On Demand Show Busier than Anticipated, Some New Digital Printing Solutions Introduced

By Bob Neubauer

Larger than expected crowds converged on the AIIM/On Demand Show last month in Philadelphia, despite a drop in vendors from last year. A number of those attendees were in-plants—IPG ran into at least 20 managers on the show's first two days. There always seemed to be a bustling crowd in front of the Xerox exhibit, strategically situated right at the show floor entrance.

Volcano-realted flight cancellations in Europe had some impact on the show, reportedly preventing a few vendors from staffing their booths. Some Duplo technicians couldn't make it to the show, so the new Alpha Saddle booklet making system could be viewed but not demonstrated.

The Icelandic ash cloud brought at least one unexpected in-plant attendee to the show: Andrew Scott, of Glasgow Caledonian University (we profiled him last month in IPG) found himself stuck in the U.S. for an extra week after attending the ACUP conference. So he made the most of his extended visit by coming to On Demand. ("I never expected to be back in Philadelphia," he told IPG.)

Some of the buzz on the show floor was about the demise of Graphic Arts Monthly, one of the oldest commercial printing trade magazines. It was shut down by its owners just days before On Demand.

So close to IPEX (a large graphic arts show taking place this month in the U.K.), On Demand featured few major product introductions, but there were a couple. Xerox debuted the Xerox Color 800/1000 presses, which print at 80 and 100 pages per minute (ppm) respectively and have a smaller footprint than an iGen4, a characteristic sure to interest in-plants. Going after the iGen market for the first time was Konica Minolta, which debuted its bizhub PRESS C8000, printing 80 color ppm.

See photos of these products by viewing our slide show (link above, "Digital Printing Innovations").

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Bob Neubauer Author's page

Bob has served as editor of In-plant Impressions since October of 1994. Prior to that he served for three years as managing editor of Printing Impressions, a commercial printing publication. Mr. Neubauer is very active in the U.S. in-plant industry. He attends all the major in-plant conferences and has visited more than 180 in-plant operations around the world. He has given presentations to numerous in-plant groups in the U.S., Canada and Australia, including the Association of College and University Printers and the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association. He also coordinates the annual In-Print contest, co-sponsored by IPMA and In-plant Impressions.

On Demand Show Busier Than Anticipated