No sooner were you in the door of the Melbourne Exhibition Centre than a curious conundrum presented: On the stand shared by Fujifilm and Fuji Xerox Australia – of which the former owns 75 per cent – two inkjet web presses vied for elements of the same market. Further into the hall, a third inkjet web was on the stand of Dainippon Screen, a company represented in some local markets by Fujifilm.

Two of these were expected. Screen already has installations in Australia and New Zealand, while Fujifilm had heavily promoted the arrival of its Jet Press 540W following a debut at China Print last week.

The ‘wild card’ is the ‘technology demonstration’ of a new inkjet still short of a name other than ‘Fuji Xerox New Inkjet Continuous Feed Printing Press’.

All are in the market for newspaper applications, as were the undisplayed offerings of HP, partners Océ (Canon) and manroland, and KBA… an indication if ever there was, that vendors think the local market is ready to place an order.

One vendor (who preferred not to be named) told me he expected there to be orders for one or more digital newspaper printing system before the end of this year… “but then, I said that last year,” he added on reflection.

HP fielded a large and senior team including high speed inkjet vice president Aurelio Maruggi and publishing market development specialist Douglas Sexton, both of whom are based in San Diego – and Asia-Pacific graphic solutions vice president and general manager Gido van Praag, for a media briefing just after the show’s opening. While the bulk of HP inkjet web installations are in book and commercial web sites, the company does claim one of the world’s first newspaper publisher (as opposed to print contractor or print service provider) installations.

Manroland Australia managing director Steve Dunwell led his company’s team on the Canon stand, supported by specialists from Océ’s digital newspaper printing division. The partners believe their package – based on the combination of the Océ inkjet web with a specially-developed variable cut-off manroland newspaper folder – is the most market-ready in terms of quality, although a first folder installation has been delayed by the customer.

Others also have runs on the board, but the late reentry of Fuji Xerox into the digital newspaper market is perhaps the most interesting. The press shown in Beijing and Melbourne complements the existing (but faster) 2800 inkjet web – of which six have been installed in transpromo applications in Australia and New Zealand in the last couple of years – and the high-speed inkjet of new acquisition Impika. Super-marketer Xerox, which was a global pioneer in the digital newspaper segment –and the supplier of the technology in many early kiosk systems – is back in the game.

Pictured: Steve Ball and Paul Sanelli with the Fuji Xerox inkjet web at PacPrint