Xerox and EFI partner for best in class digital front ends

Print Solutions

Xerox and EFI have announced a strategic partnership to bring to market a next generation digital front end (DFE) to drive Xerox digital production presses. The agreement includes the sale of Xerox's FreeFlow Print Server (FFPS) DFE business to EFI. Under the terms of the deal, EFI will continue to produce and support FFPS so current customers do not experience interruptions in sales or service.

‘Customers will gain a powerful solution with more efficiencies, performance and quality to meet the most demanding production requirements,’ said Andrew Copley, president, Graphic Communications Solutions, Xerox. ‘EFI is an industry leader and has a proven track record with performance, ease of use and seamless integration with industry workflow solutions.’

Xerox's expertise functionality from FFPS will be integrated with EFI's Fiery product. Customers will benefit from EFI sales and technical field resources working side by side with their Xerox sales representatives.

‘This next step in our strategic alliance will give customers the industry's highest performing DFE with unparalleled imaging and colour management,’ said Guy Gecht, CEO of EFI. ‘EFI integration among the DFE, workflow software, and management information systems products deliver the higher levels of automation and productivity that are key to print businesses taking full advantage of the opportunities with digital printing.’

Xerox and EFI have established a long standing partnership. Most recently, Xerox collaborated with EFI to develop a new print server, the IJ Print Server powered by Fiery, to drive the Trivor 2400 inkjet press.

The DFE handles a range of data streams, while enabling integration, comprehensive colour management and seamless integration with customer workflows.

The next generation DFE coming from this partnership will be integrated with EFI's market leading Productivity Suites, which include management information systems such as Pace, PrintSmith Vision, Monarch, and Radius ERP. Additionally, the DFE will integrate with Xerox FreeFlow Core and XMPie workflows as well as industry leading third party pre-press solutions such as Agfa Apogee, Heidelberg Prinect, and Kodak Prinergy. The Fiery DFE, which is the industry's only JDF certified DFE, will also offer a modern API to allow customers to easily develop integration to any customised applications.