New Interquest research has revealed that Oc'e JetStream colour inkjet technology has come to the fore as a favoured solution in not only the transaction printing market, but also for in-house and third party providers.
In its “North American Transactional Printing Market Update & Forecast 2009-2014” study, Interquest reports that inkjet presses are gaining volume and installations. Interquest is a leading market and technology research and consulting firm serving the digital printing and publishing industry.
The 2009 study notes that although inkjet equipment accounts for only 4% of the transactional printing systems (monochrome, spot and full colour) used by respondents to the survey, inkjet presses produce 35% of the total transactional print volume reported - up from 31% the year before. The number of print operations using inkjet equipment took a big jump. The survey found that about one-third of the respondents now use inkjet equipment for transactional printing, up from 16% in the first half of 2008.
Interquest interviewed 30 third-party service providers and in-house operations that together produce about 27% of all transactional impressions in North America. In recent months, a growing number of high-volume transaction operations have installed their first high-speed full-colour inkjet press, while others have added new generation models.
The survey references several high-volume operations that chose Oc'e JetStream colour inkjet systems, including Direct Group, which at the end of 2008 installed the first Oc'e JetStream press in North America, and more recently, added a second Oc'e JetStream 2200 press with MICR printing capability. Symcor, a large Canadian-based transactional service bureau, produces about 700 million statements annually. It recently installed its first inkjet press, an Oc'e JetStream 1500 full colour press with MICR printing capability, to produce transpromo applications.
In-depth interviews conducted by Interquest offered further market feedback on Oc'e JetStream colour inkjet presses:
* The one [inkjet press] I like the best is the Oc'e JetStream because of the variable dot size, a capability not offered by its main competition. Also, the halftoning is significantly better. What I also like on the Oc'e press is the security feature in MICR mode through its all-in-one concept. - Very large third-party provider with several ink jet presses.
* If we had known that we would run such volume now, we might have gotten the Oc'e machines. Our problem was that we did not have the volume to support the Oc'e machines when we first got started and did not know where we were going. - Third-party provider producing half a billion full-colour impressions per year.
* The third most important aspect was MICR, and this is a key reason we went with Oc'e. With the Oc'e JetStream press, you only use MICR when you need it, while on some other machines you have to use it on every page, whether you need it or not. Also, the print quality is higher because you can print separately true black with one head and the MICR line with another dedicated head. With other competitive solutions, you need to add another print engine to produce MICR. - Large third-party provider.
* Another benefit of the Oc'e JetStream press has to do with its upgradability. If next year I want to double the speed of the machine I pay a few hundred thousand dollars and the same machine can be upgraded. With others, I have to buy a whole new machine. - Large third-party provider.
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