Hewlett-Packard has taken over the NUR Macroprinters company for as much as $117.5 million. This may seem a small takeover, but it is the second purchase in a three-month interval.

In September, HP acquired MacDermid ColorSpan, another maker of wide-format digital inkjet printers. This acquisition is expected to give the US company a boost in the industrial inkjet printers sector, since the transaction will expand its graphic arts portfolio of digital presses and wide-format printers.

"You're seeing more and more of the large-format output going digital", said Steve Nigro, executive vice president of graphics and imaging for California-based HP. "We want to go after the large-format spaces."

HP has estimated a strong demand for digitization of analog printing devices and this type of services would allow a business cut down their costs by using paperless documents. The Israel-Based NUR company is a specialist in designing printers used by commercial printing companies, sign and screen printers, billboard makers and photo labs.

"This acquisition marks another milestone in H-P's growth strategy to ignite the transition from converting analog pages to digital pages", said Vyomesh Joshi, H-P executive vice president, imaging and printing group.

"The large-format print service provider market is growing rapidly, and with the acquisition of NUR, H-P is strategically building an even stronger portfolio of products and will continue to drive innovation and growth with our industrial wide-format printers."