VIDEO: What the Fiery Announcement Could Mean for the Future of Printing

On January 25, Fiery announced that it had separated from Electronics for Imaging (EFI) to form a separate company. While Siris Capital Group LLC will still own Fiery, the new company will operate independently from EFI. The industry anticipated this move following the eProductivity Software (ePS) separation from EFI to become its own company in late 2021.

Last week I had the opportunity to interview Fiery’s new CEO, Toby Weiss, about the new company. A clip of our conversation can be seen below, while subscribers to Keypoint Intelligence’s Production Workflow Advisory Service (PWS) can log in to watch the full 15-minute video.

Greg Cholmondeley, Principal Analyst in Keypoint Intelligence’s Production Group (left), interviewing Toby Weiss, Fiery’s new CEO.

In short, I feel that splitting Fiery from EFI is a noteworthy decision for the following reasons:

1. The company’s management now has one core business of developing digital front ends (DFEs) and prepress automation software. Separating from EFI’s wide format and inkjet business will make Fiery more nimble as well as more focused on specific objectives for that market segment.
2. Being unfettered from the wide format inkjet press business will open new possibilities for partnerships and sales.

Fiery may accomplish just as much now that it is unconstrained with the tangential inkjet business. ePS demonstrated the importance of the first point by showcasing its rapid progress throughout the past year at the 2023 CONNECT User Conference.

The second point is significant, given the growth in the display graphics, textile, and packaging segments. Embedded and standalone Fiery DFEs dominate the cut-sheet production printing marketplace; however, they have historically been limited to EFI wide format presses. The potential for bringing press-independent front ends and productivity software into the wide format arena could be transformative for the market. As in the narrow format space, printers could manage and add wide-format presses from any vendor without retraining staff. And, perhaps, Fiery will more closely integrate its wide format and narrow format production workflow software for more straightforward press and job management across hybrid operations.

Finally, in my opinion, we are on the cusp of exciting new developments in production automation driven by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. Look at what apps like ChatGPT and DALL-E are accomplishing and imagine applying similar techniques to workflow automation. With its deep understanding of prepress and its new freedom, Fiery could usher in a new era of production automation. As Weiss said in the Fiery press release, “Fiery solutions have always been about enabling digital print and making print engines better, and this is a milestone in furthering that mission.”

I hope this new company takes up the challenge.

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