CAP Ventures projects that the total number of large format DOD inkjet printers in use worldwide for digital proofing will grow from 13,000 units in 1999 to 72,000 units in 2004. During the five-year period, this will spur growth in the demand for inkjet supplies (both ink and media) amounting to half a billion U.S. dollars.

Entitled "Large Format Inkjets and the Emerging Opportunity in Digital Proofing," the research paper maintains that three companies – OEMs Hewlett-Packard and Epson along with materials giant Dupont – have staked out early leadership positions in this market. "Unless other vendors move quickly and effectively, this ‘Big Three’ of DOD inkjet printing (along with their select partners) might well dominate this new opportunity for years to come," the report states.

Large format DOD inkjet machines include two technologies: piezoelectric and thermal inkjet. Both technologies can also be used to drive small-format inkjet printers. However, the main focus of this report is the opportunities for large format DOD printing devices, inks and media when they are used in two environments. Those environments are

• Prepress operations, such as prepress houses or the prepress departments within commercial printshops, where imposition proofs and contracts proofs are produced, or
• Advertising agencies or corporate marketing functions, where graphic designers generate "concept proofs" to help them develop the designs of brochures, direct mail and other marketing literature.

Commercial printshops and prepress houses produce imposition proofs early in the prepress process to prototype the arrangement of graphic elements (such as print and photos) on the page and to show the order in which pages will be printed on press. Contract proofs are the final, full-color proofs that a print buyer signs before the presses roll at a commercial printshop.

At this stage in its development, the publishing industry is transitioning from analog prepress and proofing technologies to digital technologies for these functions. Many of today’s leading vendors in digital prepress proofing are companies such as Dupont, Imation, Polaroid Graphics Imaging LLC, Kodak Polychrome Graphics and Fujifilm whose first product offerings in prepress proofing were analog technologies. The report describes DOD inkjet vendors such as Hewlett-Packard, Epson, Canon, Roland DG and others as the "new kids on the block" and predicts big opportunities for them.

"The publishing industry is beginning to move quickly from analog prepress technologies to digital workflows," said David Williamson, director of CAP Ventures’ Visual Communications Technologies Consulting Service (VCT). Williamson, who is co-author of the report, said, "In most prepress operations, work is still done today by ‘island-hopping’ from one island of analog technology to another. As the publishing industry embraces the all-digital workflows and computer-to-plate technology, large format DOD inkjets will flood into the proofing market and overwash the analog proofing islands to the point that they eventually disappear."

In terms of inks and media for large format DOD proofing, the CAP Ventures report cautions vendors that imposition-proof media may not be as worthy of investment as the media for contract proofing. "For contract contract-proofing media, extra investment is warranted," the report concludes. "This investment can be cost-justified because new combinations of machines, inks and media can move large format DOD inkjets successfully into the market against the dominant contract-proofing technologies."

The dominant contract-proofing technologies today are the digital half-tone proofing systems and continuous-tone color proofing technologies. Digital half-tone proofing systems -- which tend to use thermal and laser technologies and cost more than $100,000 -- include such products as Kodak Approval, Polaroid Polaproof , Digital HT from Dupont and the Imation Matchprint Digital Halftone Proofing System. Continuous-tone systems, led by the CreoScitex IRIS, tend to use dye-sublimation and continuous-flow inkjet technologies, and cost from $40,000 up.

The Visual Communications Technologies Consulting Service is one of nine service areas now offered by CAP Ventures Inc. VCT currently provides annual retainer packages to clients in two areas: large format digital printing (LFDP) and large format electronic displays (LFED.) For more information on VCT and its market research and consulting services, please contact David Williamson at david_williamson@capv.com