Below find a article describing Kodak's Polychrome bus (joint venture with Sun Chemical the largest ink supplier in the USA BTW). Please note that Mr. Hallman is listed as Pres and CEO in this article, he was demoted to Sr. V.P. in January of 1998. No doubt this effected his decision to go to PRST and it was probably good for Kodak. Exec's usually have restrictive covenent agreements with their employers, they are easily enforced to prevent people considered valuable from leaving, when the employer doesn't want the employee enough or feel the need to keep them away from a compoetitor to pay generally 2 times the salrey the employee gets released.
Scott, BTW I covered my 11 3/4 short at 8 1/2 on Friday for reasons I'm not sure you would understand. I'm still not ready to take a long position however as I think PRST is still overvalued. If it pop's up again I'm ready to short
Thomson Corporation Company;
ASAP
Copyright 1997 Reed Publishing USA
Graphic Arts Monthly
August, 1997
SECTION: No. 8, Vol. 69; Pg. 106; ISSN: 1047-9325
IAC-ACC-NO: 19844528
LENGTH: 1214 words
HEADLINE: Supplier contends 'it's a good time.' Polychrome Pres and CEO Robert W. Hallman; includes related articles on Polychrome expansion deals
BODY:
The new chief of a worldwide consumables leader discusses CTP ablation techniques, no-processing plates, and futuristic imaging systems using colorants and carriers.
In the words of Robert W. Hallman, who was named company president and chief executive only about eight months ago, "It's a good time to be Polychrome."
Hallman's view may seem overly confident for a supplier competing in a worldwide consumables market lashed by rapid technological developments, global demand fluctuations, multiple-vendor marketing alliances, distribution channel shakeouts, and currency instabilities.
But, Hallman maintains, Polychrome has a lot of the bases covered. It has vast research capabilities, manufacturing muscle in worldwide markets, integral support from sister operations in the Sun Chemical family to which it belongs, and total corporate focus on the graphic arts.
It is just this unique combination, he feels, that's required for market success.
As an example of this synergy, he reports that three years ago Polychrome technicians had taken ablation processing of CTP plates to quite an advanced level. But when they approached system vendors, they were discouraged from further development because (a) ablation processing by its nature consumes two to i three times as much energy as emulsion exposure and liquid processing, and (b) the presence of ablated debris, a perpetual problem in any process that involves physical removal of material, demands use of an efficient vacuum head.
"But demonstrations by several vendors at the Imprinta '97 show in Germany in June showed how far ablation technology has come," Hallman notes. "In our view at Polychrome, perfecting processless plates is still the aim over the next few years, whether achieved by ablation or some other means."
Listening to customers
He adds, "But too often, we feel, system vendors get too heavily involved in a technology solution while overlooking real customer needs. We think we have to make time to listen to customers' concerns.
"For example, for vendors, no-processing plates are ideal, but that solution can create headaches for the eventual users of the plates, who have to take additional measures or alter their pressroom practices."
For this reason, Polychrome is continuing to research different combinations of technologies, say, using switchable emulsion polymers applied by aerosol sprayers, or varying the coating and drying steps, along with the imaging and cleaning procedures. "We'll continue to sift through these preliminary explorations, not in product demonstrations on a show floor but in the proper technical climate," Hallman says.
The reason, he is quick to point out, is Polychrome's consideration of the buildup of market expectations. "We just don't want to be in a position like the early digital presses were put. Those early versions were rolled out at the international Ipex show in England in 1993, long before they were actually ready to perform. As a result, we think they've had a tough development cycle since customer expectations were built up too high too early."
Thermal second wave
When it comes to CTP today, Hallman thinks the second wave of thermal products is now emerging as vendors respond to the overly high expectations of visible light systems. In his view, thermal systems offer a better chance at processless imaging, adding. "Printers don't want to reinvent the plate on the press by having to, in effect, 'develop' it there."
He continues, "With our CTX approach, we vary the top coating to accommodate any laser in use. This is classic proof of the statement, 'As the platesetter gets smarter, the supplies can get dumber.'"
Still, adoption of CTP products will be very gradual, Hallman says. By the year 2005, he predicts, CTP products will account for just 15% to 20% of the worldwide total, with the dominant share still made up of conventional, processing-required products.
Not bad news
But that won't be bad for Poly-chrome, Hallman maintains: "With our corporate expertise in inks, we'll be ready when plates begin to move away from their traditional place in prepress to a new place nearer the press. We're convinced that the long-term answer on the press is a unique, integrated ink/plate system that someone like us can match up perfectly, as we did with waterless.
"Such a system might integrate the surface topography of the plate with the surface energy of the inks and the fountain solution to create a new, efficient printing dynamic. This change, which we could see by the year 2000, has the potential to restructure a big segment of the industry."
Hallman concludes, "We're in the unique position to be able to integrate these key components. It's just one example of why we say, 'It's a good time to be Polychrome.'"
RELATED ARTICLE: Deals, Deals, Deals: A Supplier Expands
Polychrome, which has conducted direct sales in the U.S. for 40 years, today sells about 20% of its product through regional dealers, a figure it may increase to 50% in the next three or four years.
Through a new customer consulting service, called Integration Systems, Polychrome has been signing marketing agreements with other suppliers. In just the past year, it agreed to distribute the entire line of workflow products from Escher-Grad Technologies, desktop scanners and imagesetters from ScanView, Inc., and Velocity2 workstations and servers from Connect, Inc.
Last month, the company obtained exclusive licensing and manufacturing rights to Dry Tech ExPress technology from Polaroid Graphics Imaging. Under this agreement, Polychrome, which last year introduced EasyPrint NP no-process plates based on the Dry Tech coating, will now market the product as Direct Print plate, rated at up to 100,000 impressions, to be available next month as an analog version or as a CTP-compatible digital plate.
RELATED ARTICLE: Investing Confidence Around the World
Polychrome claims to be one of the world's largest suppliers of photosensitive films and plates; it is a division of Sun Chemical Corporation, Fort Lee, N.J., the world's largest manufacturer of printing inks, organic pigments, and graphic arts materials.
The market that Polychrome serves is a fiercely competitive business in which annual output, retail value, and market share are extremely difficult to pin down.
But based on its capital investments in the U.S., Japan, Germany, and The Netherlands-$ 210 million since 1990 - the company is betting on aluminum plates carrying the printed image well into the future. In its view, the metal is plentiful, performs well on press, and can be precisely coated with any number of emulsion options for imaging by visible light or other energy sources.
In one alternative, Polychrome uses ink-jet technology to apply a precision "mask" over the image areas of the aluminum surface, which is later removed for printing.
In the longer term, Polychrome says, joint development work with ink specialists of its Sun Chemical sister operation, General Printing Ink, might result in new press processes that, instead of relying on plates and inks for printing, combine innovative image carriers with new colorants that could consist of liquid toner, powder toner, or ink-jet particles.
GRAPHIC: Photograph; Graph; Illustration
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
IAC-CREATE-DATE: October 13, 1997
LOAD-DATE: October 14, 1997 |
