It's not often that the chief executive of a multimillion dollar business stands up in front of an audience of journalists and cheerily states that his company nearly ceased to exist a few years back.

But that's exactly what EFI boss Guy Gecht did earlier this week. He recalled how at the turn of the millennium the company was wholly reliant on one product, its Fiery printer controller, and sales were falling off a cliff. "At EFI we have the luxury of facing death 10 years ago," he said.

He can say this in a suitably relaxed fashion, of course, because EFI didn't die. Instead it adapted and kick-started a host of acquisitions that have totally transformed the business.

Gecht also threw up an interesting slide showing a host of brands - including Apple, Cisco, HP, Oracle, Adobe, Intuit, Symantec - oh and the nation of China for good measure - and asked who was growing fastest.

No prizes for guessing that it's Apple in top spot. But EFI is in second place with 17% growth, and is showing double-digit increases across all its business segments. That's right, all of them.

This is a pretty awesome stat considering the state of some of our industry suppliers, don't you think?

EFI has built a very different offering based on strategic acquisitions in MIS and inkjet printing. But buying businesses doesn't automatically equate to success, as evidenced by events at Kodak.

Gecht's verdict is simple: "If you stay still it's going to be over. We see this every day. Some of the industry's largest suppliers are in bankruptcy, some are in trouble. But the reason we feel so good about the business is that we focus on innovation."

A bunch of said innovations will be on the EFI stand at Drupa - details are under wraps until the beginning of next month but I can say with certainty it will be worth a visit.

I asked him what the secret to EFI's success was. "Focus, a great team, luck, and a sense of humour," was the reply. "The sense of humour is most important".

And with that, he disappeared, laughing.