PRODUCT PORTFOLIO BEST OF BRITISH
Words Simon Eccles
In this series of features, Printweek highlights some of the UK’s world-beating development & engineering businesses
Global Graphics Software
British software developer offers screening and quality enhancement systems
Global Graphics Software is always a bit of a
conundrum to write about. It’s a successful
British software developer whose users may
not even know they have it. Its PostScript
and PDF RIP-rendering code has underpinned
a lot of the pre-press sector’s workflows
for platesetters and digital presses
since the late 1980s.
Today’s Harlequin RIP is a rival to Adobe’s APPE tech. It
has often introduced new features ahead of Adobe, while
equalling or beating its accuracy and performance in rendering
tricky things such as knockouts and transparencies. Since
Drupa 2016, Global Graphics has also been offering screening
and quality enhancement systems to inkjet press makers.
Recently winning a Queen’s Award for Innovation, its
most recent published figures showed revenues of €11.61m
(about £10.5m) for the year ended 31 December 2019.
Currently, 63 staff are employed in the UK out of a total of
77 worldwide.
For the past 14 years, the company has occupied a floor in
a modern block in an office park in Cambourne, about nine
miles west of Cambridge. Before that, it occupied
Barrington Hall, a characterful small manor house a few
miles to the south.
“Cambourne is our head office and also where the majority
of the R&D team is based,” says Jill Taylor, corporate
communications director. “It’s a superb location with landscaped
surroundings, lakes and nature walks. The office is
mainly open-plan with a number of different sized meeting
rooms. Our teams work to the Agile methodology.
“We also operate a small office in Wilmslow, Cheshire,
while Global Graphics Software Inc is based in Florida. In
2004, we established Global Graphics KK, our Tokyo office.”
What markets does it serve?
“We started in the traditional graphic arts and commercial
printing markets, but from 2002 have been working in the
digital printing sector, initially through our close relationship
with HP Indigo,” says MD Justin Bailey. “In the past
four or five years, we have increased our footprint in labels
and packaging, and also in industrial inkjet with customer
projects in ceramics, textiles and interior décor. Wide format
printers such as Roland DG also use our technology.”
However, many of its users may not even realise they
have it. This is because a lot of Global Graphics’ RIPs and
advanced screens go to OEMs, ie other developers who
build them into their own systems and put their own labels
on them.
Printweek April & May 2020
“We are proud of the fact that our technology is used by
HP Indigo for their labels and packaging presses as well as
their commercial presses,” says Bailey. “We work closely
with a growing number of vendors, some of which we can’t
disclose without their permission, but as well as HP Indigo
and HP PageWide these include Agfa, Canon, Delphax,
Durst, Kodak, Mark Andy and Roland DG.”
What does it make?
The company develops “core technology components” for
pre-press and digital printing, such as RIPs (called
Harlequin), PDF file preparation (Mako), colour management
and advanced screening. About a third of revenues
consistently go back into R&D.
“We are 100% focused on RIP and related print technology
for OEMs and we offer very high levels of support, with
most of our technologies having an update release every
quarter,” Bailey says. “Global Graphics Software has been
recognised for innovation in inkjet printing, receiving an
InterTech Technology Award on two consecutive years in
2018 and 2019 for our ScreenPro and PrintFlat products
respectively.
“The original Harlequin RIP, now called Harlequin
MultiRIP, is supplied through some of our OEM partners,
and also through our subsidiary Xitron’s worldwide dealer
network. The version of our Harlequin RIP that OEMs integrate
is an SDK – software development kit – that we call
Harlequin Host Renderer. It was named by our engineers,
can you tell?”
In the past four years, we have increased
our footprint in labels and packaging,
and also in industrial inkjet with customer
projects in ceramincs and textiles” Justin Bailey
Harlequin is not the only core technology, although probably
the best known. “Especially significant in digital inkjet
are ScreenPro, our standalone screening engine; and
PrintFlat, which removes artefacts from the inkjet printing
process and can be applied to any workflow by ScreenPro,
in other words with any make of RIP.”
Four companies
Global Graphics Software is the printing software subsidiary
of Global Graphics PLC, which has acquired three other
wholly-owned subsidiaries in recent years: URW Type
Foundry (2015), Meteor Inkjet (in 2016) and Xitron
(2019).
Meteor Inkjet develops and supplies printhead drivers,
software, tools and services for industrial inkjet systems. It
is based in Harston near Cambridge, about 10 miles or so
from the group HQ and GGS site in Cambourne.
Xitron, based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, develops workflows
and RIPs for pre-press imagers and digital printers,
including its Harlequin-based Navigator RIP.
OEM FOCUS
Justin Bailey took
over as MD in 2018