EFI and eProductivity Software Demonstrate New Capabilities at Connect Event

Eric Zimmerman and I have already written about wide-format solutions and EFI’s introduction of Fiery in the Office at the 22nd annual Connect conference at the Wynn Las Vegas Resort. There was, of course, much more shown and discussed at the event. Keypoint Intelligence’s subscribers can access the entire event briefing, but this blog is a quick overview of the highlights.

Attendance

EFI claimed that roughly 600 customers, vendors, media, analysts, and EFI staff were present. While this is significantly lower than the typical 1,000 attendees, the spirit was upbeat. Connect was the first in-person event many people had attended in the past two years, and everyone I spoke with considered it a success.

Sessions and Announcements

There were over 130 breakout sessions covering user training, product roadmaps, user feedback, and information relevant to the printing industry—including EFI’s industrial corrugated & packaging, textile, and building materials/décor solutions. There were not many new product announcements this year. Instead, the focus was on the newly created eProductivity Software (ePS) company. EFI executives explained the business and investment benefits of splitting this division off EFI and assured customers that they wouldn't notice a change in service and support. The new company’s organizational structure is mainly unchanged, service contracts and contacts remain the same, and both companies continue to work closely.

Fiery

Some of the key points concerning Fiery at the show include:

• Toby Weiss, Fiery Chief Operating Officer, announced the Fiery FS500 Pro, which is scheduled for release this quarter. This DFE is an advanced, new digital front-end platform for commercial and cut-sheet printing that boots two- to three-times faster and processes files 36% faster.

• Weiss also introduced the Fiery Impress DFE—a scalable, flexible, off-the-shelf server and color management solution designed for specialty inkjet equipment vendors with low unit volumes and single manufacturing lines needing variable or personalized print with a print bar.

• And EFI also debuted EFI Fiery Prep-it software to prepare, layouts, and automate print-for-cut jobs for display graphics businesses. This true-shape nesting solution reduces the time needed to nest complex objects for wide format printing by up to 90% while reducing media usage by 10% or more over competing products.

eProductivity Solutions (ePS)

Gaby Matsliach, eProductivity Software CEO, described his new company’s focus as being all about expansion and profitability. Splitting ePS from EFI into a private equity company will provide the direction and capital to grow the business across solution suites in packaging, corrugated packaging, enterprise commercial print, enterprise mailing, mid-market, publication, quick print, and along with MarketDirect Platform/eCommerce and industry-enabling applications. ePS showcased many of the improvements in these suites over the past year.

• iQuote, PrintFlow 4D, and Auto-Count 4D migrated to the cloud in 2022.
• ePS updated software solutions across the suites with new browser-based HTML5 interfaces for a contemporary and standardized user experience.
• eFlow has a new Intuitive HTML5 UI interface with a cloud-enabled enterprise-wide scheduler.
• PrintFlow 4D has improvements in analysis, communication, automation, and integration across plants and enterprises, cloud-enabled platform, and improved performance.
• iQuote has envelope support and new, real-time, dynamic pricing.
• AutoCount 4D now has real-time shop floor data collection, integration with PrintFlow 4D
• MarketDirect Platform eCommerce: has fulfillment pick and pack with a new rental and reservation system, the ability to inspect on-hand inventories and order, an ad-hoc product builder in Storefront, as well as an eService module to approve proofs and check statuses/pay invoices.
• Monarch has new quoting and job planning, scheduling & resource optimization, as well as shopfloor data collection.
• Publication Print Suite eCRM has role-based task lists, KPIs, and a warehouse tax system.

Keypoint Intelligence Opinion

In-person user conferences returning is enormously important. Keypoint Intelligence’s survey respondents consistently identify conference attendance as a primary learning method for automation best practices. While the Connect conference was not up to its traditional capacity, it was definitely a success and would have had more attendees if the omicron variant hadn’t arisen a few short weeks before the event. There are many aspects of our business that can be done remotely but in-person networking and real-time discussions with subject matter experts is one area where being face-to-face adds significant value.

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