Kodak president for commercial printing James Langley said that Kodak would combine its expertise in colour science with Kodak Versamarks continuous ink-jet technology. Kodak completed the 130m acquisition of Scitex Digital Printing (SDP) earlier this year.

We are extremely excited about the kinds of products that well be able to bring to the market with this technology, said Langley.

He added that the continuous ink-jet transactional market and the print-on-demand market, in which Kodak has a joint venture with Heidelberg the NexPress will increase 6% annually for the next five years.

Sales at Eastman Kodaks commercial imaging division emerged as one of the few strong performers in a generally disappointing set of annual results that heralded the loss of up to 15,000 jobs across the group.

Kodaks commercial imaging divisions sales increased 9% to 234.3m, while earnings from operations were unchanged at 26.6m.

However, sales from Kodak to its joint venture with Kodak Polychrome Graphics (KPG) fell 10% in the fourth quarter of 2003, compared to the same period in 2002. KPG has posted positive operating profit figures for 14 consecutive quarters.

Kodaks results for the year to 31 December 2003 show sales up 10% to 2.05bn, although excluding exchange rate changes this was only 4%. Net earnings fell by two thirds to 143.8m.