Lyra Symposium - the Wide Open Field of Wide Format

This will be the last comment from the Lyra Imaging Symposium (it was, after all, a week "or so" ago): while there are signs of maturity in many corners of the imaging industry, one area that is refreshingly fresh is the wide format space.

 

Rak Kumar, VP at EFI and General Manager of their VUTEk printing division, presented an excellent history of the wide format segment. And Dave Rocheleau from Lyra also provided a very good overview of recent segment developments and current business drivers. But in addition to the wealth of technology and historical information, the most crucial message participants could take away was that this product and business segment is still quite diverse and has yet to peak. A number of complementary / competing output technologies and formats, application areas and vendors are still in various stages of emergence, with hints of consolidation hanging heavy in the Rancho Mirage air. 

There is no truly dominant technology, with at least three or possibly four in the active running to support various applications and price points. The output systems are unquestionably the result of considerable investment, and success is dependent on an intricate mix of hardware, ink formulations, media support, print controllers and of course the appropriate sales channels to get these beasts to market.

It is obvious that small companies will not be able to invest and succeed in all areas, but in such a fragmented market they can certainly survive (at least for now) by concentrating on selected markets and applications. More importantly, though, Symposium participants could sense the immense opportunities that larger mainstream companies perceive as they look for new, complementary and more profitable imaging market segments to pursue. Just as one example, EFI has started to find their way in this segment, and maybe just in time: in the past year, for the first time in their history, the controller product area did not deliver the majority of their revenue. It might not be quite so vital for other mainstream vendors to develop another leg for their business to stand on, but there is certainly plenty of money to be made. Other vendors of note are already dabbling in the wide format arena, and we can expect that the action and competition will only heat up in this area.