ROCHESTER, N.Y.--Nov. 15, 2001-- Xerox Corporation has received top acclaim for its high-end printing and graphics arts products, both from a major industry publication and from print buyers who make printer purchasing decisions. For the fifth year in a row, Better Buys for Business editors reaffirmed Xerox's position as a leader in the production printing industry by awarding top honors to the Xerox DocuTech 135. The production-level digital printer received the publication's "Editor's Choice'' award for excellence in the high-volume copier/printer category. "Once again, Xerox has set a benchmark for the high-volume copier/printer marketplace,'' said Jon Bees, editor in chief, Better Buys for Business. "The DocuTech 135 is an extraordinary piece of equipment; it remains in a class of its own. No other vendor can match the sheer breadth of Xerox's digital product line.'' Better Buys for Business is the leading publisher of independent consumer buying guides to high-technology office equipment, including document-imaging machines. The high-volume copier/printer winners were chosen from a large field of machines with speeds of 100 to 135 pages-per-minute. Researchers base their evaluation of each product on a combination of hands-on testing, user outreach, interviews with dealers and manufacturers, and visits to trade shows and manufacturing facilities worldwide. The DocuTech 135 can be configured either as a standalone machine or as a networked copier-printer. Images can be scanned into memory and then stored or printed. Before the prints are made, users can manipulate or enhance the images in a number of ways. For example, standalone users are able to merge images to produce prints that combine standard data with personalized information. The production printer also allows for true on-demand printing by storing up to 12,000 typical scanned pages. This enables documents to be kept in the system and produced on-demand, with personalization when required. The Xerox "Editor's Choice'' awards will be featured in the Better Buys for Business 2002 "High-Volume Copier & Multifunction Guide,'' published this month. Meanwhile, a national survey of nearly 200 print buyers selected Xerox as the most favorable printer brand (76 percent), by a comfortable margin over Canon (69 percent), Heidelberg (67 percent) and Hewlett-Packard (62 percent). The independent survey by WhatTheyThink.com, a leading online community and research firm, asked print buyers about their awareness and favorability of 23 major graphic arts equipment suppliers and manufacturers. Xerox also tied for first in brand awareness with a 99 percent rating. "This particular survey was important because it was conducted with key buyers of the print and graphic arts supply chain. These professionals create demand for an entire industry,'' said Randy Davidson, president, WhatTheyThink.com. "Suppliers with high favorable ratings among print buyers have an upper hand when selling their equipment to printers. Print shops know they are better off buying brands that their customers trust; it's a net benefit to doing business with their firm.'' Of the 197 print buyers surveyed across the United States in mid-October, close to half said they spend more than $100,000 annually on print services.