In early February of this year we had an opportunity to visit Bangalore to see EskoArtwork’s new office and to meet two gentlemen who are based at EskoArtwork’s headquarters in Belgium. Naresh Khanna reports on what he heard and saw.

We met Arjen Maarleveld the senior vice president of products and solutions and Frank Adegeest the director of the packaging design software group. While Mr. Maarleveld spoke to us about EskoArtwork’s strategy for the Asia Pacific market and for drupa08, Frank Adegesest gave us a demonstration of the new visualization software that starts from the three dimensional product design and is able to build the packaging structure around it combining the graphics and the prepress features of the EskoArtwork workflow. Most of this is done dynamically by using pug-ins to Adobe Illustrator.

Our idea was to find out as much as we could about the implications of the merger of EskoGraphics and Artworks systems, Enfocus which was an Artwork Systems subsidiary.

Arjen Maarleveld told us that essentially both Esko and Artwork brought strong engineering cultures and strong sales cultures into the merger. However there are great opportunities to improve the strategic marketing and strategic partnering with different companies. An example of this is the relationship with HP as it will be with other players. From April 1, 2008 there will be an integrated project brand roll out of HP Indigo presses aimed at the packaging market. The Indigos containing the OEM Esko digital front end will be labelled: “Powered by EskoArtwork.” This is part of an exclusive arrangement to sell EskoArtwork variable data front ends for the Indigo 4000 series industrial presses.
 
Another partner is ExxonMobil with whom EskoArtwork is working on Packvantage, a joint development of Digilite stock to be used on the Indigo industrial presses. Xerox is a partner as well – this is for folding carton applications on the iGen3 digital press.

On the merger itself Maarleveld said, “six months after the acquisition, the integration of the two companies is about 70% through.” Speaking of the strong engineering culture of the two companies, he added, “What we’ve seen is that customers are even more important than engineers.” He also said that the merger has meant that some redundant product development has been dropped but at drupa the new merged entity will show complete file exchange across the product line as well interoperability. EskoArtwork will have a small presence at Interpack at the Innovation Parc but its main marketing thrust will be at drupa 08 in end May.

At drupa08 one can also expect to see a Nexus Rip driving a CDI flexo imager and different screening technologies across both brands of Rips – Full cross-Rip screening. Flexo and offset workflows will be driven in the main by the erstwhile Esko workflow although there are a small percentage of large users who use ArtPro in these areas. All the gravure users have ArtPro workflow and Rips and this will be maintained as a part of the future strategy of the merged EskoArtwork.

Marleveld said that the strategy of the past has been successful. The direct sales channel will continue for the flexo and offset packaging design tools. For the Kongsberg cutting tables that go to both packaging and sign and display sectors, and the CDI flexo imagers as well, the current direct channel will continue its successful work.

KGS or Kohli Graphic Systems will continue to sell all EskoArtwork products to the gravure market. As far as Enfocus it will continue to be sold by the ThinkPrint group.