FotoDave@aol.com
Wed, 21 Apr 1999 21:51:19 -0400 (EDT)
In a message dated 4/21/99 6:15:58 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
larry@oreilly.com writes:
> I don't want to dispute FotoDave as he has his finger on the
> throbbing pulse of the graphics industry, and may very well
> be right in his dire prediction. He has all those trade mags
> he reads.
Actually I am not that current either. It's just at one point I worked
heavily with film recorders (still use them but now more using them rather
than research and testing at one point). I also attended PhotoPlus a few
times. After that you get all the free trade magazines coming. They want to
sell you something. And I agree / believe with all they say either.
> Unless direct to plate equipment costs comes down to be competitive
> with imagesetter costs, this trend is going to take longer than
> 3 years it seems to me. If that magic machine comes on the market
> tomorrow, then all bets are off, but I haven't heard of it yet.
> Dave, what do the mags say?
The bad thing is, I can't remember what magazine, what issue, etc. I now
throw away after reading the table of contents and look through some
articles. It is a waste of paper, but I can't keep them all. It has actually
been about 3-4 months (the direct-to-plate news have been longer than that,
of course, but the specific article that talks about the future of service
bureau appeared about 3-4 months ago, I think).
I don't own an imagesetter, so I didn't pay close attention to all that was
said. In fact, I simply scan through quickly and forgot it until recently
when these surrounding bureaus are closing. Of course, this could have been
other business reasons as well. I do agree that trade magazines tend to
exeggerate. Sometimes they don't report the facts. They try to report things
in a certain way so that things will become facts (sort of like stock market
analysis).
But I do think price will drop. The reason is because the technology in
itself is not really that advance. Most plates are sensitive to UV, so
probably instead of some ordinary laser, they have to use UV laser. Of course
it takes years of research and tests to make the whole thing work right, but
once they research money has been paid back, I think the price is going to
drop significantly.
The 3-years prediction is simply my guess and probably exeggeration too. The
thing about service bureaus being affected was not my opinion though. It was
from the article. Of course I cannot check the truthfulness of that either.
Dave S
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