Buy, Buy, Buy: What Do Vendor Acquisitions Mean For The Digital-Printing Industry?

The year 2005 is a landmark one for the digital-printing industry, not because of radical new product launches or technology breakthroughs, but because acquisition fever has hit the industry in a big way. In the first eight months of this year, we have seen more sizeable acquisitions occur than in any year since the inception of wide-format digital printing. The recent acceleration in acquisitions is demonstrated in Table 1, which lists major buyouts involving vendors to the digital-printing industry that have occurred since 2001.