Biggest print revolution since Gutenberg

The innovation blog

The ultimate accolade for any new printing technology is to be hailed as “the biggest revolution since Gutenberg”. That is how The Guardian headline (http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/may/03/printing-revolution-landa-xeikon-drupa) hailed the appearance of Landa and Xeikon’s new innovations at Drupa even if, in the article itself, the glittering future for these devices was qualified with quite a few ifs, buts and caveats. 

If Benny Landa’s nanographic printers succeed – and they’re still at least a year away from a commercial launch – they could in time compete with wide-format inkjet technology. And, as Fespa blogger Rock LaManna has noted (http://www.fespa.com/news/blogs/rock-lamanna-blog/think-about-yourself-first-landas-new-printer-second.html), they have generated the kind of hype normally associated with a superhero movie. LaManna has no beef with the technology or the excitement but worries that they may disastrously reinforce the printing industry’s institutionalised prejudice that every problem has a technological solution.

Such technological innovations only transform businesses if companies get an accurate take on the total cost of operation. Even then, as LaManna has pointed out in other blogs, such technology can only form part of the solution. Every managing director needs to know where the industry – and the technology – is heading, but they also need to know what ‘s happening in the market today and, most fundamentally of all, what really makes their business tick.