(Watch David Zwang’s interviews with Canon’s Thomas Hoffmann and DS Graphics/Universal Wilde’s Chris Wells.)  

I previously covered the evolution of Canon Cut Sheet in this article along with an interview of Saskia Willems, the Product Manager and Chris Dubach from Phoenix Press one of the early adopters. In this article, we will be focusing on the Canon line of continuous-feed production inkjet presses, which include the ColorStream and their flagship ProStream production inkjet presses. Today, they are one of the largest production printer manufacturers in the world. Canon Production Printing (CPP) produces and sells black-and-white and color cut-sheet and continuous-feed electrophotographic and inkjet printers. The Large Format Graphics group sells scanners, plotters, and printers including the Arizona and Colorado large-format printers.

At drupa 2012, Canon Production Print, prior to full acquisition and integration by Canon, was known as Océ. In 2008, Océ introduced a new press line: the JetStream which was followed by the ColorStream 3500 in 2011, and while both the JetStream and ColorStream lines used the same Kyocera KJ4B printheads, the engines were different. The JetStream used an engine produced by Miyakoshi and unlike the JetStream, Océ produced their own ColorStream engine internally. This was based on many of the lessons learned in the production of the successful VarioStream electrophotographic printers, which are among the fastest digital toner presses in the market.