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July 31, 2000

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IBM Targets CRM Process With Printing System

Infoprint Color 130 lets users produce high-quality, customized documents in-house

By Paul McDougall

And from our sister publications:

EETimes IBM spins two 130-nm processes: SOI, bulk CMOS (6/26/00)

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ustomer-relationship management involves more than software. IBM's printing division is set to ship a printing system it says will give marketers and ad agencies the ability to economically produce full-color, highly personalized documents that merge data from individual customer files with image templates.

"This capability allows users to completely reengineer their CRM process," says Bob Cooper, general manager for enterprise color marketing at IBM Printing Systems. He says one company is using the machine to print customized marketing messages on customer account statements. The IBM Infoprint Color 130 uses off-the-shelf print and design software, such as Barco's VIP Designer and Quark Inc.'s QuarkXPress, to produce documents at up to 130 impressions per minute.

With the system priced starting at $500,000, IBM is positioning it as an in-house alternative to outsourcing high-quality print jobs to a commercial printer. "Bringing these types of systems in-house can be more economical and you can retain greater control over the work," says Eve Asbury, senior VP, print and digital production, at New York ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi.

Available now, the system is powered by an IBM server with two 800-MHz Pentium III CPUs running Barco's FastRip/X software to image PostScript and PDF files. Dedicated hardware compresses image files to facilitate data throughput to the printer at speeds of up to 100 Mbps.

The system features new pigment and color rendering technologies, and achieves print resolutions of up to 600-by-600 dots per inch. Says Cooper, "The output is very near the quality you get with offset printing."

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