Feeling a bit giddy following the plethora of partnership announcements over the past week - it's certainly been a fascinating few days in the annals of industry alliances.

I'm particularly intrigued by KBA's tie-up with RR Donnelley, whereby the press manufacturer has taken a different tack to the routes pursued by its counterparts at Heidelberg and Manroland. KBA chief Helge Hansen sounds a bit like the cat that got the cream here: "...It's more than a sales and service agreement for existing technology. We look forward to jointly reinvigorating this industry with new digital imaging platforms."

RR Donnelley is a true industry giant, with sales of $10bn and circa 55,000 employees worldwide. The group has been developing its own bespoke printing systems for years, and it's been busy in the inkjet space that so interests KBA for a long time now. A brief glance at RR Donnelley's most recent patent filings reveals a raft of inkjet-related patents, including something clever and complicated involving nano-particle technology in high-speed variable inkjet printing.

RRD's ProteusJet high-speed colour inkjet system is already real and working at the group's own facilities, and with its  proprietary Apollo inkjet technology promises to bring 'offset economics to variable printing', along with the ability to use inkjet for MICR and other speciality offset inks.

One can imagine that KBA's own boffins will be overflowing with ideas about ways to incorporate this sort of technology into its existing printing systems for various specialist applications.

Roll on Drupa, can't wait to see the fruits of this.