How many times have we seen products brought to market that were so ahead of their time, they didn't actually work?

Rather too many times, is the answer from where I sit. I'm sure everyone reading this can think of their own example of a product that was not so much leading edge as bleeding edge, destined never to function reliably or according to spec.

For this reason I want to award today's gold star to Domino, for resisting the urge to ship a machine that wasn't quite ready, even in the face of customers waving their chequebooks.

At Ipex 2010 Domino showed its first full-blown press, the high-speed N600 inkjet label printing device. I seem to recall that around 40 label printers expressed serious interest in it at the time, and the intention was that the N600 would ship around the end of that year.

But when Domino started getting meaningful feedback from the sharp end of production, the firm realised that it needed to make some improvements if the press was to be everything it was aimed to be.

So they went back the drawing board on a number of features, and turned down orders as a result. "We didn't want to release it until it was completely right ... we want customers to have a good experience from the beginning," says director of digital printing solutions Philip Easton with refreshing honesty.

One of the key enhancements to the press, now called the N600i, is to do with seamless image stitching - something that's a real issue for some other inkjet devices where the stitching is of the non-seamless variety.

And, as well as having a product they can feel completely happy with to show at Drupa in a few weeks, the even better news for Domino is that some of those potential customers have been willing to wait - surely a powerful indication that they are doing something right.