Why not slip into your favorite terry-towel housecoat and fuzzy slippers, grab the bonbons and make yourself comfy on the sofa for the next installment of the printing industry's longest running soap opera, As The Prepress World Turns. Follow the dramatic antics of some of your favorite prepress characters: Kodak, Creo and Heidelberg.

Everyone loves a wedding and almost realized it was only a matter of time before those crazy, love-struck kids Creo and Kodak made eye contact and started dating. The relationship progressed more rapidly than expected, however, and now the prepress community is anxiously anticipating the biggest wedding of the year.

How did this union come to be? Last October, a group of shareholders led by Toronto-based hedge fund Goodwood Inc. launched a proxy battle with the intention of unseating Creo's board of directors. The shareholders, unsatisfied with the current Board's performance, had nominated turnaround specialist Robert Burton, head of Burton Capital Management, to replace Creo's embattled CEO Amos Michelson. Burton was also part of the shareholder coalition. After months of infighting between Creo's board of directors and these dissident shareholders, the board recommended shareholder acceptance of an acquisition offer from Kodak.

The past couple of years have not been easy for Kodak the one-time imaging/film giant. The explosive digital photography market has been a source of continuous erosion of analogue film sales, which would naturally have an impact on Kodak's bottom line. Kodak seemed slow to acknowledge this trend and was soon outpaced by other more aggressive players in the digital photography area.Likewise, Kodak's dominance of the prepress film market was challenged by rapid printing industry-wide acceptance of computer-to-plate technology. When Kodak eventually decided to cater to the growing CTP client base, they chose to enter the market with a thermal plate. While the thermal plate initially seemed like a good move for Kodak, it was not long before Agfa and Fuji scooped the up-and-coming violet-laser plate business.

Meanwhile Creo attained market dominance of the rapidly evolving computer-toplate output sector with its innovative imaging devices. While Creo's affection for thermal CTP technology has done well for the company so far, they also have done nothing to address the burgeoning visible light/photo-polymer plate market. At the same time Creo's Prinergy workflow continued to evolve into a stable and mature PDF-based prepress workflow able to drive multiple CTP devices besides its own Trendsetter line.

Mail the invitations

So what is next? Well, with Creo shareholders not meeting until March 29, even the certainty of the Kodak acquisition is suspect. However, the proposed merger raises some interesting questions. The bundling of consumables and CTP devices is logical and inevitable, but what about variable data printing (VDP)? Creo has been collaborating with Xerox in the field of VDP and digital printing for nearly 10 years now. The result of their efforts includes the creation of Creo's Spire Color Server RIPs for Xerox's iGen3 digital presses, as well as Creo's Darwin VDP tools for Quark and InDesign users.

Kodak on the other hand, has acquired and re-branded Heidelberg's NexPress digital press technology and produced its own PDF-based, VDP workflow technology. So will Creo now suddenly admit that NexPress is a better technology? Will Kodak abandon its NexStation in favour of Creo's Darwin VDP tools and Spire Color Server RIPs? There is no doubt that a consolidation of products are inevitable with Kodak's direct competition with Xerox for the VDP/digital printing crown.

Dots or not

Creo's inkjet-based proof offerings utilizing its proprietary Epson and Iris solutions compete directly with Kodak's high-end Approval proofing system. Many prepress departments have been slow to adopt Approval, largely due to the sizable capital investment required to implement the system. At the same time, many printers have been quite successful in educating their client-base to accept cost-effective, albeit lower-quality, contract proof options.

Instead of wrestling with the dot-accurate proofing beast, Creo's approach to contract proofing has been to sell the "dotless proof and stochastic screening" combo. When the wedding reception is over and all the guests have gone home will Creo be lovingly coerced to do an about face and start pushing the dot-accurate Approval proof or will Kodak suddenly become enamored with stochastic screening?

And what of Kodak's rumoured research into a photo-polymer plate, which some say is already in beta-test phase - will that be abandoned? On the other side of the same coin, Creo acquired a thermal plate manufacturing facility in South Africa late in 2003 with the intention of adding plates to its product line. Will Creo's own branded thermal plates be dropped in favour of a Kodak product?

The jilted lover

And while we are asking questions, will Heidelberg assume the role of the jilted lover? The hardware manufacturing giant was at one time partners with Creo in their Prinergy workflow and marketed the Trendsetter as though it were its own CTP device. Heidelberg's sales reps claimed to be selling more of the popular Trendsetter units than Creo.