Electronics for Imaging (EFI) is to acquire Splash for 100m ($146m), in a deal which, if approved, will see EFI advance further into the digital colour server market.


EFI chief executive Guy Gecht said: Splash has developed several high-quality technologies to advance digital colour printing. Combining Splashs and EFIs teams will allow our company to address new market opportunities. He added that he believed the future of the digital market to be firmly rooted in colour, and that Splashs colour server technology would be central to this vision.


However, Gecht said that not all of Splashs staff would be integrated into EFI: Unfortunately, with every merger there is always some duplication, and we do have a commitment to shareholders. But there will be a significant number of Splash staff taken on.


He said it was too early to make any announcements regarding current EFI and Splash products, but suggested that Splashs Mac-based systems would be an area of future development.


He said that senior executives at Xerox, a major customer for both firms, had been contacted and had responded positively to the news: They can now deal with one contact with the same infrastructure.


Story by John Davies