Xerox has revealed some of the new products which it hopes will help it to overtake Heidelberg as the number one graphics arts supplier.
The Futurecolor press, which will be available in two to three years, is a variable data press which Xerox said would produce prints virtually indistuingishable from litho. It will be capable of printing up to 1m full-colour or black and white pages per month compared to the 350,000 of the recently-launched DocuColor 2000 series. Xerox Europe president Pierre Danaon said the Futurecolor would increase the feasible upper run-length limit for digital printing.

Xerox also launched its DocuColor 130CSX digital colour web-fed printer. The press is based on Xeikons DCP/500D engine, but is differentiated from the DocuColor 100 by its Xerox CSX Color Server, based on a CreoScitex digital front end. Xerox said the press would be more robust, faster, and would offer better quality than the DocuColor 100. It prints at 100 impressions per minute (ipm) on substrates over 170gsm, and 130ipm on sub-170gsm. Installations will begin in the third quarter of 2000, and pricing will be competitive.

Danon rated the unveiling of the groups Premier Partners programme as its most important Drupa announcement. He said it gave partners complete and priviliged access to our knowledge. They will also be given the opportunity to enter into agreements with Xerox portals, and gain accreditation to print online on-demand products for Xerox corporate customers.

Nearly 300 European printing businesses have become Xerox partners so far, and Danon said there was no limit as long as companies fulfilled Xeroxs criteria. UK partners include Antony Rowe and Hays Services. 40% of the firms are commercial printers, which Danon said disproved claims that commercial customers were wary of the growing market presence of digital. Pre-press, quickprint and pure digital firms are among those to qualify so far.

Danon said the NexPress, the joint venture between Kodak and Heidelberg, was fundamentally a very good product, but it was certainly not a breakthrough.I will wait for the price to see if you have to pay more for the 15% extra productivity, he added.
It doesnt ship until next year and before then we will have shipped over 1,000 DocuColor 2000s, he claimed. We call that a handicap.

When quizzed over the resignation of Xerox chief executive Rick Thoman only one week before Drupa, Danon said that the world is full of coincidencies. He stressed that the groups focus on digital and graphics arts products will not change just because we have changed chief executives.