Indigo is a series of
digitalA digital system is a data technology that uses discrete values. By contrast, non-digital systems use a continuous range of values to represent information...
offsetOffset printing is a commonly used printing technique in which the inked image is transferred from a plate to a rubber blanket, then to the printing surface...
printing presses manufactured by the Hewlett-Packard company in
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,
IsraelThe State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
.
HP Indigo presses are used for general commercial printing, direct mail, photo, publications, labels, flexible packaging, folding cartons and specialty printing. Its ability to print without films and plates enables it to create personalized short runs, changing text, images and jobs without having to stop the press. HP Indigo digital presses are particularly well-suited to consumer-generated web-to-print applications ranging from business cards to photobooks.
Early Years
The name of the press series, Indigo, comes from a company formed by Benny Landa in 1977. Landa, known as the father of digital offset color printing, was born in
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to post-World War II Jewish refugee parents, who later immigrated to
EdmontonEdmonton is the capital of the Canadian province of Alberta and is the province's second-largest city. Edmonton is located on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Capital Region, which is surrounded by the central region of the province.The city and its census...
, Canada.
His interest in printing goes back to the time he worked as a child in his father's photo shop. His father purchased a cigar store that had a small photo studio in the back which he developed, using his skills as a carpenter, into his own portrait studio. He then started taking passport photos for labourers who needed them for their ID cards. Utilizing his own equipment he was able to produce “direct-positive” photos, avoiding the need for film and printing images directly on paper, years before photo booths became commonplace.
As a teenager Landa had both technical and creative talents, and initially chose to study physics in University but then changed his mind and studied literature and psychology. An acquaintance suggested that he should study cinema, since movie making combines both technical and creative aspects. Landa took on the idea and moved to
LondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
,
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to study.
While a student in London, Landa got a job at Commercial Aid Printing Services (CAPS), a company offering printing services and microfilm solutions. Landa was instrumental in developing a solution that won the company a contract with
Rolls RoyceRolls-Royce Limited was a renowned British car and, from 1914 on, aero-engine manufacturing company founded by Charles Stewart Rolls and Henry Royce on 15 March 1906 as the result of a partnership formed in 1904....
and was appointed as Head of R&D. However, CAPS lacked manufacturing capital and went into receivership in 1969.
In 1971 he joined Gerald Frankel, the owner of CAPS, and founded a new company - Imaging Technology (Imtec). Imtec became the largest European vendor of micrographics equipment (microfilm readers and reader/printers). Landa led Imtec’s R&D activities and invented the company’s core imaging technology. While researching liquid toners at Imtec, he worked on a method of high-speed image development that would later lead to his invention of ElectroInk.
Funding Indigo N.V.
In 1977 Landa decided to move to
IsraelThe State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
and established Indigo in the town of
RehovotRehovot is a city in the Center District of Israel, about south of Tel Aviv. According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics , at the end of 2009 the city had a total population of 112,700. Rehovot's official website estimates the population at 114,000.Rehovot was built on the site of Doron,...
, near
Tel AvivTel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...
. Later the company reincorporated in the Netherlands for financial purposes. Indigo initially focused on pure technology research and development and selling licenses of its technology to other manufacturer. At the same time Indigo was working on developing the liquid ink technology that was suitable for the quickly growing digital printing market. By the early 1980s Indigo unveiled its ElectroInk, a liquid ink that when heated was transformed into plastic. Throughout the decade Indigo continued to invest heavily in its research and development activities, building a patent portfolio that the company itself would refer to as a "patent fence." By the early 1990s the company had refined its ElectroInk technology to the point where it was ready to compete not only with xerographic imaging, but as well with traditional short-run printing techniques.
At the start of the 1990s Indigo moved from a primarily research-driven business into a full-scale printing equipment manufacturing company. The company's first product would be a digital plotter/duplicator, bringing the tiny company (its 1991 sales totaled less than US$5 million, generating a profit of $440,000) head to head with such industry giants as Xerox and Canon.
Launch of the E-Print 1000
In 1993 Indigo launched the E-Print 1000 at
IPEXThe International Printing Machinery and Allied Trades Exhibition is the largest printing and graphic arts trade show in the English-speaking world.- References :* , MacWorld...
exhibition, which marked a turning point in the printing industry. The E-Print 1000 eliminated the expense and labor of the plate-printing setup process, printing directly from a computer file, and enabled inexpensive short-run color printing. Images not only could be readily changed, they could be changed from page to page, requiring neither additional setup or pauses in the print run. Instead of printing to metal plates, the E-Print created a latent image on the Photo Imaging Plate or PIP through the use of an elecrostatic charge. This charged area would then attract the charged ElectroInk, which would in turn be transferred to the ITM or blanket, and then again transfer from the blanket to the paper or other substrate. Because 100% of the ink transfers from PIP to blanket to substrate, a different image and color could be printed with each rotation of the press. At the same time, Indigo's ElectroInk-based color inks offered print quality rivaling that of traditional printing processes.
Investment from George Soros and IPO on NASDAQ
In support of its move into full-scale manufacturing of the E-Print, Landa began seeking additional financing. This was provided by
George SorosGeorge Soros is a Hungarian-American business magnate, investor, philosopher, and philanthropist. He is the chairman of Soros Fund Management. Soros supports progressive-liberal causes...
who in June 1993 bought 14 percent of the equity of Indigo for $50 million, the remainder of the equity remained owned by Benny Landa. The purchase was the first investment Soros has made in Israel.
In 1994 Indigo had an
initial public offeringAn initial public offering or stock market launch, is the first sale of stock by a private company to the public. It can be used by either small or large companies to raise expansion capital and become publicly traded enterprises...
on the
NASDAQThe NASDAQ Stock Market, also known as the NASDAQ, is an American stock exchange. "NASDAQ" originally stood for "National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations". It is the second-largest stock exchange by market capitalization in the world, after the New York Stock Exchange. As of...
stock exchange, selling 52 million shares at $20 per share and raising $100 million. The offering reduced Landa's personal holding in Indigo to 70 percent. As the stock continued to climb, the following year, Landa's paper worth reached some $2 billion by 1995.
The company's revenues reached $13 million in 1993 and $73 million in 1994, by 1995 300 E-Print machines were sold and revenues reached $165. In 1995 Indigo launched another revolutionary product: the Omnius press. Whereas E-Print focused on medium-volume single-sheet printing, Omnius brought digital printing to a variety of surfaces, including plastic, cardboard, film, and, especially, cans, bottles, and other packaging surfaces. The Omnius's chief market target was the packaging industry. Based on the same technology as the E-Print, the Omnius enabled economical color printing for print runs under 100,000 on such surfaces as soda cans or product boxes—making the machine an ideal marketing tool.
At the end of 1995, Indigo sales did not reached the expected levels, and the company found itself overstaffed. Despite a strong rise in revenues to $165 million, the company posted its fourth year of losses, of about $40 million.
George SorosGeorge Soros is a Hungarian-American business magnate, investor, philosopher, and philanthropist. He is the chairman of Soros Fund Management. Soros supports progressive-liberal causes...
however still believed in the company’s potential and increased his investment to 30 percent of Indigo's shares by 1997. By 1998 the company improved its financial performance and revenues passed the $200 million mark for the first time.
Sale to HP
In 2000 the Hewlett Packard company made a $100m investment in Indigo, buying 14.8 million of Indigo's common shares, which represented 13.4 percent of the company's outstanding shares.
On September 6, 2001 HP announced that it will acquire the remaining outstanding shares of Indigo Indigo N.V. (NASDAQ: INDG) for approximately $629 million in HP common stock and a potential future cash payment of up to $253 million contingent upon Indigo's achievement of long-term revenue goals, for an aggregate potential payment of up to $882 million.
Following the acquisition, Benny Landa became a strategic advisor to HP CEO
Carly FiorinaCarly Fiorina is an American business executive and a former Republican candidate for the United States Senate representing California. Fiorina served as chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard from 1999 to 2005 and previously was an executive at AT&T and its equipment and technology spinoff,...
, Landa was quoted saying:
"Our vision has always been to lead the printing industry into the digital era and to see Indigo technology pervade the commercial printing market. Now, as part of HP, that goal is in sight."
HP Indigo today
Under the ownership of HP, Indigo developed and grew to become the world leader in digital commercial presses. The company is ranked No. 1 in the US high-volume digital press market and, according to HP officials, has a 75% share of the world market for digital commercial photo printing.
In 2004 HP made NIS 100 million investment in a new production site in Kiryat Gat, Israel. The factory is responsible for manufacturing HP Indigo ElectroInk. In 2007 an adjacent hardware center was opened, this facility assembles frames, feeders, and other components with imaging engines into finished presses. HP workforce in Israel reached 5,500 people in 2010, making HP the country’s second-largest private sector employer after Intel.
In August 2009 HP announced that there are now more than 5,000 HP Indigo digital presses in operation around the world.
Technology
The technology is based on HP ElectroInk, which uses small colour particles suspended in Imaging Oil (Isopar) that can be attracted or repelled by means of a voltage differential. The ink forms a very thin and smooth plastic layer on the paper surface. The fact that these particles are so small ensures that the printed image does not mask the underlying surface roughness/gloss of the paper, as can be possible with some
tonerToner is a powder used in laser printers and photocopiers to form the printed text and images on the paper. In its early form it was simply carbon powder. Then, to improve the quality of the printout, the carbon was melt-mixed with a polymer...
-based processes, bringing Indigo printing closer in appearance to conventional offset lithography, whereby ink is actually absorbed into the paper.
HP provides the option for users to mix their own ink colours to match
PantonePantone Inc. is a corporation headquartered in Carlstadt, New Jersey, USA. The company is best known for its Pantone Matching System , a proprietary color space...
references. This is common with non-digital offset litho presses, and is one of the features that distinguishes the HP Indigo process. "Off-press" colours are mixed from 11 colour (from the 15 original) Pantone spectrum at an offline, ink mixing station. Users can also order special pre-mixed colours from HP Indigo, for example fluorescent pink. HP Indigo presses are available in configurations supporting four, five, six or seven colours.
Operators are trained by HP at specialist centres in
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(ESP) or
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(MA) in the
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. There are two main courses, initially a certified operator qualification and, once some experience has been gained with day-to-day maintenance issues, an advanced (also known as DPP or shared maintenance) course.
The Series 2 printing engine can be easily differentiated from the original format by the double sized PIP (dynamic plate), which allows the press to run twice as fast. Current models in this series include the HP Indigo press 5500, 3500 and w3250 (Commercial) and HP Indigo press ws4500 (Industrial). Previous Series 2 models included the UltraStream 2000, HP Indigo press 3000, 3050, w3200, 5000, HP Indigo press ws4000 and ws4050.
There are several versions of the HP Indigo press, which can be broadly grouped by the Printing Engine (Series 1, 2) and by application - either Commercial (sheet-fed, mainly for paper printing), or Industrial (web-fed, labelling and flexible packaging).
HP introduced the Series 3 engine at
DrupaDrupa is the largest printing equipment exhibition in the world, held every four years at Messe Düsseldorf GmbH, City of Düsseldorf, Germany....
2008. The first model to be introduced was the HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press (Commercial). In March 2010 the
HP Indigo 7500 Digital Press (Commercial) was released.
Criticism
Early incarnations of the press (Series 1 engines) were prone to banding and ink adhesion problems. However newer models have corrected most of these issues.
External links