Official Show Daily • Cygnus Graphics Media


GRAPH EXPO • October 4, 2010 ■ 61 Show-n-Tell...on Steroids! A Sea of Change (Continued from cover)


Offset innovation Digital growth aside, there’s no


denying the sheer size of the mam- moth, $50 billion offset print market. Enhancements abound in areas such as speed, resolution, formats and overall productivity, points out longtime con- sultant Ray Prince. Mainstays Goss and Muller-Martini are here, side by side, as are Presstek and Chinese press manufacturer Hans Gronhi. KBA and manroland come into


view on the periphery of the new, 6,000-square-foot News Print Pavilion. (Look for the red carpet.) This strategic location puts these two offset press manufacturers within a stone’s throw of the 25 exhibitors serving the newspaper segment. There, Sam Hightower and Robert Rogers of Media General were engaged in a 15-minute conversation with Steve Stone and Mark Blancas of Phoenix-based Masthead International (booth #1572). Masthead’s business is press installation and reconfiguration, including web-width reductions and broadsheet-to-tabloid conversions. “It’s our first time at GRAPH


EXPO,” says Rogers, explain- ing that the co-located International Newspaper Group annual conference is what brought him to Chicago this past weekend. The two communica- tions company executives are here to get new ideas for revenues and savings. “We’re looking for great ideas that


we can apply to our business model.” They’re also on the lookout for ideas they can brand to create new busi- ness models, Hightower adds. “We’re ‘opportunity shopping,’” he says. And their scope extends beyond the News Print Pavilion. “My main purpose here is to look at the digital side regarding future opportunities.


Lean and green Nearby, in the GREENspace


Pavilion, Juan Pablo Mendez was at the Mohawk display learning about a new twist on lay-flat binding that he could run on his firm’s HP Indigo 5500 digital press in Guatemala. Potentially shopping for related software at the show, Mendez says this marks his third GRAPH EXPO. “We’re looking into the photobook market,” the GM notes. Foot traffic


in the Xerox booth


was brisk, too, with Bo Jackson’s appearance today expected to draw even more people. “We’re looking to see what’s new,” says Chuck Ellis of Accu-Print, a Xerox customer in San Antonio, “especially kicking digital finishing tires.” In addition to an iGen digital press and a 4112 monochrome device, Ellis’s 20-employee firm also runs traditional offset on two 29-inch Heidelberg sheetfed presses, a six- color and a two-color. His son Jason adds: “I like to see the little guys, so I walk the outside aisles.”


Postal Commission Rejects USPS Rate Hikes


(PRC) unanimously rejected the United States Postal Service’s (USPS or Postal Service) request for an “exigent rate increase” (more than inflation) averag- ing 5.6 %, while the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) refused to recal- culate the Postal Service’s purported $55 billion overpayment to the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS). NPES lauds the PRC’s decision, but is disappointed by OPM’s stance.


T


Meets the requirement In rejecting the Postal Service’s plea, the PRC agreed that the severe recession, and decline in mail volume meet the legal requirement of “extraor- dinary or exceptional circumstances,” but disagreed that the need for the requested rate increases were due to these factors. According to PRC Chair Ruth Y. Goldway “the primary cause of the [USPS] liquidity crisis was struc- tural and related to an overly ambitious requirement for the Postal Service to


he U.S. mailing industry


received a split decision in September, as the Postal Regulatory


Commission


prefund its future retiree health benefit premiums.”


Mailers were dealt a setback, how-


ever, by OPM’s refusal to recalculate the Postal Service’s $55 billion over- payment to the CSRS, in the face of what seems to be clear direction to take such action under the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006. In failing to act, OPM said that only Congress could authorize such a recalculation.


The USPS Inspector General and an independent actuary have confirmed that the Postal Service has overpaid the CSRS Pension Fund at least $50–55 billion due to antiquated OPM actu- arial calculations. NPES will work to address these issues in the 112th Congress, as the likely new chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee,


Representative Darrell


Issa (R-49-CA) has indicated interest in postal legislation in 2011. For more information contact


NPES Government Affairs Director Mark J. Nuzzaco at phone: 703/264- 7235 or e-mail: mnuzzaco@npes.org.


(Continued from cover)


than usual this year. Ralph Nappi: Yes, that is true.


Dovetailing with the big show this year are more than 20 co-located meet- ings representing both associations and proprietary user groups—everything from workflow, mailing and postpress to quick printing, in-plants and digi- tal transactional printing. I’m quite enthused about


this because people


are basically saying, ‘In a challenged economy, if I can only get my peo- ple at one event, GRAPH EXPO is the place to be.’ It started with the newspaper and web-offset people: on Saturday, the International Newspaper Group met, as did the Muller-Martini users group (Saturday and Sunday), while manroland users met yesterday and today; KBA’s is tomorrow. Word spread from there. HP scheduled a Dscoop event, Agfa, EFI, Kodak, the G7 Summit and Xplor are all here in Chicago this week, just to name a few. We couldn’t be happier about that. Show Daily: What kind of buying mood do you anticipate? Ralph


Nappi: The pendulum


seems to be swinging back and people are starting to buy—or at least starting their decision process for 2011 pur- chases. Clearly, the trend for the past several years is that most companies send fewer representatives to GRAPH EXPO than in the past, but the people who are here shopping this week are ‘highly qualified’ leads, which is of most importance to the vendors on dis- play. There are other capital-equipment investment considerations, of course, regarding tax incentives.


On September 27, President Obama signed into law the Small Business Jobs and Credit Act enacted by Congress, again extending expensing and bonus depreciation. NPES urged enactment of the new law, which extends 50% first-year bonus depreciation, retroac- tive to January 1, 2010, for equipment placed in service by December 31, 2010. IRC Section 179 expensing also is extended for tax years beginning in 2010 and 2011, and the amount tax- payers can write-off in the first year is increased from $250,000 to $500,000, with the phase-out threshold moving up from $800,000 to $2 million. The Obama administration’s mac- ro-economic stance favors small busi- ness loans, which could bode well for everyone in our industry. The legisla- tion also continues the enhancement of popular Small Business Administration (SBA) 7(a) and 504 loan programs, extends expiring loan guarantees and borrower fee reductions, and provides a new $30 billion fund for smaller banks to lend to small businesses. So, the money is there. The question is, will they release it?


Online Tax Calculator


An online Tax Calculator showing how the new expensing rules and continued bonus depreciation can make purchasing technology much more affordable can be found at: www.npes.org/tax_calculator.asp


Mitsubishi Imaging Introduces Next Generation of DigiPlate


M


itsubishi (Booth


224)


Imaging, is


Inc. show-


ing the next generation of DigiPlate. Processless


DigiPlate (PDP) consists of the PDP 6-VL platesetter and PDP-VL polyes- ter- or paper-based plate material avail- able in roll format in various thick- nesses. Violet sensitive PDP-VL plates use a polymer cross-linking technol- ogy that doesn't require any chemical processing to create the image area. The integrated plate-washing system requires only water for rinsing. The plate requires no pre-heating at the imaging or wash-off stages and no gumming.


PDP-VL, with its small footprint, chemical-free plate production, high speed output and low-energy con- sumption gives commercial printers a fully automated, environmentally- friendly CTP system. And with a max- imum resolution of up to 3000dpi and 200lpi, PDP-VL offers the highest


quality offset printing for run lengths up to 20,000 impressions. Also on exhibit is the Thermal Digi- Plate (TDP) system, a processless and chemical-free CTP system for single and spot color printing. This paper- based platemaking system produces plates without any processing consum- ables, such as chemistry, toner, liquid ink or carbon ribbons. The thermal printing head can image up to 75 plates per hour at 1200dpi.


Grace Pearlescent Photo Paper metallic inkjet photo media is also being introduced. It features a metallic surface finish, similar to silver halide metallic photo papers, and offers exceptional image clarity, and brilliant color reproduction, with a high gloss metallic finish. “We are very excited to expand on our line of quality ecological and eco- nomical CTP solutions with the release of the PDP-VL system,” says Colleen Molkenbur, Mitsubishi Imaging.


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