EFI CEO Guy Gecht spoke about both personal and company milestones this year in his keynote speech
A new approach to its software products was top of the agenda when EFI opened Connect 2015 on 20 January at the Wynn hotel in Las Vegas to an audience of some 1500 attendees, the largest ever user gathering in the company’s history.
Giving an overview of the current state of the EFI inkjet portfolio, Marc Olin, COO and interim chief financial officer, said that the company is continuing on its path to the stated goal of an annual revenue of $1 billion by 2016. Inkjet represents 50% of revenue with the other 50% coming from the company’s extensive software portfolio. He also pointed out that 20% is ploughed back into R&D as innovation is key.
LED curing technology is continuing to grow in popularity and value. Almost 500 installations in 48 countries are taking advantage of the value earned from lower energy usage and the ability to print on thinner substrates, he said. The company’s entry level machine, the wide format H1625 LED press was on site running live demonstrations. The machine, which was launched in April last year, has proved very popular selling out completely in Q2 and Q4.
Software evolution
Gaby Matsliach shared his observations after eight months as senior vice president, general manager productivity software, with the audience. He announced the introduction of the new EFI Productivity Suite, which has been developed with a ‘best of suite’ approach to workflows. Having come into the job from outside the printing industry, he has been able to take a fresh view on the company’s software portfolio and was instrumental in implementing the new approach which is described as an ‘out of the box’ and ‘holistic’ workflow offering to customers as opposed to point to point integration. ‘The printing and packaging industry has unique software needs,’ said Matsliach. ‘Generic software just doesn’t cut it!’
Many customers have fragmented systems based on a ‘best of breed’ approach which intensifies the burden on users as they have to manage integration with other software themselves. This is also a more costly and requires significant and on-going investment.
With the new EFI Productivity Suite, customers will benefit from centralised portfolio product management where new releases are synchronised across applications – there will be two major updates per year. It has been designed for rapid deployment and ROI, and will be documented, delivered and supported as a suite, whether the user has one component installed and multiple products.
And so much more
Product demonstrations, over 200 educational breakouts sessions and partner table top exhibits were also part of the conference with users being able to speak to the experts and try out new software solutions, covering both packaging and commercial printing.
The conference also included two fireside chats where EFI CEO Guy Gecht spoke to Thomas Quinlan III, president and CEO of global integrated communication services provider RR Donnelley, and Avi Reichental, the CEO of 3DS Systems, a trail blazer in the field of 3D printing. Epicomm economist Andy Paparozzi shared the finding of the association’s survey of the state of the industry which predicts that the print industry will experience growth from between 2.5 to 3.5% in 2015.
