Landa made the customer announcements on the first day of Drupa, when chairman and founder Benny Landa gave members of the press a preview of the five daily presentations that he will personally host on the firm’s booth in hall 9 for the duration of the show.
He said: “A lot has changed in the last four years since we all met at the last Drupa. Landa has grown enormously and our partnership with Altana brings not just valuable industry expertise but also enormous financial strength.”
Altana invested €100m (£76m) in Landa two years ago.
Landa has signed strategic partnerships with $4.7bn (£3.2bn) turnover US commercial print giant Quad/Graphics “to penetrate publishing”; and with Vistaprint owner Cimpress, which is planning to install as many as 20 presses.
Quad/Graphics president and chief executive Joel Quadracci described Nanography as having “the potential to disrupt the publication market” by marrying digital printing technology with market demand for versioned and short-run publications.
The type of press was not specified, but the newly-announced W10P perfecting web press appears a likely option.
The 200m/min W10P is targeted at publishing applications and Landa said it was capable of producing 2m magazine pages in an eight-hour shift. It is effectively two W10 units with turn bars in between and is slated to ship in late 2017.
Cimpress is working with Landa on a customised specification of the S10P B1 sheetfed perfecting press. President and chief executive Robert Keane said it had the potential to be a “breakthrough” technology for the $1.5bn turnover business. “It could enable us to transform our mainstream printing that we currently produce with offset presses. It is uniquely suited to a global technology and manufacturing-driven company like our own,” he stated.
The first beta installations of the B1 format S10 press will be at US point-of-purchase specialist Imagine!, a large-scale producer of PoP materials; German folding carton printer Colordruck Baiersbronn for packaging; while global print and packaging group Elanders will be the commercial beta site.
It will install an S10P perfecting press with inline UV varnish unit at its site at Waiblingen, Germany.
Elanders chief executive Peter Sommer said: “We think we can use it for commercial print and packaging and also for photo books. We already have Indigos and inkjet so we will see how it impacts on other technologies.”
He added: “It’s a completely new platform since the [Landa launch] at the last Drupa. I don’t see any big problems coming up. This opens up new business opportunities for innovative printers.”
Landa chief executive Yishai Amir said the beta installs would be in “early 2017” with the S10 first and S10P perfector following.
Landa is also showing its new Nano Metallography “zero waste” foiling system for the first time at the show.
