Late last year Wide Format Online magazine was asked by HP to interview their Designjet Specialist, Jeremy Brew in response to claims by their competitors that the Latex inks and the two Latex machines were not as environmentally friendly as HP were claiming.

With Océ emerging as a major player in the wide format technology supply industry, Wide Format Online used PacPrint as an opportunity to interview both Servio Notermans, Managing Director of Océ Australia and Paul Whitehead, the Océ Market Manager, Display Graphics.

Shane Lucas, HP's director Graphic Arts South Pacific spoke to Wide Format Online recently on the subject of the company's Latex ink technology and what we can expect from HP in the near future.

1978 was a big year in history; the very first computer bulletin board, forerunner of the internet and email, was set up in Chicago; Australian Ken Warby smashed the world water speed record at 511 kph at Blowering Dam near Tumut, NSW – a record that still stands; the Camp David accord established peace between Israel and Egypt; Pope Paul IV is succeeded by Pope John Paul 1 but he dies after ony 33 days in office; the Sydney Hilton bombing becomes Australia’s first and only terrorist attack; the Little River Band sang ‘Reminiscing’ ; John Paul Young sensed ‘Love is in the Air’ and Sir Robert Menzies ended his long and distinguished life.

Following Adkote’s loss of the NUR distribution due to the HP acquisition of NUR and it’s subsequent taking over of it’s own distribution, it was not surprising that Adkote, who considered their distribution of NUR a huge success for all parties, putting themselves back onto the market for the distribution of an alternative major machinery supplier. Particularly one that fitted the comfort zone that Adkote had created with NUR.

Two weeks before Drupa 08 opens its doors in Dusseldorf, Germany, Epson invited Wide Format Online to the Epson headquarters in Sydney to view two important new products to be unveiled at the world’s largest graphic arts show.

For such a high ranking bloke, he was extremely laid back and easy to talk to, especially as English was not his home language. A Swiss by birth, living and working in Ottawa, Canada and an accent that sounded akin to Irish more so than Canadian or Swiss, he provided an entertaining interview with his Australian cohorts, Richard Dodd and Gavin Watson of Corel Asia Pacific.

Attending the PMA Australia show at the beginning of May and in great demand for media interviews and seminar delivery was Henry Wilhelm from the famed Wilhelm Imaging Research (WIR) Institute in the USA.

The secret to growing a business is adding value. Right? So here’s one easy way to do just that.

As previously published on Wide Format Online,  a report produced by IT Strategies (see www.it-strategies.com/news/58.html) predicts that there is huge growth for the textile printer industry with revenues expected to reach $6 billion by 2010. We asked Yoong Lee, recently appointed Business Development Manager at Anitech to expand on these findings, specifically in regard to the debate on vinyl vs textile in the signage industry and whether textile signage would be able to take over much of the vinyl signage that has mushroomed over the last few years.