Exciting, or what?

So now we're getting real collaboration and competition in the possible race toward digital printing of newspapers and magazines and books. Is this what we've been waiting for?

The March 7 short from the magazine News & Tech, that covers this evolving situation better than anyone else.

From the magazine's online weekly report:

Donnelley, KBA team for digital press

RR Donnelley & Sons Co. and Koenig & Bauer AG announced a partnership to develop, manufacture and sell digital inkjet printing systems with piezoelectric printing head technology to the newspaper, commercial printing, packaging printing and securities segments.
Under terms of the deal, RR Donnelley said it will license its Apollo and other digital imaging technologies to KBA.
KBA’s new digital presses will be introduced in May 2012 at Drupa in Dusseldorf, Germany, the companies said.
“In our analysis, it was clear that RR Donnelley was uniquely positioned to partner with us from a digital print technology, experience and scale perspective,” KBA’s CEO Helge Hansen said in a statement. “It’s more than a sales and service agreement for existing technology. We look forward to jointly reinvigorating this industry with new digital imaging platforms.”
RR Donnelley said the deal brings together 1,000 engineers and imaging scientists. The companies said more details will be revealed at a later date.
KBA’s entry into the digital press arena brings to three the number of web offset vendors either offering or planning to market digital presses. TKS unveiled its JetLeader digital press in 2010 and is now marketing the second generation of the machine. The new model, the JetLeader 1500, is equipped with a high-speed multisection folder capable of creating newspapers with up to 72 pages and four sections.
Manroland, meantime, is teaming up with Océ to market a line of digital presses based on Océ’s JetStream and ColorStream platforms. The presses, using software and folders from manroland, are expected to be available later this year.
Heidelberg said it also intends to market a digital press in 2011.