“Why not stick with the company that is still developing Prinergy?” said Creo UK marketing manager Maria Machera. “What about the cost and hassle of switching workflow?”
Although developed under the two firms’ joint venture, which was cancelled by Creo when it bought Scitex’s pre-press business in April 2000, Creo owns around 80% of the intellectual property underpinning Prinergy. It has pledged to develop its own trapping and colour management – the elements developed by Heidelberg – and is hoping these will be complete before next May.
Icon Reproduction, a London-based repro house that has a Heidelberg-supplied Prinergy system, is relaxed about the situation.
“2003 was always a line in the sand,” said Icon’s Nick Finegold. “I know Heidelberg is developing another workflow around the MetaDimension RIP. If it’s going to develop something better [than Prinergy] I look forward to it. But it will be interesting to see what Creo’s long-term plans are for Prinergy.”
Finegold was also confident that Heidelberg would look after its customers. “What Heidelberg does is very good deals when you switch products,” he said.
His point was reinforced by Heidelberg UK managing director George Clarke, who said: “When the time is right we will have paths to migrate customers.
“I think the real point for any customer buying CTP is making sure the supplier has a JDF-based system to knit together the whole process. We’ve reached a significant point – the industry gets integration.”
Story by Barney Cox
