---

Listen to some digital print vendors and they’ll tell you that if you want the best performance and the fullest feature set, the only option is to buy from a supplier that owns the core technology employed in their kit. Others argue that putting all your eggs in one basket by doing everything in-house is fraught with risk and can result in expensive and outdated technology.
Dig beneath the marketing messages and most firms will admit that there isn’t a clear yes or no answer to this part of the digital print puzzle, but there are certainly strong opinions on both sides of the argument.

At Ipex, Fuji made much of the fact that its Jet Press 720 used the company’s own heads, inks, and coatings. To complete the  project, it had to acquire printhead technology – which it did by buying Dimatix.

"It would have been difficult without Dimatix as the interaction between the inks and the heads is crucial," says Fujifilm Graphic Systems European marketing communications manager Graham Leeson. "When you’re at the cutting edge of technology, you have no choice but to own all the components. "This is because you can better manage the process and the results."

HP’s big noise at Ipex was its inkjet digital web range, the T300 and its new baby brother the T200, which use HP thermal inkjet. Initially developed for the desktop, the technology has evolved via products such as the Designjet wide-format range to become robust enough for high-volume applications.The huge investment necessary was spread across a wide number of markets and not just commercial print.

"There aren’t that many printhead developers because it’s an expensive business and you need scale," says Robert Stabler, direct marketing, transactional and publishing manager, HP EMEA. "You need broad markets or open technologies, HP went for the former."


Alternative option
However, Mark Alexander, director of marketing at inkjet head developer Xaar, argues that using third-party suppliers is beneficial as it mitigates risk.

"Most firms can’t take the risk developing leading-edge technologies by themselves. Technology development is risky: 70% of spending on innovation fails. So why not let someone else take that risk?"

EFI Vutek north Europe sales manager Emmanuel Swolfs concurs.  "If your own technology doesn’t work then you’ll struggle. That’s when having external suppliers allows you to be more flexible. For example, we continue to see new printheads from third-party suppliers that are faster and cheaper."

Back in 2000, this was something Infoprint and Hitachi (now both part of Ricoh’s print empire) kept in their minds when they decided to invest in Israeli piezo printhead developer Aprion, which was part of the Scitex empire (it subsequently became part of Scitex Vision, which was then swallowed up by HP).

"Our intention was to develop our own technology," says George Promis, vice president of continuous feed and
technology alliances at Infoprint. "But, three or four years into our research, it became clear that there were other options available on the open market and that it would reduce our investment and time to market if we took that approach. As a result, our customers benefitted too. Making it yourself isn’t necessarily the best option."

In the end, it comes down to the realisation that companies have different key competencies and these influence their overall strategies.

 "In the case of our web presses, it’s not just the printheads, it’s the IT infrastructure too," says HP’s Stabler. "That shouldn’t be underestimated; one of the limits of high speed digital printing is data handling."

Océ agrees, even though it uses a third-party printing platform. Crit Driessen, Océ Production vice-president of marketing and strategy, argues that the company’s strength is in the data stream, the controller and in checking the integrity of the output – areas where it has developed expertise and technology over the past 50 years.

Market knowledge
For Infoprint, market knowledge was just as important as technology expertise when it teamed up with Screen and Epson to produce the Infoprint 5000/Truepress Jet 520.

"When we went to Screen, we based our decision on 400 customer interviews over several years," says Promis.
That market knowledge was also applied during the development phase, which Promis says can be overlooked if you focus too much on who made what.

"What might not be apparent to the market is how much testing and qualification we did in the production of this product. For example, for the Truepress Jet520/Infoprint 5000, there were more than 200 engineering changes that we suggested prior to launch."

Promis argues that the results have more than paid off; Infoprint and Screen claim more than half of all recent installations of continuous feed colour inkjet printing.

Epson supplies the core technology of ink and printhead for the Infoprint 5000/Screen Truepress Jet520 and believes that the two are inextricably linked.

"We know that we can deliver the best quality, reliability and performance when it’s our inks and our heads," says Epson Europe director of Pro Graphics Duncan Ferguson.

"If it’s our ink and our head we have confidence, otherwise it gets too convoluted and we want our customers to have
100% confidence."

Whether Epson offers a complete system, or uses partners, depends on the size of the market and the strength of its brand in that sector.

It goes direct in proofing and wide-format graphics, where it has a strong presence. For other sectors, it works with partners – in addition to Screen and Infoprint in continuous feed, an example includes Italian firm Robustelli in textiles.
While Epson believes that printheads and inks are inseparable parts of a system, other firms, including Agfa, EFI and Fuji, claim that ink is a core technology where they can add value regardless of the heads employed.

Agfa uses Dimatix, Konica Minolta, Kyocera, Ricoh, Toshiba, and Xaar heads, but for Agfa Graphics inkjet vice president Richard Barham, ink is the bigger issue.

"It’s about looking at the application," he says. "For packaging – as produced on the Dotrix – the inks need to offer low migration and odour. It’s very different for the Jeti, when used for outdoor applications where durability is critical."
Fuji’s super-wide UV-cured roll-fed Uvistar printer’s hardware was developed and built by Israeli firm Matan and uses Ricoh printheads, but its own Uvijet inks.

"In that case there was an application – outdoor posters onto polyethylene – for which we had the ink and needed the hardware," says Fujifilm’s Leeson. "Even a firm the size of Fuji would find it impossible to do all the R&D for all markets. So it’s necessary to tackle each market in a different way."

EFI’s Swolfs agrees and sees analogies with other industries too: "It’s like the car industry, where previously the manufacturers made their own engines. Now it’s become too costly, and even huge firms like Ford will buy in diesel engines from a third party."

Sticking with the vehicular analogies HP’s Stabler concludes: "You should only invest in technology where you’re going to add value. Why reinvent the wheel?"

---

DIGITAL PRINTING 101: BUY OR BUILD
Bill Baxter was one of the founders of inkjet printing pioneer Inca, which is celebrating its 10th birthday this year. The firm sprang out of the UK’s inkjet hotbed Cambridge, also the birthplace and home to other inkjet alumni Domino and Xaar.
Inca was formed at Drupa 2000 and launched its first product – the category defining UV-flatbed Eagle 44 – the following year. Baxter is well-placed to discuss the pros and cons of different routes to market, the firm started off with an exclusive sales arrangement with Sericol, now part of Fujifilm, and in 2005 was sold to Dainippon Screen, although it remains a standalone entity.

Baxter, now a consultant to parent firm Dainippon Screen, offers a quick resume of when it’s better to build or buy.

Owning a base technology used in your product is great if:
• It closes that technology off from your competitors, or at least makes it hard for them to copy
• It allows your product to be developed in parallel to the base technology, so that a best match can be obtained. Example: laser marking systems offered by CIJ vendors
• It provides control over the supply chain and secures the after-market. Example: thermal inkjet majors making life hard for ink refillers and pirates

Owning a base technology is harmful if:
l You feel obliged to use that technology even if it is not the right one. Especially if it is not made in quantities large enough to be stable and offer high yield
l Other users of the base technology switch away because they do not wish to be dependent on a competitor, thus reducing production volumes
l It is not the best available, which will often be the case