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Digital will not replace conventional print, but the two technologies will coexist, HP Indigo's vice president has said.

Alon Bar-Shany, vice president and general manager of HP's Indigo division, told delegates at a customer event held in Tel Aviv, Israel this month that the technologies would  "live together".  

At the event, which brought together existing and prospective customers for HP's WS4500 and recently launched WS6000 digital presses, he said: "Digital will not replace flexo or offset. They will live together, but digital will grow very fast."

Bar-Shany also urged delegates to invest during the financial crisis so as to emerge stronger when the recession finally ends.

"People that find a way to innovate, create or apply new technology do very well even in crisis times," he said.

Delegates were shown the benefits of HP's SmartPlanner system, available to existing customers, which can be used to determine when a print order is too big to make using digital print viable.

HP itself has continued to invest in research and development and delegates were invited to view this department at the company's Tel Aviv site.

The company launched the Indigo WS6000 in the same week as the Digital label summit conference in Barcelona in March.

The Indigo WS6000 is capable of printing on to substrates from 12-450 microns at 30m per minute in four-colour mode.

It is twice the speed of HP's WS4500 and is aimed at companies that would previously have had to buy multiple units to achieve volumes required.