The deal, the details of which were not disclosed, was finalised yesterday (1 October) and marks another acquisition for EFI in 2012 following the takeover of Latin American ERP specialist Metrics and ceramic printing system maker Cretaprint in January.

EFI productivity software division senior vice president and general manager Marc Olin said that the acquisition would enable the company to add online marketing capabilities to its web-to-print offering.

He said: "We've been talking for some time about increasing our market share within the MIS and W2P space and the acquisition of OPS enables us to address new market segments.

"OPS bring with them a good team, good customers, strong geographic distribution while enabling us to address online marketing capabilities such as personalised URLs and e-mail campaigns."

According to Olin, OPS software will become part of EFI's productivity software portfolio but EFI will continue to supply both Digital StoreFront and OPS products to the market.

However, EFI will integrate key OPS features and technology into the EFI Digital StoreFront platform, as well as its EFI MIS software.

The manufacturer also plans to integrate the OPS platform into its Fiery digital front ends, enabling OPS customers connectivity to a range of Fiery-driven printers such as Xerox, Ricoh, Canon, Konica Minolta models.

EFI confirmed that it also expects to combine the two platforms over the coming years.

OPS founder Mark McGowan said the team, which has offices in Ireland, the US and Australia, was "very excited" about joining EFI.

He said: "We look forward to sharing our expertise in the areas of web-to-print, cross-media marketing, and variable data printing to enhance EFI products.

"We are committed to continuing to provide the next generation of web-to-print and marketing solutions."