Remember Drupa 2000? It was "the dotcom Drupa" but also the launchpad for Indigo's XB2 B2-format digital press.

Commercialisation was expected in 2001-2002. However, this was a product that never made it to market, stymied by technical hitches in porting the Indigo technology to a larger format.  Plans to show a working version of it at Drupa 2004, by which point it had been renamed the HP Indigo b7000 were quietly shelved.

It was back to the drawing board for the HP Indigo engineers, and now speculation is heightening that we will see the fruits of their revisions in a couple of months' time at Drupa 2012.

HP will hold its pre-Drupa press conference later this month, and no doubt all will be revealed then. Assuming there is a larger-format Indigo in the wings, it will be launching into a B2 digital space that's suddenly become very busy.

Fujifilm with its Jet Press 720 in fully-functioning form, along with a new carton printing version too. Screen with its Truepress JetSX, which will have its commercial launch at Drupa. And last week we learned of Komori's tie-up with Konica Minolta on a 74cm wide sheetfed inkjet press. This press can apparently print a B1 sheet in portrait format, to boot, just to give us even more to think about.

Oh, and we don't yet know what press formats Indigo founder Benny Landa will be unveiling along with his new nanotechnology venture, Landa Digital Printing.

Away from digital's big names, it will also be an opportunity to check up on Jadason, which showed a compact, B2 format electrophotographic machine at the last Drupa, and is exhibiting again this time around.

All in all, expect a big noise around B2.