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Three major market developments hit the graphic arts.
"Vutek will be an excellent addition to
EFI's range of best-of-breed innovative
solutions for the commercial-print market,"
says Gecht. "There are many natural
synergies between EFI's core expertise in
digital-printing innovation and Vutek's
digital-inkjet technology. With Vutek's
profitable business model, we expect this
acquisition to provide EFI with new revenue
streams in the future." Gecht says
the company is not looking to make any
major changes to Vutek as a result of the
acquisition, and that most of the Vutek
management team will remain in place.
EFI expects the transaction to close early
in the third quarter of 2005.
EFI
VUTEK
Scitex plans to sell its Scitex
Vision holdings
In mid-March, Scitex Corporation Ltd.
announced that it is now engaged in
preliminary negotiations for the possible
sale of its holdings in Scitex Vision
Ltd. It holds 75.5% of the outstanding
share capital in the producer of wideformat
printers. Scitex had previously
announced that it was pursuing "various
strategic alternatives," including a
sale and an IPO of its holdings.
Formerly the wide-format printing
division of Scitex Corporation, Scitex
Vision was spun off as Scitex Wide Format
Printing Ltd. and later renamed. In January
2003, the company merged with
Aprion Digital, the developer of piezo,
drop-on-demand printheads. Headquartered
in Israel, Scitex Vision currently
has 460 employees around the world
and had revenues of $128.2 million in
the fiscal year 2004. The company
reports that it has 1250 printer systems
installed worldwide. Beyond Scitex Corporation,
Scitex Vision has a few other
shareholders as well, including: Ricoh
Printing Systems, IBM, Toyo Ink, Clal
Electronics, Discount Investments Corp.,
Hapoalim Nechasim (Menayot), Israel
Infinity Venture Capital Funds, Optical
Disc Decoration Ltd., and the Technology
and Growth Funds.
Scitex Corporation has investments in
other companies beyond Scitex Vision. It
also has a share of: Jemtex Inkjet Printing
Ltd. (www.jemtex.com), the manufacturer
and seller of inkjet-based digital-textile
printing systems (73.9%); Objet Geometries
Ltd. (www.2objet.com), which develops,
manufactures, and markets ultra-thin
layer rapid-prototyping systems and
resins (22.9%); RealTimeImage Ltd.
(www.realtimeimage.com), a provider of
Internet imaging platforms (14.9%); and
XMPie (www.xmpie.com), which produces
software for direct marketers that integrates
one-to-one campaigns across multiple
media channels (3.5%).
Rumors were flying at this spring's ISA
show about potential buyers, and in March,
the Israeli business daily Globes reported
that Hewlett-Packard was on the verge of
buying Scitex Vision for $240 million. As of
this writing, however, no suitor had officially
stepped forward and no deal had
been struck.
SCITEX VISION
SCITEX
Adobe to acquire Macromedia
In a move that will most affect print
providers who are also involved in online,
multimedia, and cross-media projects,
Adobe Systems has agreed to acquire
Macromedia, the maker of software products
including Dreamweaver, Flash, and
Freehand. The acquisition is expected to
close in the fall of this year.
"Customers are calling for integrated
software solutions that enable them to
create, manage, and deliver a wide range
of compelling content and applications"?
from documents and images to audio and
video," says Bruce Chizen, Adobe's CEO.
"By combining our powerful development,
authoring, and collaboration software"?
along with the complementary functionality
of PDF and
Flash"?Adobe has
the opportunity to
bring this vision to
life with an industry-
defining technology
platform."
Once the acquisition
is finalized,
Macromedia will be
integrated into
Adobe; that is, it will
not be a standalone
entity. At this time,
say the companies, no products will be
phased out or discontinued as a result
of this acquisition; however, over time,
Macromedia products will transition to the
Adobe brand.
"Both Macromedia and Adobe are passionate
about creating and enabling great
experiences across a wide range of devices
and operating systems," says Stephen Elop,
Macromedia's president and CEO, who will
join Adobe as president of worldwide field
operations. "Our combined teams will be a
powerful force for innovation around cutting-
edge platforms for delivering content
and applications."
Macromedia is based in San Francisco
and has approximately 1500 employees.
ADOBE
MACROMEDIA
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