Printing Industry News Digest April 9, 2010

Welcome to Printing Industry News Digest (PIND), a weekly summary of major news stories from the printing, packaging and communication sectors. Published every Friday, PIND incorporates links to the week’s key news stories.

Easter weekend saw the official release of the Apple iPad in the USA. As with everything Apple, this generated much American hype and excitement! The UK release of the hand held touch-pad is expected to take place before the end of the month. New “apps” also on the increase!
Alternatively, a PC based product might be your preference. An early “road test” of one such “slate” is encouraging, though don’t expect to buy it tomorrow: more like August.

Best Cover sold out of administration to previous owners. A pre-pack or not? Some heated debate has already taken place on the printweek.com web site. An entertaining read for sure!

PrintWeek distributes its IPEX show guide to MIS and Workflow via e-mail as well as last week's version of the printed magazine. A web based version of the article is also available, including in the Workflow section some information on StudioRIP and TimeHarvest. The main MIS feature also includes details of TimeHarvest.

New video material from PrintSpeak.co.uk has been added to its YouTube site: a QuickDemo of the recently released Ryobi 525GE press is worth a look, especially if a small footprint B3 format press is your desire!
 
Direct mail specialist Mailcom shuts its Boldon, Tyne & Wear site with some 80 personnel losing their jobs. In the same week near neighbour Spenaprint, the successor to Norscreen, has also been placed in the hands of the receiver.

Punch Graphix UK Ltd has announced the appointment of Digital Print Business, headed by Paul Hopkins, as the sales agent for Xeikon digital colour presses covering the whole of Ireland.

Our friends at Ripware and Centurfax are featured in the latest PrintWeek “Tried & Tested” feature, with a review of pre-owned CCDot dotmeter products.

Details of Van Son's new Aquabase+ coatings were posted on PrintSpeak.co.uk this week, whilst Flint Ink is talking about a significant 6% hike in ink pricing in USA, as reported by Newspapers & Technology. A later semi-retraction said that this doesn’t apply to newspaper inks, but to UV inks specifically.