The weather in the UK is starting to get better with the temperatures approaching 20 degrees. That’s nice if you are on a beach, but not nearly as much fun for those of us stuck inside the halls here at the NEC. Quite a lot of people are sitting around on the grass just outside hall 12, intermingling with the fake crowd display boards, which looks a little surreal.

Océ kicks off the day’s press conferences and at last the mystery of Canon’s decidely lukewarm approach to the acquisition is explained: despite having nearly 90 percent of the Océ shares, Canon still doesn’t have enough control of the company to dictate exactly how the future of the two companies will pan out. Funnily, Canon has put more effort into transcribing the questions I asked then into actually answering them.
A closer look at HP’s T200 reveals that it is aimed at the monochrome market. It will print in colour, though the speed drops from 121 metres per minute for black and white to 60 mpm for colour. Predictably there is no pricing for it yet, though consumables costs should be similar to the T300.
It also seems that there has been some progress on the inkjet de-inking front where the DPDA group has been carrying out real world tests at several paper mill sites. HP’s de-inking guru, Nils Miller, says that he will have failed if the problem is not solved within five years, when inkjet volumes will have increased to a critical level.
Guy Gecht, CEO of EFI, reminds us of the predictions made at the time of the last Ipex, pointing out that the only one that has come true is that David Beckham is likely to end his career in the US. This reminds me that in 2006 Bernard Schreier told me that he thought England could win the world cup. I think he was just being diplomatic back then, but as a true Englishman (who is half Irish) I naturally believe that we will win the World cup this time around.