At the show, HP revealed it is using a version of Press-sense's iWay 5 as the basis for its SmartStream Director job submission and management tools.

The HP news follows deals with Infoprint Solutions and Presstek that were inked for the show. The three new partners join industry giants Xerox and Océ.

Despite being known as a web-to-print package, Press-sense chief executive Shlomo Ben David said the term was too restrictive to describe what the company did, and suggested it should be referred to as business flow automation (BFA).

"If you can't automate the integration of customer relationship management you won't get the efficiency needed," said Ben David.

He added that the uptake of BFA today to provide just-in-time service was the third print revolution in as many decades, following on from DTP in the 80s enabling just-in-time creation, and digital print in the 90s making just-in-time production possible.

Ben David compared the use of the web to automate customer-facing processes, such as estimating and ordering, as akin to the move in retail from small traders serving from behind a counter, to self-serve supermarkets.

The company's new products at the show were iWay 5.0, Press-sense Manager 2.0 and Omnium 2.0. The new version of iWay is claimed to slash the time taken to set up new customer portals and add product types.

Press-sense Manager handles customer relationship management (CRM), production planning and billing. It is designed to offer these MIS functions, especially when working with customers that have yet to move to working online via iWay.

Finally, Omniun 2.0 is a new version of its total BFA package that automates production, billing and procurement, which the company said is particularly suited to operations producing high volumes of personalised and very short-run work.

Press-sense also revealed the extent of the uptake of web-to-print using its products; the firm has 1,500 customers worldwide operating from more than 2,000 production sites.