Last week Canon held its Canon Expo in Tokyo. This is an event held every five years in New York, Shanghai, Paris and Tokyo. Being a Japanese company the Tokyo event is obviously the most important one to assess Canon as a company and what its future directions may be. For me the key thing at this event was to see how Canon really saw the graphic arts market and also how it saw its recent acquisition of Océ fitting into the Canon organization. Canon has indicated that it wants to become No. 1 in this market and sees the incorporation of Océ as a key part of this.

In terms of graphic arts, the most important topic around Canon Expo was both the most significant announcement of a new product and the most important directional change Océ has made in the past ten years. This was the announcement of the ColorStream 3500, its new continuous feed inkjet press. I am sure I will be asked why I’m so impressed by the announcement of another continuous feed inkjet press, when Océ already claims to be the market leader in this market.

Figure One: Océ ColorStream 3500