The Free Flow VI suite includes several key new features, including a user-friendly app that plugs into Adobe Design and makes it easy for both printers and direct marketers to construct document after document right at the print controller - negating the need to send or store large files.

In an interview with PrintWeek, Deborah Cantabene, Xerox VP of Workflow and Solutions Marketing, explained: "It’s a piece of software that sits on the print controller where the composition takes place and page-by-page it can create, print, delete, create, print, delete all very quickly so it doesn’t tie up work stations while maximizing print speed. It's a fairly inexpensive way of getting variable data printing without slowing the printing speed and without tying up the pre-press area."

While stressing Free Flow VI ease of use, Cantabene also touted its robustness, adding: "For those customers that have technical personnel and like to get into code and more sophisticated VI operations when they get into a lot of data, this can actually query live databases and change the decisions based on what happening in the data."

The new Free Flow VI upgrade also includes VI eCompose, which enables the creation of PDF files of the finished marketing piece that can then be viewed electronically – an important offering as increasingly brand owners are reaching their customers through smart phones and tablets.

Cantabene stressed this would be a truly global roll-out, adding that while the US and Europe were key targets, some of the "strongest demand" for this product suite was in developing markets such as Latin America.

Variable information is now a staple in direct marketing, but Cantabene said the biggest market for previous Free Flow VI iterations had been in the transactions space. "Because in that environment not only is every bill and invoice different but you have a very tight print window. You don’t have 30 days to print – you have to get them out usually during the last five days of the month."