Business News

Mohawk Fine Papers Acquires LabPrints

Tuesday 23. February 2010 - Mohawk Fine Papers has announced the acquisition of LabPrints, a leader in workflow integration for professional photographers and photo labs.

While continuing to develop its existing customer base, LabPrints joins Mohawk’s growing list of marketing partners developing products and solutions for the converging worlds of print, photography, and graphic design.
Mohawk’s best-selling i-Tone papers for the HP Indigo are the first choice for creators, publishers, digital printers, and other producers of photo specialties. With the addition of LabPrints, Mohawk is poised to expand its product and service offering to this rapidly growing market.
LabPrints is a highly regarded solutions provider to photo labs and professional photographers, offering an integrated toolset that links labs and photographers with lab orders through online storefronts and the fulfillment of printed products. Best known for its design and workflow tools, thousands of professional photographers depend on LabPrints to simplify their workflow and increase their sales.
“Since our founding in 2002, LabPrints has been dedicated to creating innovative workflow solutions to help photographers and their labs focus on shooting and selling their prints,” says LabPrints CEO, Bill Gamble. “As our photo lab partners embrace digital printing presses, they find that integrating LabPrints software allows them to seamlessly offer a much broader range of products and services. Mohawk is a powerful player in digital printing. Aligning with Mohawk will expand our opportunity space and allow us greater scope for future innovation.”
According to Thomas O’Connor, Jr., Chairman and CEO, Mohawk Fine Papers, “It’s no secret that the world of print communications is changing, as digital technology drives convergence in the worlds of print, photography, and design. In the past 18 months we’ve seen dramatic structural and cyclical shifts in the demand for premium papers. Digital printing is one bright spot in an otherwise challenging market, and Mohawk is fortunate to have established an early leadership position in this space. Our acquisition of LabPrints will bring a very talented, innovative team of software developers into the mix and allow us to create new products and services that add value for all of our partners in the new print economy.”
In 2009, Mohawk began expanding its footprint beyond paper — embarking on a number of initiatives that are already showing results. The company’s strategic investment in liveBooks (www.livebooks.com ) allowed this leading supplier of portfolio websites to expand into a software as a service model; Felt & Wire Shop (www.feltandwireshop.com ) was launched in October and has quickly become a staple in the graphic design community; mohawkpaperstore.com has made it possible for businesses of all sizes to access its papers on the Web.