We are very excited to announce that Esko, a global provider of software and hardware for packaging design, collaboration, automation, workflow, and production, has announced its acquisition of BLUE from Diversis Capital and Schawk Digital Solutions.
When our founder and Chief Product Officer, Stephen Kaufman, first imagined BLUE more than 20 years ago, he could never have anticipated this headline. His vision for BLUE at the time was as a powerful but niche packaging design tool, “cloud” referred to a visible mass of condensed water, and Amazon was a bookseller.
Now, of course, things are different. BLUE provides Label and Artwork Management solutions for some of the world’s most well recognized manufacturers, “cloud” refers to technology, and Amazon has revolutionized retail (and created a new role for labels and packaging). The CPG, life sciences, retail, and marketing industries have realized how important label and packaging design operations really are to achieving corporate KPIs.
What hasn’t changed, however, is BLUE’s focus on product development. From the beginning, we’ve been obsessed with building a cutting-edge Label and Artwork Management solution for the industries we serve. We want to make Label and Artwork Management teams worldwide more productive, and we want to insulate them from common pitfalls in the end-to-end Label and Artwork Management process. Our mission is to help companies deliver accurate, on-time labels and artwork to market for every SKU in their product portfolio.
So, as we look to the next decade of Label and Artwork Management software development and beyond, we know it’s about the talent and the technology – and we are confident the best talent and technology will be the outcome of our recent acquisition by Esko. Esko’s work in the packaging and print space has inspired us, the success of the MediaBeacon acquisition has shown us they are serious about growing new businesses well, and the expansion of WebCenter has proven they are innovative developers.
But more than that, their vision for the future closely matches our own. We both believe in strong R&D and product management. We both believe in developing talent. We both believe Label and Artwork Management products should be on a continuous trajectory to become easier and more intelligent, so our customers can spend less time trouble shooting and more time focusing on strategic activities. And we both believe our combined entity will be home to the best Label and Artwork Management tools and technology.
We’re extremely proud of what BLUE and our customer community have accomplished over the past two decades, and we can’t wait to see what lies ahead. The future of Label and Artwork Management is bright, and we’re thrilled to join forces with Esko.
To learn more about this acquisition, please refer to the press release.
