Barcelona is a beautiful city and Hotel El Rey Juan Carlos on the edge of the city is probably the best hotel in town. So it is no surprise that Canon chose this venue to show off its imageRUNNER ADVANCE series, a new multifunctional platform that blends hardware, software and services to help advance modern business environments. Dozens of reporters and journalists from all over Europe and Middle East, including ME Printer, attended the event held from 16 to 17 September 2009 to see for the first time the new machines which were built upon the company’s long heritage of the imageRUNNER product line. |
| Barcelona |
René Carayol, one of the leading business gurus and a regular broadcaster for the BBC, kick started the session and welcomed the audience. Followed by René Carayol, Antonio Recio, head of Canon Business Solutions in Europe, made a surprising announcement about the partnership between HP and Canon for sales and marketing of the new imageRUNNER ADVANCE series. It seems that HP is focusing on MFP devices to broaden its product portfolio, and in return Canon will be able to take advantage of HP’s extensive sales channels throughout the world. According to Recio, the imageRUNNER ADVANCE is one of the key enabler of Canon’s partnership with HP. Although Canon and HP have a history of working together, the announcement is considered a new chapter in the mutual cooperation that could grow even further in future. Recio also said that Canon is one of the few Japanese companies within the electronics sector to remain profitable. Canon has achieved 33.3 billion Yen in profit for the first half of 2009.
Pragmatic Approach
Moderated by Carayol, a panel of top Canon European directors including Gary Horsfall, Taz Nakamasu, and Iain Maxwell discussed the key issues affecting companies and businesses and offered a comprehensive view of Canon’s solutions during the event. According to the panellists, because the business environment remains tough, a pragmatic approach is the answer to the economic challenges. It is important that new technology should integrate seamlessly with systems already in place. On the other hand, personalizing the technology and providing enhanced automation are absolutely crucial in these difficult times.
Blend of Daily Interactions and Technical Expertise
The new imageRUNNER ADVANCE series which was unveiled for the first time in Barcelona is designed for seamless integration into common office systems. This range of devices has a new platform and controller offering hundreds of enhancements from the previous iR platform, taking on board customer and partner insight. Canon boasts that the new platform is the result of more than 10000 daily interactions with their customers as well as the company’s technical expertise. The new Canon imageRUNNER ADVANCE series includes the following models:
imageRUNNER ADVANCE C9075 PRO/C9065 PRO
Rounding out Canon’s digital color solutions portfolio, the imageRUNNER ADVANCE C9075 PRO produces letter-sized output at up to 75 pages-per-minute (ppm) in black-and-white and 70 ppm in color, while the imageRUNNER ADVANCE C9065 PRO operates at up to 65 ppm in both black-and-white and color. These models are targeted at a vast array of light production users, including central reprographics departments (CRDs), small copy centres and quick print shops. The new series is offered with a host of finishing options including, professional puncher, multi-inserter, multi-folding unit, booklet finisher and optional inner trimmer and staple finisher. Other features include easy integration, modular design enabling multiple configurations, mixed media support (coated and uncoated), paper weights up to 300gsm, max. standard paper size SRA3 and max. irregular paper size 330.2 x 487.7mm.
imageRUNNER ADVANCE C7065/C7055
Producing letter-sized output at 65 ppm for black-and-white and 60 ppm for color on the imageRUNNER ADVANCE C7065, and 55 ppm for both color and black-and-white on the imageRUNNER ADVANCE C7055, these models provide a fast and reliable solution for high-volume office and busy enterprise environments.
imageRUNNER ADVANCE C5051/C5045/C5035/C5030
These new models, running color and black-and-white, letter-sized output at 51 ppm, 45 ppm, 35 ppm and 30 ppm, respectively, offer new features and functionality.
The imageRUNNER ADVANCE automates paper-intensive document processes and streamlines document-based communications to help workforces become more productive. The new platform also enables users to scan paper documents quickly and to a multitude of destinations. Incorporating a number of new file formats based on user needs, including Adobe® PDF, Adobe® PDFA1b, Office Open XML and Reader Extensions. The imageRUNNER ADVANCE range will begin to be rolled out across Europe and the Middle East in Q4 2009.
“Our new MFP range improves the productivity by streamlining the business process. The machine’s new interface is highly intuitive and customizable, and it integrates with Microsoft Share Point and other document management systems. The new image RUNNER has been built with the environment in mind. It also delivers the highest quality and offers cost management tools,” commented Tony Aoki, Canon Business solution’s European director for product marketing and planning.
The imageRUNNER ADVANCE range also offers improved document security and will comply with the industry’s most stringent security standards. Organisations can adopt a portfolio of security measures to meet their specific requirements. Device security can be achieved through employee ID cards and follow-me printing, as well as hard-disk removal. Critical business data can be protected through a Document Scan Lock Kit, which provides a secure watermark to printed documents, and an Adobe® LiveCycle Rights Management policy server provides controlled access to scanned PDF documents.
Next Stop Dubai
Canon has high hopes for its next generation of MFP product line especially for the Middle East market. During the event, Nicholas Van Santen, Canon Business Solutions’ marketing manager for Middle East who accompanied the Middle East delegate to Barcelona, announced that Canon Middle East will hold a launch event for the imageRUNNER ADVANCE range on the evening of 17 November 2009 in Dubai. This event will showcase the new additions to this line-up to a selected audience of strategic UAE and regional customers, regional Canon Business Solution partners and industry press.
Next Generation Print Platform
Considering that the ImagePRESS series has already been launched in the market, what is the gap that Canon’s aims to fill with the ImageRUNNER 9000 series?
The ImageRUNNER has a brand new platform. We would like to offer our customers a variety of options for their requirements. The ImagePRESS was a huge success and has been very well received. There’s also a particular segment where customers decide their investment in a press on the basis of the target volume. For example, if a client requires a machine for low-volume, on-demand printing for internal communications, they would require a machine that offers high speed and productivity but not necessarily one that supports high volumes. This is where the ImageRUNNER range of presses comes into the picture. Target customers include copy shops and other ‘print-for-pay’ customers and CRDs. The quality offered by the ImageRUNNER allows us to target the commercial print market, especially commercial printers who are moving into digital printing for the first time and handling low volumes to establish their businesses as well as established digital print service providers looking to increase back-up or flexibility.
How flexible are these new devices?
For the development of the new platform Canon had to come up with a flexible workflow system. The ImageRUNNER is supported by an EFI server. The EFI Digital Storefront is a software solution that Canon has carried for a number of years. In addition, we offer the Helix production workflow system, which is also a web-to-print system, along with in-line and nearline finishing options. If you imagine Helix as a platform, the configuration would depend on the requirements of the customer. This allows us to tap into prepress workflows that already exist and facilitate seamless integration. Canon and EFI have co-developed RIPs for the new engines. The printers can be fitted with the ImagePASS-A1 RIP as well as the ColorPASS-GX300 RIP depending on the production environment requirements.
Time is right for The imageRUNNER
During the panel you said that the times are tough. Does it make sense to launch a new range of products to an already saturated market during the recession?
We interact with our customers and on the basis of their feedback understand their requirements in terms of the features they look for in our printers. I think this time is more than appropriate to launch our new products. We would like to send the message across that despite the difficult times we are investing into developing new technology and that our commitment remains the same as ever. The fact that our business remains profitable only encourages us to push ourselves to offer better products to our customers and give them confidence that our company is stable and that we are going to be there for them in the future.
On what basis you decide to come up with a new technology?
We spend 10% of our turnover on research and development, most of which revolve around hardware. So we are constantly developing new technology and asking the question of how such technology can be developed into a feature that can benefit the customer. These developments happen in cycles; therefore, we think in terms of a time frame of five years or more. The devices we introduced here were being developed five years ago and new features were being added till we decided to launch them this year.
It seems that the office equipment market has reached a point of saturation; however, there are more opportunities in the production printing sector. Are you focusing more on this segment?
Yes. That is true. In the past we did not have the range of hardware for professional print sector and we were concentrating very much in office arena. And other companies were dominant. But with the growth of digital technology and the launch of new product range Canon has strengthened its position in this sector as well and we are competing effectively in this market place. But I also believe you have to have close understanding of the market place. It is not just about adaptation of office technology. It is a completely different market. You need to understand the workflows, the technologies involved, and terminology. You really have to understand what it means when you split the job among devices. In the past we didn’t have that knowledge but now we do. We have a fantastic range of hardware for professional print market and we significantly improved our software offerings. Our new software Helix has caused lot of excitements. It is a completely new product. It is developed by NT-Ware and it is only available though Canon. NT- ware is a German software company which has relation with us for many years. Originally their product was focused on office, but as we got more and more involved in production printing, launching products such as C7000 VP, we told them we need a product that can work within both professional and office environments. I think the combination of Canon hardware and this software is a proposition that market finds very attractive.
