HP has entered a reseller agreement with manroland Goss amid growth of HP's PageWide line
HP has entered a reseller agreement with manroland Goss for the latter’s digital finishing solutions, FormerLine and FoldLine.
Described as a “long-term strategic collaboration”, the arrangement will see HP offer the finishing solutions to complement its HP PageWide Web Press series of inkjet web printing platforms. This, HP says, will enable fully integrated production lines from print to finished book blocks or newspaper products.
FormerLine is designed as a roll-to-book block solution for short and medium book runs, allowing for print runs of up to 10,000 copies in industrial digital printing. Used together with HP PageWide Web Press systems, HP says this offers the potential for a throughput of up to 7,000 book blocks per hour, each with 160 pages.
As for the FoldLine multi-purpose system, the solution is designed for web speeds of up to 305m/min and can run a range of applications such as newspapers, commercial print, and direct mail.
“Working with partners like manroland Goss we are able to provide a complete solution that allows printers to move more work from inefficient, costly analogue production into a digital environment, enabling them to grow their businesses,” comments Barbara McManus, vice president and general manager of HP.
“HP PageWide presses are the choice of leading book printers like GGP because they offer industry-leading productivity, versatility, and quality.”
Manroland Goss chief executive officer, Franz Kriechbaum, adds: “Together with HP, we are setting new standards in digital printing. Our fully integrated solutions deliver outstanding print quality, very high production speeds, and efficient workflows, providing clear competitive advantages for our customers.”
The deal comes around seven weeks after Manroland Sheetfed – a separate business to the manroland Goss operation – announced it had entered into insolvency proceedings.
Manroland Sheetfed commenced the process with financial support from parent company, Langley Holdings, which acquired the business in 2012. In a statement confirming the move, it described itself as the “beleaguered German press builder”.
Despite sharing a similar name, manroland Sheetfed and manroland Goss are two separate entities. They were both part of the legacy manroland AG business, which split after its own insolvency in 2011.
Manroland Goss, which focuses on web offset presses, was formed by merging parts of the former manroland web business with Goss International. Meanwhile, Manroland Sheetfed
specialises in sheetfed offset press solutions.
As such, manroland Goss is not impacted by the separate insolvency process involving the Manroland Sheetfed business.
In his recent chairman’s review, Anthony Langely, chairman and chief executive officer of the Langley Holdings business, said the situation at manroland Sheetfed is “unsustainable”, with the company “considering its options”.
“We are conscious, however, that a great many printing businesses, the vast majority of them privately owned SMEs, rely on Manroland presses and it is our goal that whatever solution we ultimately decide upon, the installed base will continue to be supported,” he said.
