Kyocera, which is already raising eyebrows with its Taskalfa Pro 15000C cut sheet press, has raised further eyebrows with the acquisition of the Nixka inkjet development business in Aubagne, France.
Nixka is the business born from Impika which was acquired by Xerox in 2013 and then declared surplus to requirements and closed down in 2019 as part of Xerox’s reorganisation. Interest in what the business, which continues to be led by Paul Morgavi, has been doing has continued. The team had been behind 500 inkjet installations worldwide including the Xerox Trivor press and its primer-free ink technology.
This interest resulted in Kyocera taking a 30% stake in the business last year and has culminated in the deal for the remaining shares this year. As Nixka, the company has developed a 1200dpi press and an 866mm print array which could form the basis of a move into flexible packaging printing.
At the same time Kyocera has been developing its own cut sheet platform. More than 100 of the presses have been sold around Europe. These print using 600dpi native resolution printheads using water based ink on to uncoated papers at high speeds and lower costs than equivalent toner presses. The Taskalfa has no need for additional drying and consequently can operate from a 220/240V dual phase supply.
However, high quality machines are in development, including presses that can print on coated substrates, which would requires additional drying, and at 1200dpi resolutions. Kyocera points out that it supplies printheads to Canon for use in both its continuous feed presses and the highly regarded iX320 machines. These use a ColorGrip rapid coagulating primer that Kyocera would not need to emulate.
It has also hired Marc Zentjens to head the marketing development in Europe as commercial business development head. Zentjens has worked for Xerox and more recently for Canon where he took the Varioprint from a concept project into the leading SRA3 inkjet press on the market.
However, he would not be drawn on plans for Nixka, nor for the next generation of Taskalfa presses last week. “We have now the first outing. We have in our strong rooms multiple printheads including 1200dpi. It’s obvious that one of the additions to the portfolio might use a different head and be able to cope with an expanded media range.”
