TOKYO, April 26 -- Ricoh Company, Ltd. President and CEO M Sakurai announced today a new partnership with EFI, as part of an overall strategy to penetrate further into the high-end Print-On-Demand market. Ricoh, a pioneer in digital office automation, has now set its sights on the high-end POD market. EFI, the world leader in digital controllers, superwide format printers and inks, and print management solutions for commercial and enterprise printing, is the ideal partner for achieving these aims. This business alliance builds upon the strong Ricoh-EFI relationship, dating back to EFI's founding in 1989. The companies' collaboration includes delivering EFI's industry-leading Fiery server technology, optimized with advanced production and workflow control capabilities for customers of Ricoh's Aficio multifunction products (MFPs). In addition, both companies share an "open standards" philosophy that benefits customers as well as facilitates the collaborative process. Both parties are active participants in organizations such as PODi (PPML) and CIP4 (JDF), among others. Specifically, the two companies have committed to working together in the following areas: - Development and marketing of POD workflow solutions to expand both EFI and Ricoh business in the Production Printing market; - Establishing a seamless process ranging from R&D through production, marketing and customer support "Following on our acquisition of Hitachi Printing Solutions last year," says Shiroh Kondoh, Executive VP, Head of MFP Business, "we are now in a good position to take our POD initiative to the next level. EFI provides us with the right workflow solutions for this demanding market." "Ricoh's and EFI's joint objective in extending our relationship is to provide Ricoh's POD and production customers with EFI's industry-leading digital controllers and innovative digital workflow solutions," said Guy Gecht, EFI CEO. "Our new alliance will create greater leverage and synergies between our two companies and further enable Ricoh's customers to profitably grow their digital printing business. Initially the efforts of the new global alliance will be focused on the North American market. Ricoh Corporation will demonstrate POD solutions at the upcoming venues: Connect 2006, EFI's seventh annual users' conference, (Las Vegas, April 30-May 3, www.efi.com/connect06) as well as On Demand (Philadelphia, May 15-18, www.ondemandexpo.com).