InfoPrint Solutions Launches New Brand Identity, Products #Ipex

BIRMINGHAM, UK—May 18, 2010—InfoPrint Solutions Co., a joint venture between IBM and Ricoh, today unveiled a new brand identity as the joint venture nears its conclusion. At midnight on June 30, 2010, InfoPrint Solutions will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Ricoh Company Ltd. The brand campaign reflects the company’s new position and combines the strength of the InfoPrint Solutions name with the global prominence of the Ricoh brand, illustrating its close relationship with Ricoh while maintaining its distinct identity as InfoPrint Solutions Co.

In addition to the debut of its new logo, InfoPrint Solutions will be introducing a number of new technology solutions at IPEX including the InfoPrint 5000 (multi-purpose) MP, new workflow software and additional InfoPrint 4100 models. The company is also showcasing its key solutions at the show – Precision Marketing and Workflow – backed by demonstrations of customer applications. InfoPrint Solutions can be found at IPEX on stand 12-D130.

The new brand identity and logo are debuting today at Ipex, one of the print industry’s largest and most important events. The new brand mark will be seen on all products that come out of production after May 14th, 2010; products currently in the market will keep their current logo. The new logo will be on all corporate materials and the InfoPrint web site has been re-branded to include the new brand identity.

“The new logo illustrates the strategic evolution of our brand,” said Peter Lazaroff, InfoPrint Solutions' Vice President of Marketing Communications. “It is a logical progression from the joint venture logo – which our many stakeholders have come to recognize – to our new logo, which includes several familiar elements, yet speaks to the progress of InfoPrint Solutions.”

New Inkjet Platform

Thee InfoPrint 5000 MP (multi-purpose) platform supports three speed points for low, medium, and high volume printing systems needs. Offering a smaller footprint, it complements and is compatible with the existing full color models of the InfoPrint 5000. It provides customers with a new level of modularity, flexibility and investment protection. The InfoPrint 5000 MP can run a variety of inks and fluids and be utilized in various configurations, including a twin-engine, or tandem, monochrome duplex and coupling it with the InfoPrint 5000 color system to optimize the production of documents with checks or coupons using Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR).

“For the second year in a row InfoPrint Solutions is the market share leader in continuous-feed color inkjet systems installed in the United States and Western Europe. In 2009 InfoPrint Solutions held the number one position with over 30 percent market share. Since entering the market in 2007, InfoPrint Solutions has placed 35 percent of the systems installed in the United States and Western Europe. In that same time period InfoPrint Solutions and its partner, Dainippon Screen, have installed more than half of all continuous-feed color inkjet systems,” according to InfoTrends.*

“With the InfoPrint 5000 MP, a customer can easily reconfigure and re-purpose capital assets, protecting investments as needs change over time. It provides customers a new low level of power consumption and a significantly smaller footprint, with the same sustained high reliability and ease of use as all the other InfoPrint Solutions models,” said George Promis, Vice President of Production Inkjet Solutions and Technology Alliances, InfoPrint Solutions. “This is the next step in fulfilling our on-going commitment to customers to deliver technology that enables them to migrate applications to inkjet, while lowering costs and increasing revenue and profit.”

InfoPrint Solutions is also announcing a new ink measurement solution for the entire InfoPrint 5000 family. This includes tools that produce quick and accurate ink estimates at the job costing stage and show actual ink usage upon print completion. These complementary tools help customers leverage the significant economic benefit of InfoPrint 5000’s imaging techniques that dynamically select variable drop sizes for each pixel on the page, allowing optimization of document appearance vs. the amount of ink actually used. “With the InfoPrint 5000’s unique imaging technology, it’s not the ink price per liter, but the ink price per impression, that impacts your bottom line,” said Mike Herold, InfoPrint 5000 Product Manager.

The InfoPrint 5000 MP will also support PANTONE® PLUS. "As a leader in on-demand solutions, InfoPrint Solutions understands the impact color can have when incorporated into personalized marketing collateral, direct mail pieces and all business documents," said Andy Hatkoff, Vice President of Technology Licensing and Business Development for Pantone. "By supporting the new color offerings in PANTONE PLUS, InfoPrint Solutions is empowering its customers to employ even more creativity into their precision marketing campaigns."

The InfoPrint 5000’s market success, the most customer references in the industry, is due to many factors, including its exceptional print quality, high reliability, compact and simple design, ease of use, and the lowest power consumption in the industry for its class of product. PostScript®, PDF and AFP (Advanced Function Presentation) support along with a high performance controller, and a reputation for highly skilled inkjet implementation support have also been major contributors to InfoPrint 5000’s success.

In addition, InfoPrint Solutions offers customers access to its skilled professional services team who work with customers to enhance their print operations to reduce costs and grow revenue and profit.

The InfoPrint 5000 MP will be available in North America, Europe and Asia in the third quarter, 2010. See www.infoprint.com for more information.

Enhanced Production Monochrome Solutions

InfoPrint 4100 T models, the latest additions to the InfoPrint 4100 Advanced Function Printing (AFP) System, offer customers additional flexibility coupled with sustainable and cost-effective options for overall print operations, adding the latest technology innovations to this leading electrophotographic (EP) continuous-form platform.

The InfoPrint 4100 T model is ideal for service bureaus, direct mailers and transactional customers. The solution prints at speeds up to 280 linear feet per minute1 and supports AFP with color emulation functionality. Many customers today use the device to roll out TransPromo and Print-On-Demand applications in order to complement a digital color platform such as the InfoPrint 5000 inkjet printer or InfoPrint Pro C900 cutsheet models.

“With the increased interest of customers to migrate to full color, we believe that monochrome printing will be an excellent technology companion moving forward, especially with targeted communications or TransPromo applications,” said Winston Liu, Director, Production Solutions at InfoPrint. “These latest additions to our InfoPrint 4100 product line show our continued dedication to this space. By offering our customers more flexible, sustainable and cost-effective options, we are confident that our momentum in this market will continue further into 2010.”

The latest InfoPrint 4100 T models include the following feature enhancements:

• Engine enhancements focusing on more consistent print quality and paper handling across multiple speeds for added flexibility

• Multiple serviceability features designed to reduce cost, improve uptime and increase reliability

• Expanded Version 7 toner support, which delivers better fuse grade and print quality at ultra high speeds with heavier paper stock and can reduce cost by delivering a higher toner yield

Monochrome Production Solutions for all Environments

InfoPrint’s current lineup of monochrome production solutions addresses the needs of customers of all sizes – from smaller print shops to larger transactional operations. The InfoPrint 75 and InfoPrint 100 offer a smaller footprint to those companies branching into continuous forms printing. These models are ideal for invoices, picking slips and label printing while providing users with an easy transition to largest monochrome production models like the InfoPrint 4100 or digital color offerings.

New Version of Its Leading Workflow Software Solution

The latest version of InfoPrint ProcessDirector workflow software is a significant expansion of the product’s capabilities, with increased compatibility with Windows and Red Hat Enterprise Linux platforms alongside a new command center feature, which allows for centralized management of multiple InfoPrint ProcessDirector systems and additional new usability features. These upgrades will allow even more companies to take advantage of the InfoPrint ProcessDirector solution to drive increased cost savings and productivity from their existing investments.

InfoPrint ProcessDirector is a flexible workflow platform that provides customers with the necessary foundation to develop customized solutions, such as Automated Document Factory (ADF), Print On-Demand (POD) and Precision Marketing. By adding optional features and extensions, InfoPrint ProcessDirector can be expanded to meet compliance requirements, provide business continuity and reduce costs in the postal and labor arenas.

“InfoPrint ProcessDirector is a key element of our solutions portfolio, bringing together hardware, software and services into one automated control point. These latest enhancements represent our ongoing commitment to our customers to expand our functionality and meet their specific requirements,” said Miranda Reeves, Product Manager, InfoPrint ProcessDirector, at InfoPrint Solutions. “We continue to work with our customers to strengthen their systems and scale them to meet their needs. And our strategy is working – over the past two years, we have significantly increased our InfoPrint ProcessDirector customer base, due largely to our ability to answer customers’ demands for workflow solutions that reduce cost and manage compliance.”

The new version of InfoPrint ProcessDirector includes the following features:

• A scalable output management workflow system with a database-driven process engine and modular backbone that provides customers with the ability to develop customized solutions to meet their specific needs

• Additional operating system support, including Windows®, Red Hat Enterprise Linux™, SUSE® Linux and AIX®

• Application programming interfaces (APIs) that can automate the workflow by interfacing with existing software packages, such as document composition and transforms

• Browser-based user interface and a single point of control, which permits oversight from a centralized location, ensuring increased productivity and automation

• View-based reprint capabilities, providing users with a streamlined print process by allowing users to select jobs for precise repositioning and reprinting

• Expandability to drive closed-loop automated reprints, postal sortation and automation, enterprise output management and more

• Also new in this latest version of InfoPrint ProcessDirector is the command center feature, which allows for centralized management of multiple InfoPrint ProcessDirector systems across the enterprise for maximum control in multi-site environments

InfoPrint customers taking advantage of the power of InfoPrint ProcessDirector include Merrill Corporation, LADWP (Los Angeles Department of Water and Power), Spain’s Servex and many more. A recent IDC survey found that 68 percent of respondents receive their ADF solutions from InfoPrint.* ADF, along with other solutions such as TransPromo and POD, is based on the InfoPrint ProcessDirector backbone.

About InfoPrint Solutions Co.
InfoPrint Solutions Co., headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, brings to market the advantages IBM and Ricoh have in the development, manufacturing, marketing and building of strategic solutions for customers, creating a growth-oriented global enterprise that is strategically focused on the output market. For more information go to www.infoprint.com or follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/infoprint or www.twitter.com/adfsavings.