About PODi
PODi (www.podi.org) is an industry initiative with hundreds of member companies, including Executive Board members EFI, Hewlett Packard, Pitney Bowes, Quark and Xerox. PODi leads the evolution of the digital printing infrastructure by promoting interoperability through standards, and advances digital printing business opportunities through market development activities, including white papers, articles, independent reports and industry speaking engagements. Membership in PODi is open to companies and organizations involved in digital printing.