Skymark said it has spent £10 million on equipment and creating 70 jobs at its site in Scunthorpe.

Some of the money bought: a 1,300mm Fisher & Krecke 16s, which has Smart GPS (graphics positioning system); a 1,650mm Uteco Emerald 810; a Fisher & Krecke 1,500mm 14s with Smart GPS, due to be installed in May; and a Combi 3000 laminator.

Sales manager Dan Richards said the investment secures the future for Skymark and is expected to help double this year's turnover forecast of £32 million by 2012.

"We do a lot of work in the hygiene market sector and we see massive growth in this and the laminate market. Customers are demanding more and more printed films, which is why we have invested in wider presses. It is a trend we see and we want to invest early and expand the versatility in what we do," he said.

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Xeretec Office Systems Limited has today announced the acquisition of Digital Documents Direct (3D) to create a £23 million international document technology reseller Group. The newly formed 3D Xeretec will be the Irish branch of the growing Xeretec Group.   As a result of this acquisition, Xeretec is now the largest document technology mono-branded reseller in the UK and Ireland, and will offer the entire range of Xerox products, services and software across both regions. The Xeretec headquarters will remain in Wokingham (England) and the 3D Xeretec customers will be served directly from the company’s existing Dublin and Galway offices, with technical service provision remaining with Xerox, through Dectek. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. 

This acquisition launches a new breed of results-driven document technology & services providers. UK customers will continue to benefit from the breadth of choice offered by Xeretec’s extensive Xerox offerings as well as the company’s long-established graphic arts experience and unrivalled print management, audit and managed print service expertise.  These benefits will now extend into the Irish marketplace, where 3D has served clients with great professionalism for the last 10 years, offering exceptional customer service, local knowledge and print industry experience for small to medium sized businesses and commercial offices.

The sheer scale of this union will deliver incomparable choice, stability, and cost-saving opportunities for all customers, and will increase the efficiency of operational aspects such as order processing and service billing. Those partnering with Xeretec will undoubtedly gain maximum benefit from Xerox solutions.

Steve Hawkins, current Managing Director of Xeretec Office Systems Limited, will be Managing Director of the new Xeretec Group. Cliff Barnes, current Managing Director of Digital Documents Direct, will be Managing Director of 3D Xeretec in Ireland.

"Despite the uncertain economic climate we’ve seen in recent months Xeretec is a thriving, growing business. I am thrilled to be working with Cliff and his team, and look forward to taking our strengthened unique propositions to all of our customers in the wider marketplace,” said Hawkins. “Our complimentary businesses are lead by accomplished ex-Xerox employees. We believe in providing customers with impeccable service. Our proven service-based approach, utilising 3D Xeretec, Xerox and Dectek, is built upon very strong, experienced, localised account management. We are committed to delivering exceptional service, outstanding quality and added value solutions to all of our customers.  This acquisition has given  Xeretec the impetus to achieve this in the international marketplace.”

Barnes said, “In addition to growing our market share in the SMB space through greater sales coverage, 3D Xeretec will allow our highly qualified account teams to penetrate specialist areas including production print and managed print services. The vast experience that Xeretec brings in these new and exciting market spaces will consolidate Xeretec’s position as the solution provider of choice in the UK and Ireland.”

Mark McPhillips, General Manager of Xerox Ireland Ltd said “3D has been a successful Xerox concessionaire partner for the past 10 years and this new partnership with Xeretec, a long established and respected UK company will only serve to strengthen their presence within the Irish market. Through the combination of 3D’s expertise of the Irish business environment and Xeretec’s experience of specialist areas such as managed print services and print production, 3D Xeretec will now be able provide to their Irish customers an improved and compelling value proposition.”

Digital Ad Lab said that it can use sponsorship money to pay its membership of the Ghent PDF Workgroup, but could not afford to send a representative to the quarterly meetings.

Delegates made the comments at a recent meeting to discuss the Lab's continued involvement in the workgroup, the forum for "all the important decisions about the future of the (global) print industry".

The British Printing Industries Federation (BPIF) and PPA, the trade body for magazine publishers, have taken part in the workgroup but BPIF has not sent anyone to the most recent meetings and PPA has cancelled this year's membership.

John Charnock, a former director at St Ives and founder of Print Research International, said: "There is a serious risk that the British printing industry could not be represented because of a lack of funding from the industry itself."

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The Scotsman said that the Stockport-based firm won a three-year contract to undertake all the government's printing requirements.

This will include producing promotional material for the Visit Scotland tourist board. It is thought that the deal will push annual turnover to more than £60 million.

The deal will also see more than 50 employees of former contract holder RR Donnelley switch to the firm.

Allan Doyle, managing director of APS' Scottish subsidiary, told the Scotsman: "It is excellent news for our Scottish operation. This takes us to another level."

The announcement comes months after Ernst & Young named APS Group managing director Nick Snelson one of the North West's top entrepreneurs.

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Claiming to enable law firms, financial institutions and healthcare organisations to work faster and smarter, the latest WorkCentre 7700 Series can manage speeds of up to 50 pages per minute (ppm) in colour and up to 75 ppm in black and white.

The MFPs allow multiple printing, copying, scanning and faxing tasks simultaneously without interruption for quick turnarounds.

The WorkCentre 7700 Series helps to accelerate document processing, enabling the production of high-end colour prints. This in turn can help employees spend more time serving customers.

The printers also feature Xerox's Extensible Interface Platform (EIP), a technology that can support the creation of customised workflow applications.

Hospital patient registration forms, for instance, can be sent from the emergency room to the billing department by scanning and simply routing the document using the MFP's touch screen.

Rick Dastin, president of Global Product Delivery Group at Xerox Corporation, said: "With advanced document management tools and professional colour capabilities right at your fingertips, the WorkCentre 7700 Series makes easy work of complicated tasks. These new MFPs can be customised to meet the specific workflow needs of individual users and workgroups – helping our customers get work done quicker than ever."

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The firm will print the majority of IPC Media's Southbank and Inspire publications, while retaining the 23 titles it prints at Southernprint.

Wyndeham's buy-out of Southernprint last year made it "the deserved frontrunner", IPC manufacturing director Jasper Scott said.

The new contract lasts three years and is worth around £10m a year. The deal includes printing Marie Claire magazine, currently being run out by Prinovis in Nuremberg, Germany.

The deal was due to be announced in October but was delayed partly because of IPC's restructure in late 2009.

Charlie Meredith, who was appointed managing director of central operations at IPC in January, said: "I'm delighted at this early point in my new role that we have been able to complete this tender process and award the business to Wyndeham, which offers a strong and thoroughly modern portfolio of print solutions that best suits our titles moving forward."

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Operating at a speed of 50 pages per minute in colour and 75 pages per minute in black and white, the WorkCentre is designed to function effectively in jobs from simple office documents to more demanding tasks.

The MFP is the first of its kind to support Fiery VUE, a program that puts the printing of professional-quality documents within the reach of the most computer-illiterate member of staff, as well as simultaneously managing copying, scanning, faxing and multiple printing.

"EFI Fiery controllers drive Xerox engines across our product line, ensuring customers ranging in size from the small office to the high-volume commercial printer can quickly and painlessly produce vibrant-looking documents," said Leah Quesada, vice president of office marketing, Xerox Corporation

"The WorkCentre 7700 Series with the Fiery controller delivers a unique combination of increased productivity and easy to use color management tools to the office. It is like achieving expert results without being an expert."

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The firm made the move to roll out the EliteBook 2740p after a history of touch screen innovation, following the release its TouchSmart and Envy consumer lines.

However, the company said that the EliteBook announcement would not kick-start the launch of further touch-screen business laptops.

Officials said that HP will wait and see how well the technology does before making any moves to add touch-screens to models by alternative business range ProBook.

Company spokesman Mike Hockey said that business customers were more interested in performance than touch-screen features.

The EliteBook 2740p is a convertible tablet PC with a 12.1-inch touch-screen. It employs Intel's latest standard voltage and low voltage Core processors and a six-cell battery. it will retail for $1,599 (£1,070).

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TouchSmart TM2 is the company's first consumer-focused convertible notebook PC, which features multi-touch technology.

The device, powered by Intel Core 2 Duo processors, can be used as a standard touch-enabled laptop, as a slate for more mobility, or as a graphics tablet using a digital pen.

It comes with a fingerprint reader, an advanced thermal design for optimal cooling, an optional ATI Mobility Radeon discrete graphics upgrade and boasts up to nine hours of battery life with the standard six-cell battery.

The HP Mini 5102, based on Intel Atom N450 processor, has a 10.1- inch diagonal LED display.

The device, which can operate as either a standard netbook or with touch-enabled features, boasts multiple connectivity options including mobile broadband and is available in either WSVGA or HD resolutions.

HP has launched Mini 210 and 2102, which sport up to 1GB of memory and has 320GB of storage capacity and an Intel Atom processor N450 with 1.66 GHz.

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The printing giant said it hopes to capitalise on the spike in the number of companies outsourcing printing and imaging services by improving the efficiency and availability of its managed print services (MPS).

The cost-effective system has proven to be a popular choice among companies all over the world seeking to reduce the costs of upgrading and maintaining existing hardware.

Nitin Hiranandani, HP India director, said the reduced cost of consolidating print services was proving to be a "powerful motivator" for firms.

"The value of environmental savings from MPS, combined with cost and productivity improvements, is a powerful motivator for our enterprise customers in India," he said.

Mr Hiranandani said 30-35 contracts providing MPS services had been signed in the past couple of months handling 1.5-3 million pages from clients per month.

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An impressive range of office and light production print solutions were on show, ranging from the affordable, high quality Xerox Docucolor 252, WorkCentre 7435 and ColorQube 9200 series, through to high performance colour laser MFPs .  Xeretec’s print audit and managed print services stand was consistently busy. The company has a strong, proven track record in this area, with both Xerox and HP. Visitors learnt about the high quality business approaches, models and processes used to achieve impressive, tangible results for customers. 

Also showcased at the event was Xeretec Xcel, an intelligent suite of web-to-print, variable data and personalisation tools which proved popular with commercial print businesses looking to offer value added marketing campaigns to existing and new clients. In fact Xeretec used Xcel to market the Vinopolis event, with exceptional results; Xcel drove the personalised URL invitation campaign and create personalised wine boxes that were given as gifts to all attendees. On the show floor Xcel was also the driving force behind the Docucolor 7002AP graphic arts workhorse.

Another UK first was the unveiling of EFi Fiery VUE colour print management software, which presided over the Docucolor 7002AP at the event. Both attracted overwhelming interest. Launched into the UK at the end of January, Fiery VUE is a 3D print management application that makes document production easy to handle, cost-effective and environmentally friendly. Finishing, binding and laminating solutions were demonstrated by FD Solutions, Morgana and Unibind.

According to Steve Hawkins, Managing Director at Xeretec, “The majority of visitors have been looking for a reseller that is a business partner as well as a reliable supplier of high quality, cost-effective print solutions. For their investment to work well long into the future, trust and teamwork are as important as technology. Xeretec’s team of highly experienced and friendly consultants is well-placed to help them achieve this goal,“

Tom Iannotti will head one of the California-based company's largest sections. He was previously managing director of Americas and enterprise business at HP and succeeds Joe Eazor, who was named senior vice president of corporate growth initiatives.

Eazor will be responsible for driving HP's growth strategy in China, India and South East Asia, the company said. He joined HP through its $13 billion (£9.57 billion) acquisition of services provider EDS in 2008

The services business of HP - the world's largest technology company by revenue and the No. 2 technology services provider behind International Business Machines Corp (IBM.N) - posted revenue of $8.7 billion in the most recent quarter, close to 30% of the company's overall sales.

Shares of HP, based in Palo Alto, fell 36 cents to $50.20 on the New York Stock Exchange.

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Berkshire printer KnowledgePoint said advanced technology in the Xerox iGen3 110 would make the firm faster and more affordable when producing bespoke marketing and training materials.

The Reading-based firm is used to investing in high-quality equipment, as it installed two mono Oce VarioPrint 6250 presses last June

Andre Philpot, KnowledgePoint director and co-founder, said: "We're very excited about the increased level of innovation and impact that we can bring to the digital print market with this important addition to our print technology capabilities."

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The printing press is part of a £2.5 million spend on the firm's site in Greenford, Middlesex, and was also chosen due to its speedy makeready times. The B1 six-colour press, including one perfecting unit, will help boost the firm's capacity to turn around approximately 550 million items a year.

"We conducted extensive trials and set demanding targets to achieve specific makeready and turnaround times. After rigorous assessment, the KBA press was the most impressive," said general manager Roy Brindle.

"It was imperative that we could offer the assurance to our customers that any reverse print would be in perfect registration. The KBA press did everything we wanted it to, including the ability to run lightweight sheets, often 40 gsm or below," he continued.

""The new press will provide a significant uplift in capacity and improve production efficiency," Mr Brindle said. "It will also enable us to respond to a growing market demand for larger leaflet formats, allowing us to offer more options to our customers. "

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The tool includes colour management, image processing, colour correction and command line tools for configuring background processing.

Functions such as exposure, resizing, contrast and colour balance, can be applied to individual files, folders of images or be configured as a hot folder.

Each tool can be used on its own or in combination.

The new tool will cost around £260 for a single-seat licence.

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An improvement in the sale of HP's corporate back-end systems between November and January signalled that the technology industry is emerging from the recession.

Demand for personal computers at HP also increased during this period, beating Wall Street predictions, as consumers looked to purchase Microsoft's new Windows 7 software.

However, the uptake has not been as strong among businesses, with HP's chief financial officer, Cathie Lesjak, forecasting that corporations will not "refresh" their computer systems until the second half of the year.

Meanwhile, expectation of further recovery and an "accelerating market momentum" led to HP boosting its financial outlook for the year ahead.

Jayson Noland, an analyst with Robert W. Baird & Co said: "It's better than expected. The hardware side of their business bounced back really nicely, especially the PC and server divisions."

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The University of British Columbia in Canada expects to save some $8 million in the next six years thanks to better managed document and print services.

MPS will held the university's students and staff to use print service more efficiently.

The university also hopes that efficiency improvements will lead to reduced energy consumption and carbon footprint emissions, supporting the university's sustainability strategy.

"Xerox MPS will simplify how we manage documents, making our print operations more productive and cost effective," said Pierre Ouillet, UBC vice president, Finance, Resources and Operations.

"It improves nearly every aspect of the document lifecycle including printing, copying, scanning, faxing, design and delivery of print materials as well as electronic storage and retrieval. This means printing and document management campus-wide will be consistent, affordable and reliable."

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The device was developed by the firm in a bid to compete in the same market as Apple's new iPad tablet.

The Compaq AirLife 100, featuring a 10.1-inch touchscreen and a 92% size keyboard, is being marketed to consumers wanting a combination of a smartphone and a netbook.

HP bucked the netbook trend for Intel's Atom processor, instead fitting its machines with Qualcomm's Snapdragon ARM processor. The move to spurn Intel came after Apple chose ARM chips over the Atom processors for its iPad.

The HP device offers 12 hours of battery life and 16GB of internal solid-state storage. The product, which also features 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity, will be sold from this spring thorough Telefonica.

Charl Snyman, vice president and general manager of HP Personal Systems Group in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), called the device the next evolution of web-based mobile computer technology. He added that the new type of computer user was concerned with friends, people and online social ranks over processing speeds.

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The firms are collaborating on a wireless sensor system to gather high quality information on land of seismic waves in order to locate commercially viable areas.

The quality of the data will be vastly improved by the technology, which the companies hope will produce a higher channel count and broader sensor frequency than current methods.

If successful, the system aims to work alongside Shell's own computing and seismic imaging software and should cut operational costs.

Gerald Schotman, Shell's executive vice president of innovation and research described the plan as a "leap forward in seismic data quality that will provide Shell with a competitive advantage in exploring difficult oil and gas reservoirs".

Such areas include sub-salt plays in the Middle East and unconventional gas sites in North America, he said.

He added: "As a result of this exciting collaboration, we expect to fully realise the potential of Shell's processing and imaging technology on land."

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Paper and plastic use have lowered enormously over the years, with the weight of plastic grocery bags down by nearly 80% from bags in 1976.

Weight decrease, or 'lightweighting', and materials innovation were the main reasons for a drop of around 5.47 thousand tons per billion dollars GDP in 2008, down from 5.87 in 2007, 6.9 in the previous two years, and 6.2 in 2004.

The 2010 State of Green Business Report from GreenBiz.com said use of aluminium remained steady despite the economy improving slightly, although aluminium cans weigh about 64% of what they did in 1972.

"Of all these trends, lightweighting has been the key driver to packaging reductions, gaining currency with manufacturers for the simple reason that it gains them currency: Using fewer materials directly lowers costs," the report states.

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The centre in Billingham, Cleveland, will store the valuable data of many companies and features a range of security measures, including the requirement of access cards and biometric data to access halls, locked server cabinets, a one-person-at-a-time data hall rule and a high perimeter fence.

HP hopes that the new data centre will be able to compete with IBM for IT services and management contracts. Its first customers are currently using the fourth hall of the building, which has a low-profile aesthetic.

The new facility is HP's most energy efficient data centre yet and has a 1.2 power usage effectiveness (PUE) when the facility is working at full capacity, according to Maurice Julian, the firm's UK facilities project director.

Server racks that are light in colour have been installed in the data halls as it allows them to run with 40% less light than if the cabinets were painted black.

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The acquisition will help Xerox continue its expansion into the document services business. The takeover was approved by 96% of Xerox shareholders and 86% of ACS investors.

A minority of ACS sharholders had talked of blocking the takeover through legal action when it was first revealed last year, claiming ACS's value was potentially higher.

Xerox CEO Ursula Burns said: "Our shareholders' vote of confidence reflects the strategic and financial benefits of this acquisition.

"Through the acquisition, Xerox gains a growth catalyst that secures a strong, competitive future for our company and increasing value for our customers and shareholders."

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Eric Armour, president of Xerox's Global Business Group, told the IPEX Media summit about the company's inkjet proposals.

"The strategy behind adding inkjet to the Xerox portfolio is comparable to how automobile manufacturers offer cars powered by gas, diesel or electricity -- each meets a different performance standard," he said.

"We delivered breakthrough toner-based colour continuous feed solutions allowing new levels of cost, image quality and speed for transpromotional applications. Our new offering will meet similar requirements for those looking for an inkjet option."

Xerox also displayed improvements to existing systems, such as adding duplex applications up to 200 gsm and heavyweight media compatibility to the black and white Xerox 650/1300 systems.

New systems called the FreeFlow Print Server 7 and ImageSmooth Technology give superior quality without slowing down printing speeds.

Customers visited IPEX to explain how Xerox technology and services had boosted their business revenues, and US firm Cathedral Corporation said: "We evaluated a number of technology options, including the high-speed inkjet devices that are available today. The image quality of the Xerox 980 system was far superior; our decision was easy."

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The figure has earned the company a place among the world's top 25 corporate patent recipients for 2009.

The company said that PARC, the Palo Alto Research Center, and XMPie were among the 706 patents - many of which were used in newly-released innovative products and services. It is thought that other patents among the list will be central to the next generation of developments.

Sophie Vandebroek, Xerox chief technology officer and president of the Xerox Innovation Group said that it was crucial to customers' success that the firm continues to innovate. She claimed that current innovations underpin future successes - saying that pioneering developments are at the core of what Xerox does.

Since its inception, the firm - based in Norwalk, Connecticut, USA, - has received approximately 55,000 global patents.

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The Northampton-based firm is trying to secure itself as a going concern with creditors after filing its 18-month overdue accounts at Companies House.

In the year ended June 30, 2008, TPF made a net loss of £188,000, after its pre-tax profit of £238,000 on a £65.7 million turnover. The year before, its £2.2 million pre-tax profit on a £68.9 million turnover led to a £1.2 million net profit.

TPF attributed this overwhelming drop in profitability to "substantial restructuring costs" incurred when Wace and NPM closed. Its net current liabilities stood at £1.8 million in June 2008.

Since then, the loss of its Sky account and addition restructuring sent net current liabilities soaring to an unaudited £10.2 million, including "significant arrears" rumoured to be more than £1 million owed to HM Revenue & Customs.

"There can be no certainty over the outcome of these matters, the successful realisation of all of which is required for the group to meet its liabilities as they fall due," said TPF in its financial statement notes.

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Eight of the company's printer models were awarded the grand prize in the Energy Conservation category, which it first won in 1999 with its DocuColor 1250 series.

This year, four of the winning devices which copy, print, scan and fax all in one multifunctional device, were part of the firm's ApeosPort-IV series and another four were from the DocuCentre-IV series.

Fuji Xerox, whose printers are popular for office-use, said its new Induction Heating fuser and EA Eco Toner make its technologies energy efficient when copying, faxing and printing by reducing electrical consumption.

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The move, creating a £26 million turnover group, will enable the Hertford-based company to challenge the high-end of the business process outsourcing market.

The purchase of Buckinghamshire firm UDM provides FT Print - which employs 140 people - with the critical mass needed to secure larger contracts.

Tom Gurd, managing director of FT Print, said the deal would help the company grow during 2010 and benefit stakeholders through the 'improved strength' of a bigger organisation.

UDM managing director David Phillips has been named chairman of FT Print's parent company FT Holdings. He said the merger showed 'good sense' and should be seen as 'excellent news' for UDM's staff and customers. He added: "It will expand both businesses' service offering, resulting in greater scope and opportunities for both companies."

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Many UK firms have already taken the decision to move IT services to countries such as India where they can be operated remotely in a bid to to cut costs throughout the economic downturn and HP said the trend for outsourcing is unlikely to be reversed any time soon.

HP said the remote infrastructure management market is likely to be worth more than £5 billion by the end of the year as firms switch on to the potential cost reductions of transferring services to cheaper locations.

Ludger Rohlmann, HP vice president said: "Today, there are increasingly more remote operation opportunities, with an apparent shift from work onsite to remote working. In some parts of information technology outsourcing, up to 80% of work can be done remotely.

"We expect more work to come to India through the increasing pressure on our customers to reduce their costs and thus outsource to locations like India."

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Recycling residents in Lichfield sent 192 bags of shredded confidential and general paper waste for recycling last year, cutting the number of reams of paper used from 2,079 to 1,645 - a 26% reduction.

Home office paper supplies were just one of the recycling targets on Homezone residents' lists, joining unwanted spectacles, used bras and second-hand clothing, some of which were sent to developing nations.

Julie Walker, director of housing at Homezone Living, the housing association which led the scheme, said: "Homezone Living is determined to do its bit for the green agenda. For the past couple of years we have made great strides in recycling a range of items from paper and computer toners through to specs and bras."

The Homezone recycling scheme was set up to draw attention to how much progress can be made simply by reusing commonplace items around the home and office.

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