Ricoh wants 30% of production
market by 2010 (21.01.08)
Ricoh will introduce a brand new pair of sheet-fed digital colour
production printers at Drupa in May, to be called Ricoh Pro C900 and Pro
C900S (for scanner). They will reach the market in Q3 2008, Ricoh says. Prices haven’t been revealed yet, but the company hinted that
it is aiming to compete with models such as the Canon C7000VP or the
Konica Minolta C5000, which count as mid-range. “It will offer
heavy production speeds at light production costs,” predicted
Peter Williams, chief operating officer of Infotec Europe.
The new models are part of an ambitious strategy
by Ricoh, which has been growing rapidly by expansion and
acquisition since 2004. “We
want to be a leading production printer supplier by 2010,” said
Simon Sasaki, chairman and CEO of Ricoh Europe. Ricoh estimated
the worldwide market for colour print-on-demand printers to
be 50,000 units
by 2010, and the company says it is targeting 30+% of the market
share.
Williams cited Ricoh’s own research indicating
a shift from traditional commercial offset colour into digital
for print-on-demand work over
the next five years. A lot of traditional data centre and CRD
(corporate reprographics department)/inplant will move onto
increasingly capable
office/departmental printers, Ricoh predicts, with the longer-run
or more demanding colour work being outsourced to commercial
print-for-pay operations offering print-on-demand services.
Ricoh is now introducing a new “Pro” brand
to signify its production models. It has also set up a dedicated
worldwide production
printing business unit.
The new Pro C900/900S has been developed in-house,
Williams said, and is out of the former Hitachi Printing
Solution stable, which Ricoh acquired
in 2004. It’s designed to be very user friendly, he added, with
many customer-replaceable parts and media and toner replacement
on the fly.
It will print up to 90 copies per minute even on
heavy stock weights up to 300 gm2, with duplexing at full
speed. The sheet format is SRA3
(the maximum I 33.2 x 487.7 mm) and there’s provision for up to
11,000 sheets (80 gm2) in the input trays. Resolution will be a “true
1,200 dpi,” and Ricoh says it has developed a new toner that offers
both wide colour gamut and fusing at lower temperatures, allowing
a wider range of stocks to be handled. Ricoh says it will be
able to handle
coated papers and labels. The front end will be from EFI.
In-line finishing options will include ring and perfect binding units,
plus the Plockmatic BK5010 booklet maker and the GBC Stream Punch III
punch.
Ricoh already has a light production colour printer, Aficio MP1350,
introduced in 2006, and it resells the Kodak NexPress colour production
printers via Infotec, the former Danka operation it acquired a year
ago.
The 2010 date is when Ricoh will fully acquire InfoPrint Solutions,
the former IBM Printing Systems, currently being run as a joint venture
with IBM during a three-year handover period. InfoPrint already has
a specialist high end production colour press, the InfoPrint 5000, which
is a Screen TruePress Jet520 high speed inkjet with an IBM front end.
Contact: www.ukinfotec.co.uk
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