Asian Printer Online and associated media including Australian Printer, New Zealand Printer, Inky Fingers (NZ) and the i-grafix website has been sold to Shankar Vishwanath.

Vishwanath (47), comes to the business with many strengths in IT and multimedia as well as the printing industry, having run two very successful printing businesses recently. "With my experience and contacts in electronic media, I intend to further build on the best hard-copy media in the printing and graphic communications industry," he says.

Former owner of the Printer Magazines Group, Anders Oqvist, who is retiring, says, "Shankar has a great many complementary skills and experiences to further develop the Printer Magazines brands in print and especially online."

In buying into a publishing business that informs the printing industry, Vishwanath says he has "confidence that print has a long future, and the only question remains how to most effectively deliver news and information that will help printers and other stakeholders run more sustainable and profitable businesses."

It is business as usual under the new ownership for Printer Magazines staff in Sydney and Auckland, with long time publisher, Brian Moore, continuing to run day-to-day operations, reporting to Vishwanath. "Shankar has some exciting plans for further development of the business and we're looking forward to deploying some new technologies in order to better serve our customers," Moore says.