Mr Büntemeyer, more and more people use e-books. The number of suppliers of reading devices is also rising, like, for instance, Amazon with the Kindle or Apple with its iPad. What does this development mean for Kolbus?

Kai Büntemeyer: The e-book will probably be of low importance for us. As a luxury consumer good, it is in a category of its own. It is utterly unsuitable for the exploitation of text and image copyrights. Until very recently, it was the explicit strategy of Amazon that Kindle had to be a pure reading device in order to fulfil its purpose. The new device, however, has iPad features and, therefore, marks the surrender of the e-book to print and paper.

Digital printing is up and coming. How will it change the business of Kolbus? Does Kolbus develop special machines for digital printing?

Büntemeyer: Of course no complete machines for digital printing; books had the form which they have now even before Gutenberg and can also be used for digital printing. However, it goes without saying that we must offer our customers substantial modifications, especially as regards machine control. The photo book business has already become one of our largest business segments. One can say that they are books published by the consumer as author`s editions. This business model is successful and will outgrow the photo book.
Building on our experience, we are also capable of making highly efficient industrial book production for digital printing a reality. This is what we will present at drupa 2012.