A deal made in Heidelberg

The deal between Manroland Sheetfed and Heidelberg announced last week will have surprised many. We have known Heidelberg to partner in areas where it is short of expertise, hence deals with Ricoh, Canon and before that with Kodak and Screen. But this is the world’s largest manufacturer of offset presses accepting that it cannot bring to market its own press in this format in a cost effective manner. It is better, it believes, to graft its technology to the proven solid base of the large format Roland 900 than to try to revive its Speedmaster XL145.

In doing this, Heidelberg is following a long tradition. The best known and still remembered example is the Solna 125, or is that the Thomson Crown, or a Harris 125? All were the same two-page press design which sold well right into the 1980s in various liveries. Before then, between the wars, there had been George Mann which marketed a press made by Planeta alongside its own machine, which was also sold by the German press manufacturer. Leap forward to today and Komori is making the press that Landa attaches its imaging system to. Komori is also marketing the naonography press. 

This is the very essence of co-opertition, collaborating and competing at the same time and is the logical response to industry consolidation. The market is shrinking, demand for presses has fallen so it becomes harder to earn a return on the investment in R&D and tooling that a new design, inkjet as well as litho, requires. This perhaps accounts for the inflated values placed on new inkjet presses that will need time to recoup the outlay by their developers, certainly longer than to recoup investment in a toner engined press. Whether Heidelberg’s arrangement is a latest in a number of strategic alignments or a deal based on expediency for both press manufacturers, time will surely tell.