Amid an ongoing ‘plates war’ with rivals that import plates into the US, and a patent claim from Fujifilm, Kodak asserted that its new Sonora Ultra plate had a number of advantages over competing products.
Kodak hailed the Ultra’s image contrast – billed as up to nine times stronger than other manufacturers’ plates – with the image stable for up to six weeks if stored in the dark, allowing plates to be imaged in advance.
White light exposure tolerance has also been enhanced.
A new four-up to VLF platesetter, the Magnus Q3600 Titan, was also introduced with the first unit sold to Imprimerie Pollina in France at the show.
Speaking at Drupa, Kodak chairman and CEO Jim Continenza said of the business: “We’ve been on a journey. We’ve refined and refocused ourselves and we feel we’ve really done that.
“We are getting back to where we belong and we are committed to this industry.
“We help printers thrive. We only make money when our printers make money – we are true partners,” he stated.
Kodak also showed some of its new own-brand Kodak Finishing Solutions following last year’s acquisition of GSS, with a Prosper Ultra 520 high-speed inkjet press running with inline and nearline finishing options including folding and trimming inline.
The Finishing Solutions products are available in the US now, with the rest of the world “coming in the future”.
Also new at the show is the Kodak Optimax Pre-coater which matches the 152m/min speed of the Ultra 520.
It can run inline or offline of the press and uses Kodak’s Optimax Primers.
Kodak said that pre-coating improved drying times and cut ink use, and allowed printers to reduce their reliance on “expensive and long-lead-time pretreated papers”.
The Optimax Pre-Coater handles coated and uncoated papers from 45-270gsm and widths of 203mm-533mm.
It will be available in the US and Europe by the end of the year.
Imprinting options were highlighted with the new Prosper Print Bar, which uses a 105mm-wide printhead and can be up to 315mm wide using standard setups, or wider than that through custom configuration.
Kodak also celebrated 25 years of its Prinergy workflow at the show, where it showcased Prinergy v11 and introduced Prinergy Access 2.0. This involves “virtual twins” of output devices such that printing constraints and restrictions are evident in the workflow.
Denisse Goldbarg, CMO and head of EAMER sales, spoke about Kodak’s focus on what it has dubbed the “and” era of the printing industry.
She said: “We know that in today’s market it’s a transition, and printers need both offset and digital – that’s what they need and it’s our job to help them along this journey in the ‘and’ era of print.”
UK printers were well-represented in a customer roundtable debating the topic.
Blackmore managing director Andy Robbins; Paragon integrations director Mark Buckingham; and Pureprint Group operations director Lee Reeves took part in the panel along with Pat Murray, COO at US-based Japs Olson.
Kodak is exhibiting in Hall 5/A02-2 at Drupa, which runs until 7 June.
