Printing Industry News Digest No.132, February 2, 2013

Welcome to Printing Industry News Digest (PIND) issue 132, providing a summary of major news items from the printing, publishing, packaging, digital, and communications technology sectors. PIND incorporates brief summaries and links to the week’s key news stories so that you can look up that all important detail, digging deeper behind the headline.

Morgana Systems, a leading UK-based manufacturer of post-press equipment, has been acquired by Plockmatic International. The Swedish-based company is also well know as a developer and manufacturer of document finishing technology, with a strong focus on inline booklet making systems.

The IPEX 2014 team came out fighting this week with some revised plans for next year’s event, including a reduction in the length of the event from eight days to six, and a white paper which summarises the state of the printing industry extremely well, in our humble opinion. If you haven’t read the Explore PDF yet, download it here and read it today. It might help crystallise your thoughts on your business as well as on IPEX.

Earlier in the week UK Ryobi press distributor Apex Digital Graphics announced that it would also be in a position to provide the range of Konica Minolta digital printing machinery to print businesses.

Money still outstanding from Goodhead Group? Looks like you are in good company. Unsecured creditors are owed a total of some £9 million, and are unlikely to see anything but pennies it would seem. Consumables suppliers to take the biggest hit, you will not be surprised to learn.

After doing the sums a total of 40 regional journalist jobs look likely to go as Trinity Mirror seeks to share more share more news stories across its 100-plus titles. The new strategy? You guessed: digital first. Mind you, this is a drop in the ocean compared to Time Inc. where about 500 lay-offs are looking likely at the 21-title publishing house.

So just why is the Guardian not going for paywalls? Interesting look at the various monetising strategies for news publishers from Mashable.

French government sorts out Google on behalf of publishing sector to the tune of £52 million. Germany liking the sound of this.

So, eager to get your 3D printing business up and running? What products are in the market you might ask: well, Engadget offers its consumers guide to 3D printer products. Once you get one, you can print your own robot!

Least surprising stat: tablets show year-on-year growth of 75% as Q4 2012 numbers reveal a whopping 52.5 million tablet devices were shipped. The detail is more interesting, revealing that Apple is still way out in front in Q4 2012 with 43% of the market, but that shows a decline from 51.7% in 2011, though a leap in actual numbers from 15.1 million to 22.9 million units in Q4 2012.

We all like a bit of crystal ball gazing don’t we? Our chums at Mashable certainly do: you might like to gaze curiously through their 38 predictions for the future. Meanwhile you might also like this software – it makes predictions for tomorrow’s news by analysing today’s headlines!

Android Tips: Nova Launcher is a must for Android tablets in our humble opinion. It's a highly customisable launcher / home-screen replacement software for Android 4.0 and above. Key features include infinite screen scroll (loop of screens); the ability to define how many user screens you have and what order they appear in;

increase number of apps in dock – we use eight on the Nexus 7 for example; and have scrolling dock. Basic Nova Launcher is free, but we suggest you spend just a few pennies to upgrade to the Prime version – install the free software first and add Prime after. This adds a very good gestures capability for app launching, and unread counts for email apps. It's not just us! Some 32,000 five star ratings on Google Play suggest that others like this launcher too!

Keep your finger on the pulse: grab an RSS feed of PIND (copy this link into your feed reader); click here for the GenesisNews #Print Daily to get the latest daily stories; or click here for regular Tech & Comms updates in blog or RSS form. You can also connect to a free subscription of the Print Daily for an update on print, publishing, packaging and associated technology delivered straight to your in-box every day! For details on Genesis Marketing – publishers of PIND – click here.

PIND132    

Missed Issue 131, including Kodak out of IPEX? Then simply click here!

Issue 130: Start of Android Tip Series
Issue 129: Educational publishing
Issue 128: RSS news readers



Get your Tech & Comms updates direct from the blog, use the RSS feed, or keep updated via Twitter.

Printing Industry News Digest No.125, December 8, 2012

Welcome to Printing Industry News Digest (PIND) issue 125, providing a summary of major news items from the printing, publishing, packaging, digital, and communications technology sectors. PIND incorporates brief summaries and links to the week’s key news stories so that you can look up that all important detail, digging deeper behind the headline. Click the pics too! Extra links are hidden behind the images below.

The Daily dies: the digital newspaper solution from News Corp has shut its doors after some 19 months. Whilst the US iPad subscription only publication was highly regarded by commentators, and briefly topped the paid-for iPad app charts, the numbers just didn’t add up.

Elsewhere in newspaper land, the New York Times is to downsize its newsroom as ad revenues fall; Trinity Mirror has unveiled its tablet strategy causing an increase in the share price; the Washington Post is now considering the paywall as the appropriate solution to its woes; and The Times, meanwhile, is offering up cheap Nexus tablets to new subscribers. Perhaps 2013 will shed new light for newspapers and a realistic monetising solution.

We hope The Dandy fares better than The Daily in digital land. The final printed edition of Britain’s favourite comic rolled off the press this week. The 75-year-old publications print run had dropped to 8,000 copies per week from a peak of 2 million.

The current hot topic of adding bespoke data via inkjet to a standard litho print is in focus at German publisher / printer Axel Springer as it integrates Kodak’s Prosper technology with manroland web systems equipment. A Colorman press was the first, providing unique lottery number information. The rest of the group will now be equipped, according to PrintWeek.

Meanwhile, it appears that the patent sale is back on at Kodak. Bloomberg advises us that the Apple and Google are teaming up for a $500 million-plus bid. Should provide some aid to Kodak’s bank account!
 
Are printers bad at marketing and weak at selling by anything other than price? Print Monthly offers some thoughts on both topics that are well worth a read – especially if you run a printing business!

With a focus on 3D printing, Gigaom introduces us to a PDF from the guys at Frog Design that offers 20 Tech Trends for 2013. Is 3D printing going to take over for regular printing companies?

Our friends at Mashable ask can e-books and libraries co-exist. Thoughts from others on this topic, including the Guardian and Surrey County Council.

Three new Surface tablets from Microsoft are set to arrive next year. The BBC’s Click programme [UK readers only] provides some comparisons of the latest tablet offerings from Apple, Google, and Microsoft.

What should you do to a computer before you sell or dispose of it? Lifehacker’s article this week is supported by the thoughts of others regarding cleaning or even completely destroying the hard drive.

Keep your finger on the pulse: grab an RSS feed of PIND (copy this link into your feed reader); click here for the GenesisNews #Print Daily to get the latest daily stories; or click here for regular Tech & Comms updates in blog or RSS form. You can also connect to a free subscription of the Print Daily for an update on print, publishing, packaging and associated technology delivered straight to your in-box every day! For details on Genesis Marketing – publishers of PIND – click here.

PIND125    

Missed Issue 124, including Océ inkjet? Then simply click here!

Issue 123: manroland web systems
Issue 122: manroland sheetfed update
Issue 121: Useful packaging



Get your Tech & Comms updates direct from the blog, use the RSS feed, or keep updated via Twitter.

Printing Industry News Digest No.118, October 20, 2012

Welcome to Printing Industry News Digest (PIND) issue 118, providing a summary of major news items from the printing, publishing, packaging, digital, and communications technology sectors. PIND incorporates brief summaries and links to the week’s key news stories so that you can look up that all important detail, digging deeper behind the headline.

A bad week for print? Certainly it had an unpleasant shape to it with Newsweek, the US weekly news magazine, confirming that it would be switching to an all-digital output from the very start of 2013. The last piece of print will be published December 31: a collectors’ edition? TechCrunch questions the paywall ambitions of any magazine, including those of Newsweek.
In newspaper world, the Telegraph broke news re the possibility that the Guardian was seriously contemplating an all-digital approach. With reported losses in excess of £40 million a year, a digital only version would certainly reduce the outgoings considerably.

Those with sufficient spare cash might even want to follow up on these two stories with a visit to Mashable’s forthcoming Media Summit taking place in New York, November 2. We will report back on the details.

The big show debate has started to take shape, with Drupa announcing a proposal to move to a three-year schedule from 2015, changing the Düsseldorf events current four-year, which currently links with a similar gap for Ipex. The suggestion, in our opinion, cannot be good for the industry, and, according to reports and private discussions, is not winning many friends. Final decision expected November 2.

Moving slightly sideways, and possibly upwards, just how big is cloud storage? Latest reports suggest that 375 million users of paid-for and free products are sticking their precious files up there somewhere! Swift and continual expansion expected to take that number up to 500 million before year-end (over 60 million new users a month!).

In Tablet Talk: further to our in-depth review of two leading 7-inchers last week, more have jumped on that mini bandwagon. Acer reported this week that its Android 4.1 was to arrive in US and Canada before month end, and at $230 or £145 or so, it is in the same ballpark as those units reviewed. Sharp also has entered this sector in Japan, whilst, as rumoured last week, a 32Gb version of Google Nexus 7 has indeed arrived according to Engadget.

Meanwhile, Microsoft, whilst suffering a 24% drop in profits, marches on towards the tablet market fight with Windows 8 and Surface. Pricing for the Microsoft tablet surfaced this week, with a basic 32Gb entry point of £310 / $499. Adding a cover / keyboard / more memory moves the pricing up through the ranks to £435 / $699 for the full 64Gb with keyboard / cover included. Shipment dates have apparently moved to early November for now. Check back for first real user reports.

For an even picture of things, the latest iPad Mini rumours are also here, including a pricing suggestion!

Keep your finger on the pulse: grab an RSS feed of PIND (copy this link into your feed reader); click here for the GenesisNews #Print Daily to get the latest daily stories; or click here for regular Tech & Comms updates in blog or RSS form. You can also connect to a free subscription of the Print Daily for an update on print, publishing, packaging and associated technology delivered straight to your in-box every day!

For details on Genesis Marketing – publishers of PIND – click here.

PIND118    

Missed Issue 117, including seven-inch tablets? Then simply click here!

Issue 116: August shows
Issue 115: newspaper turmoil
Issue 114: Digital packaging printing



Get your Tech & Comms updates direct from the blog, use the RSS feed, or keep updated via Twitter.

Printing Industry News Digest No.115, September 29, 2012

Welcome to Printing Industry News Digest (PIND) issue 115, providing a summary of major news items from the printing, publishing, packaging, digital, and communications technology sectors. PIND incorporates brief summaries and links to the week’s key news stories so that you can look up that all important detail, digging deeper behind the headline.

The problems in the newspaper sector were brought into sharp focus this week in the UK with the announcement of contract print company Newsfax being placed into administration. Customers and potential customers swiftly sought alternative print solutions. The news came just days after Johnston Press announced the closure of its Sunderland operation.

Meanwhile, InPublishing examines how some newspapers are seeking profitable solutions for re-purposing content into e-books. Is this a possible way forward? The Express & Star is re-working its web site access to work more effectively across all major platforms: an important move for sure. In the US some 20% of newspapers now have paywalls, we are advised by Mashable.

Eastman Kodak Co is rarely out of the headlines these days, and usually for the wrong reasons. The latest news brings its consumer inkjet printer business into focus: it will extract itself from the hardware side of this market by next year, leading to an additional 200 job loses. Hardware, of course, is highly competitive and margins are thin. The company will continue the sale of ink for its printers, and will also continue to provide its industrial printing equipment.

The former film giant is also seeking to extend its Chapter 11 status. It is currently due to present its plans by October 15. It is seeking to extend this to February 28, 2013. This is not an uncommon occurrence in complex Chapter 11 situations.

Hybrid printing will be one key topic at the forthcoming Print Efficiently event, taking place in Perrivale. A discussion chaired by Gareth Ward, editor of the Print Business magazine, will examine the issues and the technology, while the event will also show how the Kodak and Ryobi hybrid solution can provide for integrated litho and digital productivity.

In tablet talk, Google and Asus are reportedly building an even more cost conscious version of the Nexus 7. The new model, expected to be released before year-end (for the Christmas market?) is expected to retail at $99 (or £61 at current exchange rates).

Also of great interest, the battle of the tablet business models. With five major companies in the war for your tablet buck, what strategies are being employed by these business giants to make some money? First one of a series: Apple.

An interesting feature from the Lifehacker tech blog examines a number of the stock apps from the iPhone, and suggests better alternatives available from non-Apple suppliers.

For all of those still reliant on the PC: forty ways to fix your PC before you call an expert. CNet comes to the rescue with this list of handy hints!

Keep your finger on the pulse: grab an RSS feed of PIND (copy this link into your feed reader); click here for the GenesisNews #Print Daily to get the latest daily stories; or click here for regular Tech & Comms updates in blog or RSS form. You can also connect to a free subscription of the Print Daily for an update on print, publishing, packaging and associated technology delivered straight to your in-box every day!

For details on Genesis Marketing – publishers of PIND – click here.

PIND115    

Missed Issue 114, including digital packaging? Then simply click here!

Issue 113: Alderson Brothers admin
Issue 112: New Amazon Kindle product
Issue 111: More printed electronics



Get your Tech & Comms updates direct from the blog, use the RSS feed, or keep updated via Twitter.