Take the market leading speed of Impika’s inkjet web technology, add Xerox’s marketing pizzazz, and what do you get (writes Peter Coleman).

The two have announced a deal which sees Impika – based in Aubagne, France – merge into the US-headquartered copier giant, with Impika president and chief executive Paul Morgavi reporting to Xerox’s graphic communications operations president Jeff Jacobson, and Morgavi’s 55-strong team retained. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Hopefully, the result will be new force to solve the market conundrum that is digital newspaper printing.

Xerox – locally part of a partnership with Fujifilm – was among the first to get serious about digital newspaper printing but, while its copier systems were behind most ‘newspaper on demand’ retail kiosk operations, it lacked the kit for serious production.

That wasn’t an inhibition for Océ, which was also without serious equipment when it launched the worldwide Digital Newspaper Network – initially its only web presses were slow, mono and toner-based – but quickly gained it through OEM partnerships. The result has been near dominance of the short-run business of printing international editions for businesspeople and holidaymakers.

Now Xerox is back in the game.

Not unusually, it is gaining the technology it needs through acquisition. The CiPress, which it likes to call “the world’s only high-speed waterless inkjet press” uses phase-change technologies which will be familiar to those who used for proofing, colour copier made by Tektronix, another company taken over by Xerox.

Worthy though that is – and it has an inherent block to ink wicking and show-through – speeds have so far been limited to the 152 metres/minute of the CiPress 500 (the number refers to its speed in feet per second).

Impika’s systems are water-based, although based on proprietary technology. And they run at up to 375 metres a minute, with resolutions up to a respectable 2400 x 1200 dpi.

It was also one of a relatively small number of exhibitors at last month’s Hunkeler Innovationdays event to focus on newspapers. Currently the ‘low-hanging fruit’ for inkjet web press makers is book printing, with newspaper publishers somewhat on the back burner as they juggle other issues with the search for a workable business model.

There are a number of Impika installations already in the Asia-Pacific region in transpromo applications. Most sales have been direct, although there is a network of channel partners which Xerox joined for Europe in 2011 and has recently expanded.

Xerox says the addition of the Impika technology will give it the industry’s broadest range of digital presses in a production inkjet market projected to grow 21 per cent a year to 2015 (according to IT Strategies).

 By adding Impika technology to its offerings, Xerox will now go to market with the industry’s broadest range of digital presses, strengthening its leadership in digital colour production printing. Jacobson says its focus on innovation has been a hallmark of Xerox’s long-term success. “Impika has demonstrated an innovative approach to advanced production inkjet printing that complements our technology,” he says.

More important is the significance of the acquisition in “bolstering brand strength”. Xerox with its US$22 million sales, is good at solutions (and selling) and the Impkia kit gives it something to sell to a digital newspaper printing market still not sure what the product is.