HP Targets Offset Market and High Volume Digital Markets with New Products

HP’s pre-Drupa product announcements show that HP is clearly going after the high volume offset and high volume digital markets. Products announced included 3 new Indigo models, a high speed web inkjet press, large format inks, and workflow software.

HP unveiled three new HP Indigo models that offer faster speeds, greater productivity and deliver significant improvements in break-even costs compared to analog print methods. The HP Indigo 7000, available in June, offers 120 four-color ppm and is currently installed at 10 beta sites.

Designed for customers printing more than a million pages per month the HP Indigo 7000 press offers a host of features.

·         Faster speeds of 120 A4 pages per minute (ppm) in four-color and 240 ppm monochrome

·         Capable of producing 800,000 4-color A4 (letter) per month in one shift and 3.5 million 4-color A4 (letter) running 24/7.

·         Lower-cost production enabling a higher break-even point with offset printing with run lengths in the thousands.

·         317mm x 464mm (12.48-inch x 18.26-inch) image size for increased throughput, enabling production of four-up 6-inch x 9-inch book and postcard as well as covers for letter size books with over 500 80lb text (120gsm) pages.

·         Robust, scalable Digital Front-End (DFE) provides easy remote user interface capabilities, unique VDP attributes and expandable storage capacity.

·         New, user-friendly graphical user interface for simplified operation

·         Enhanced serviceability and increased uptime with on-press diagnostics and guided troubleshooting tools

·         Support for a wide range of media, with no decrease in production speed

·         On-press fast ink replacement feature for color changes on optional 5th, 6, and 7th colors with virtually no downtime

The HP Indigo W7200, available in the second half of 2009, is a high-volume commercial press. The WS6000 is a label and packaging press expected to be available in early 2009, that offers twice the productivity of the HP Indigo ws4500 press and is targeted at labels and packaging converters with significant volumes of medium- and short-run jobs

HP enters high speed inkjet market

The HP Inkjet Web Press is designed to perform in high volume, 24/7 environments, runs at 400 feet per minute or 2600 letter pages per minute, and has a target duty cycle of 70 million impressions per month (letter sized, 4/0 impressions). With its combination of 30 inch print width, color quality, low print costs, and speed it is targeting direct mail, transactional and transpromotional printing, book publishing and newspaper publishing applications. 

The press will sell for $2.5 million, which is lower than the high speed offerings from Océ, InfoPrint Solutions, Kodak, Xerox, and Screen. However, it’s the running costs that are worth noting. The Print costs for the Inkjet Web Press for an A4 color page with 30% coverage will cost $0.01 and a basic monochrome page $0.0015. At these prices this printer appears to set a new competitive price target for other suppliers and is poised to move pages from offset to digital.

The HP InkJet Web Press is expected to be commercially available in the second half of 2009