BOEBLINGEN, Germany, 19 September, 2006 – HP has announced new products and tools designed to improve the digital production of labels and packaging, opening up new business opportunities for converters. These include the launch of the HP Indigo press ws4500, a new reseller agreement with Esko, and the unveiling of HP Indichrome Plus with green HP ElectroInk.

HP’s line of industrial products demonstrate the high-quality printing, increased productivity and end-to-end solutions that have enabled the company to provide a cost-effective alternative to flexographic equipment on small order quantities. According to analyst firm InfoTrends, "HP dominates the current population" of digital colour label presses (1).

Digital printing easier and more productive than ever with new HP Indigo press
The press' new fast ink replacement feature enables users to replace spot colours without interruption. In real production situations, this means converters gain the unprecedented opportunity to switch between jobs with near-zero downtime.

"One out of five of our customers' converting jobs require the use of a custom-blended ink, which can be a challenge in a short-run digital printing environment," said Alon Bar-Shany, vice president and general manager, Indigo division, HP. "While HP Indigo remains unique among digital press manufacturers for its PANTONE-licensed custom colour capabilities, the HP Indigo press ws4500 also enables those colours to be used without stopping the press, a factor that improves the profitability of individual jobs as well as the overall productivity and value offered by this world-class printing engine."

The HP Indigo press ws4500 has a host of additional features that make it a robust and reliable production device designed for 24/7 operation on both small-order-quantity and medium-order-quantity work. High-value features and benefits – such as optional third-party Esko solutions that can reduce colour matching time by as much as 50% (2, 3) – make the press a cost-effective label and packaging solution for jobs up to approximately 2,000 meters (3).

To demonstrate the capabilities of its new HP Indigo press ws4050 HP will hold an official EMEA launch event at a customer open house at the beginning of October. This will be hosted by Netherlands-based Eshuis, which has been using the new press. “With previous experience of working with both the HP Indigo press ws4000 and ws4050, I believe the HP Indigo press ws4500 is the masterpiece of the series,” said Peter Overbeek, Eshuis BV.

This press has the same speed and width of the previous models, however all improvements that have been implemented are geared towards a higher level of efficiency and productivity. The ease of use of operating the press has significantly improved as it can even print on ‘autopilot’”.

Tighter integration between digital and flexography

HP has also announced that it will be a reseller for the Esko Optimize Pack and the Esko Scope Pack for HP Indigo, a pair of new digital front-end solutions from label and packaging prepress leader Esko. In addition, a number of new media are now certified for use on HP Indigo label and packaging presses. These include:

• Label and packaging media from Avery-Denison and Raflatac
• New OPP and PE label substrates from Fedrigoni/Manter
• Flexible packaging media from ExxonMobil and Mitsubishi Polyester Films

Additionally HP has made an improvement to its HP Indichrome on-press offering for digital press label and packaging customers. HP Indichrome Plus expands the previous colour set of CMYK, orange and violet HP ElectroInks with the new addition of green HP ElectroInk.

About HP

HP is a technology solutions provider to consumers, businesses and institutions globally. The company’s offerings span IT infrastructure, global services, business and home computing, and imaging and printing. For the four fiscal quarters ended July 31, 2006, HP revenue totaled $90.0 billion. More information about HP (NYSE, Nasdaq: HPQ) is available at www.hp.com.

1 InfoTrends, Inc., “The Opportunity for Print On Demand Solutions in the Label Industry, April 2006, page 39.
2 Not included, sold separately.
3 Based on internal HP testing under specific test conditions.
PANTONE® and other Pantone, Inc. trademarks of the property of Pantone, Inc.