Seattle Bindery Newsletter: Issue No. 12. We welcome your comments.

1. E-commerce update: The venerable Hewlett-Packard (HP) has entered the dot-com print solutions race with announced alliances with ImageTag, NewspaperDirect, Stamps.com, Mimeo.com, FedEx, EncrypTix.com and, you guessed it, PrintCafé. According to CEO Carly Fiorina, “there will be millions of new reasons to hit the print button.” PrintCafé will use HP’s electronic deal-making “e-speak” software, presumably to facilitate intra- and extranet communications to HP printer devices.

2. Seattle Bindery update: Our new Johannisberg 41” cylinder press is installed and in production, now enabling us to diecut even your largest press sheets. Operating in conjunction with our newly installed large-format Moll Marathon folder-gluer, finished presentation folders are a snap! Try it,you’ll like it . . . for its clean-cut efficiencies.

3. Paper parallels: If you thought consolidation in the printing industry was nuts, consolidation in the paper industry is just as crazy. The March 25th edition of the WSJ reported that International Paper is offering $6.2 billion in cash and stock for Champion International, effectively muddying
the acquisition waters for Helsinki-based UPM-Kymmene in its buyout plans for Champion. According to the WSJ reporter: “Behind the moves: A tighter rein on supplies would help the industry have more control over wildly fluctuating prices that have traditionally haunted the industry.” Hmmm. Sounds like a strategy another industry giant is now being forced to
reconcile.

4. BTW: We are just finishing a job where we diecut, collate, drill and insert tabs into 16,000 3-ring binders. We are also hand-inserting printed slip sheets into the front, back and spine pockets of the plastic binder sheaths. We’ll make deadline. Mission accomplished.