Technology | What to Watch
PRINT IS A DYNAMIC MARKET – IT WOULD BE GOOD IF THE TECHNOLOGY WAS DYNAMIC TOO
Oscar Vidal
WITH DEMANDS ON THE PRINT INDUSTRY CONSTANTLY CHANGING IT CAN BE DIFFICULT TO DECIDE WHEN IS BEST TO UPGRADE YOUR KIT BUT HP MAY HAVE FOUND A SOLUTION TO THE DILEMMA OF SCALABLE TECHNOLOGY WITH THE RELEASE OF ITS NEW RANGE. IMAGE REPORTS’ ASSISTANT EDITOR, BENJAMIN AUSTIN, HAS SPOKEN WITH THE COMPANY TO LEARN MORE.
The print industry, particularly in the large format market, is seemingly hitting a renaissance period.
The latest projections show demands for its services are rising and will continue to do so through the decade. Our latest Widthwise survey showed that 41% of large format printing operations in Great Britain and Ireland had seen an increase in profits since early 2023, with only 6% anticipating a downturn in digital large format printing. It is an ever-demanding industry with businesses requiring up-to-date technology to manage fluctuating workloads – all the while being conscientious about their environmental footprint. The hardware alone can be a headache for businesses as they are constantly weighing up investing in their futures while being able to maintain the foresight to scale their outputs to their customers, as well as making sure it does not strain their resources. These dilemmas are seemingly ones printer manufacturer, HP, has taken a closer look at as it hits the market with its new FS series.
A NEW APPROACH TO FLEXIBLE TECHNOLOGY
It stands for flexible and scalable with the products – the FS50 and FS60 – revolving around those concepts.
The idea is the two lines would offer multiple upgrades as they are
developed and can be applied to the hardware as and when the customer requires it. Oscar Vidal, HP’s global director of product and strategy, large format
print, sees it as a way customers can future-proof their businesses without the constant investment into more hardware. He said: “This is not a static market anymore, it’s dynamic, and if the technology is dynamic too, that helps adapt to the reality of the work. “We are in an industry that is constantly moving and can be quite volatile – one minute you have a massive amount of work, the next you go rather quiet.
“In this high production space, the level of change requirement keeps
evolving, and having to make a large investment every time was becoming too much for what customers were paying for. “They have been telling us to have an investment that can over time become richer in terms of performance and the FS50 and FS60 are products that have been designed with upgradeability in mind.” The products were released on November 5 with some customers already installing them as early bird users.
HELPING BUSINESSES THROUGH FUTURE CHALLENGES The new series is also fully replacing the Latex 2700 which, at this current stage, is identical in performance to its predecessor. However, Oscar explains it is in the new models’ future upgradeability where the two series differ.
THE MAIN TARGET USERS ARE HIGH- VOLUME CUSTOMERS WITH HIGHER VOLUME NEEDS AND IT’S THESE PEOPLE THAT NEED TO EVOLVE MORE RAPIDLY
The HP FS60W in action 14 | December 2024/January 2025
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