NEW YORK, Feb. 22 -- Ricoh Corporation, the leading provider of digital office equipment, today announced the opening of its newly relocated and expanded New York City Technology Portal during a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Midtown Manhattan facility. Ricoh moved the portal to this new site at 144 East 44th Street in order to provide customers a more robust venue to showcase its full line of hardware and software solutions. Designed as a fully-networked business environment, the Technology Portal is an appointment-based facility that demonstrates the functionality of Ricoh's cutting-edge office equipment and solutions through three typical customer settings -- Workgroup, Production Print and Enterprise. The portal features onsite consultants who are available to walk customers through Ricoh's vision of enhanced workflow through the deployment of advanced technologies. In addition, Ricoh has introduced two new services to the Technology Portal. Solutions Central, a staged area demonstrating Ricoh's award-winning Document Solutions and Services (DSS) in a working situation, provides an in- depth look into Ricoh's newest and most advanced DSS offerings. Furthermore, the new Collaboration Cafe provides an opportunity for customers to share their thoughts and ideas to help determine the most effective integration of Ricoh hardware and solutions into their own company's network. "Our Technology Portal provides a look into the printing and document management needs of today's businesses and allows Ricoh to effectively demonstrate the power of our products and solutions to the customer," said Susumu "Sam" Ichioka, chairman and CEO of Ricoh Corporation. "In this highly competitive industry, we understand the importance of open and ongoing communications and believe a working showroom such as this is vital to the success of both Ricoh's and our customers' business." Ricoh became the first in the industry to create such a showroom when it launched its original Technology Portal in New York City in December 2002. Since its inception, the New York showroom has been responsible for hosting more than 90 customer events per month. Ricoh has also opened Technology Portals in Chicago, San Francisco and Toronto, Canada as well as satellite locations in its direct sales facilities throughout the United States.