Bottomline Ink, a Perrysburg, OH-based printer, acquired its in-state peer Bolt From The Blue on March 4. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Bottomline's goal is to add direct mail marketing to its transactional printing service-focused business.

Catalog, magazine and retail insert printer Quad/Graphics will purchase a minority interest in HGI Company, a commercial printer. Financial terms of the deal, announced March 1, were not disclosed.

Quad/Graphics plans to acquire rival print and digital services firm Worldcolor this summer, the two companies announced last week.

Document management and printing and production company Xerox reported fourth-quarter 2009 total revenues of $4.22 billion, down 3% year-over-year from 2008's $4.37 billion, on January 21. The company's full-year 2009 revenue was $15.18 billion, down 14% from $17.61 billion for all of 2008.

Direct mail product manufacturer Worldcolor will cut about 200 positions by the end of March in an effort to consolidate its Toronto-area magazine, catalog and in-line direct mail operations into one facility.

HP disclosed fiscal fourth-quarter net revenues of $6.5 billion for its Imaging and Printing Group, a 14% increase from the $5.7 billion recorded during the company's fiscal third quarter but a 14.8% decrease year over year from the $7.6 billion of last year's Q4. For FY 2009, HP reported net revenues of $24 billion for imaging and printing, a decrease of nearly 19% from the $29.6 billion reported last fiscal year.

HP, which includes consumer and business-to-business printing units, reported preliminary fiscal fourth-quarter revenues of $30.8 billion, a decrease of 8% from the year prior. The company disclosed that the revenue figure, up 12% sequentially, is a drop of only 5% when adjusted for the effects of currency. The company's fiscal fourth quarter ended October 31.

Following a test earlier this year, Ford is launching a variable data print strategy for its direct mail program that will result in consumers receiving more than 1 million pieces of relevant mail annually. The automaker is rolling out the program across its entire portfolio of extended service products, a process it expects to complete in the next six months. Ford hopes the more than 1 million pieces of annual direct mail will result in "an increase of tens of millions of dollars" in sales, said Mark Bardusch, national sales and marketing manager of extended service business at Ford.

Digital print production can be a turning point for marketers to increase their competitiveness and grow even while gaining cost savings and a faster ROI on campaigns.

Advanced Image Direct (AID) has patented Cloud2Mail, a variable data digital print platform that processes orders from the Web and prints four-color envelopes and letters simultaneously.