Heidelberg – don´t forget technology!

Heidelberg became world famous for its presses which excelled in reliability and clever new technology. Heidelberg was the market leader and built a growing and loyal client base. The ´new´ Heidelberg will adopt a different strategy. With their “we care for you” campaign their focus will be on what the customer wants and on following market trends. But, do clients really know what they want and is it a good strategy to follow trends instead of creating them? From an investors´ point of view it is understandable that Heidelberg wants to be “more than machines”, another empty phrase in the press release, because service and supplies is where the money is. It is a shame that a company that brought us the Heidelberg jobbing and cylinder presses, the fastest and best relief presses ever, by means of the GTO Di showed us what digital can do for the print industry and delivered the efficient Speedmaster series offset presses which still deliver high quality prints, apparently does not see a role for itself in building the next generation of digital presses. What remains are co-operations with digital pioneers who are more than happy to make us of Heidelberg´s expertise. Writing on the wall is the fact that next year HP will have more Drupa square meters technology than Heidelberg. The times that we would first visit Hall 1 to see the newest developments seems to be behind us. Printers can only hope that Heidelberg will not forget technology and will continue to surprise us.