Companies & suppliers

Two of the UK's biggest printers have their sales director on gardening leave due to an unusual incidence of simultaneous recruitment activity.

HP has strengthened firepower at its demo centre in Barcelona by taking on a Kongsberg XP Auto digital cutting table from Esko.

Digitalblanks.com has bought one of the first Roland VersaUV LEF-20 desktop flatbed machines in the UK, which can print an iPhone5 case in 15 seconds.

Print was hailed as a "crucial part of the mix" again and no longer the "poor relation" of e-comms at last week's conference of the Independent Print Industries Association (IPIA).

Canon group company Océ has expanded its Variostream 7100 series of entry-level monochrome, simplex, continuous feed printers with the addition of a new higher speed model, the Variostream 7170.

Kodak has this week launched a newspaper version of the Sonora thermal, process-free commercial printing plate that it unveiled at last year's Drupa.

Atlantic Coast Studios, which has spent around 40,000 on a new Schneider guillotine, has said the investment was critical to business success.

Print finisher Elite Cutters has bought a new Audion L500 SA Semi-automatic L-sealer for shrink wrapping postcards and brochures.

Tecnograf has launched a compact PUR perfect binding machine targeted at small job runs from digital printers that promises to reduce waste of costly PUR glue.

Communisis group business development director Gurdev Singh has left the company amid a reshuffle of its senior sales staff.