DUSSELDORF, GERMANY—Offset press manufacturers Komori, Heidelberg, and Manroland sheetfed have signed deals with Landa (of Indigo fame) to license the Landa Nanographic Printing Process.

The agreements — which together appear to be the headline news from the current Drupa show this year — signal a look to the future for the traditional press manufacturers, as digital has become part of the mainstream.

Landa Corporation, of Rehovot, Israel, signed a global partnership agreement with Komori to manufacture and market digital printing presses for commercial and other printing markets using the Landa Nanographic Printing process.

Based on the strategic partnership, Landa will provide Komori with Nanographic Printing technology and Landa NanoInk.

The agreement was signed at Drupa in Dusseldorf, Germany, at the Landa stand in Hall 9, "where the extremely high level of interest and excitement in Landa Nanography is packing the stand with visitors, fully booking its theatre shows and generating a constant flow of customers signing letters of intent to purchase Landa Nanographic Printing presses."

Heidelberg and Landa will also collaborate on the development of Nanographic Printing Presses to "expand digital offerings for mainstream printing, including short-to-medium runs, variable data and quick turnaround printing," reads a separate release. Heidelberg intends to develop, manufacture, sell and service a new generation of digital printing presses based on the Landa technology.

Meanwhile, Manroland sheetfed of Offenbach, Germany, and Landa also announced a strategic partnership whereby Landa will provide manroland sheetfed with its groundbreaking Nanographic Printing technology.

Benny Landa, Landa's founder, chairman and chief executive officer, said of the Manroland deal, "This new partnership combines the prestigious Manroland brand with the power of nanography, enabling Manroland's extensive customer base to go digital by converting their existing Manroland presses to nanography."

Landa is well-known as the inventor of the technology that became the Indigo digital toner press, one of the most successful digital print brands on the market. He made a fortune selling the technology to Hewlett-Packard, which has kept the brand.

Landa Nanography is a new digital printing category employing water-based inks. "It combines the versatility of digital with the qualities and speed of offset printing - at unmatched cost-per-page," according to Landa. "At the heart of the Nanographic Printing process is Landa's water-based NanoInk. Comprised of pigment particles only tens of nanometres in size, these nano-pigments are powerful absorbers of light and enable unprecedented image qualities. Landa Nanographic Printing is characterized by ultra-sharp dots of extremely high uniformity, high gloss fidelity and the broadest CMYK colour gamut."

Meanwhile, Graphic Monthly Canada and PrintCAN.com editor and associate publisher Filomena Tamburri is part of a Digital Imaging Association panel that will share their thoughts on Drupa on May 23, including observations on the Landa deals.