Boca Raton, FL—October 7, 2003— Oce, a leading provider of production-class printing solutions, today announced that its new Océ VarioPrint 5160 digital, cut-sheet printing system has been awarded a “Five Stars/Exceptional” rating from Business Equipment Research and Test Laboratories (BERTL). BERTL, an independent testing laboratory located in both the United States and the United Kingdom, is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading independent authorities on the performance of digital imaging devices. For more than 13 years, BERTL has been in the office products testing industry, and has set the standard for testing high-performance and office printing systems. BERTL conducts up to 250 hands-on evaluations each year on the latest digital imaging systems. The BERTL report states that “The Océ VarioPrint 5160 is an exceptional printing system well-suited to production and print-for-pay businesses. It boasts several features that can be found nowhere else in the industry.” BERTL commended the system for its high-volume duty cycle of four million pages per month; support for up to three different connection types; and the ability to print in simplex, duplex, and mixplex modes. BERTL also made special note of the system’s Quick Change Developer Station (QCDS), an interchangeable developer station that enables users to quickly replace toner as needed so that they only have to purchase a single system to print monochrome, MICR, and one-pass, two-color CustomTone highlight color applications. In addition, BERTL recognized the VarioPrint 5160 for its solid construction, consistently fast speeds, multiple hardware options, and sophisticated document management capabilities, stating, “All in all, the Océ VarioPrint 5160 proved itself worthy of a rating of “Five Stars/Exceptional”— BERTL’s highest accolade.” “We are proud that the VarioPrint 5160 printer has achieved the “Five Star/Exceptional” rating—the highest rating BERTL gives in its Imaging at Work independent evaluations—and one that is given to only a handful of products each year. This exceptional award confirms Océ’s commitment to providing superior, production-class digital printing solutions that deliver the versatility, reliability, productivity, and investment protection customers need in today’s business environment. This latest award from BERTL further validates other independent research studies that have determined that the Océ VarioStream and VarioPrint families offer the lowest total cost of ownership in their classes,” said Carl Joachim, vice president of marketing for Océ Printing Systems USA, Inc. The Océ VarioPrint 5160 is the flagship system in the new VarioPrint 5000 family—the first family of cut-sheet digital printing and publishing solutions to deliver production-class advantages to corporate and commercial work centers. The system provides an output speed of 158 page-per-minute (8.5x11”) and 162 ppm in 8x10” format. As more companies turn to seamless workflow in these environments for greater efficiency and faster turnaround, Océ VarioPrint cut-sheet solutions are engineered to be an integral part of a true end-to-end document solution. As a complete solution, Océ hardware, software, and professional and support services deliver the rock-solid reliability, application versatility, and cost-effective performance that define production-class. The BERTL findings reaffirm Océ’s commitment to delivering versatile, future-proof performance that ensures expandable rather than expendable solutions. BERTL also recognized the Océ PRISMA family of cross-vendor production-class workflow management software. Combined with PRISMA, the Océ VarioPrint 5160 is a fully open system. It can receive data input and workflows from a wide variety of sources, and can output those workflows to a wide variety of other devices. Document experts can count on PRISMA to maximize the performance and cost-effectiveness of their operations, independent of system, location, or print device.