NEW YORK--March 9, 2004-- Canon U.S.A., Inc., a subsidiary of Canon Inc. and the nation's market share brand leader in black-and-white and color laser copier/printer solutions*, is showcasing at AIIM / ON DEMAND new products developed to enable businesses of all sizes to integrate color more affordably into their documents and to more easily manage overall digital document workflow across the enterprise. Capitalizing on an expanding color market and the increased integration of digital imaging systems, Canon is strengthening its leadership position with the application and provision of highly valuable and cost-efficient color-enabled devices and document management solutions for enterprises with a variety of imaging needs. With the unveiling of its new color-enabled imageRUNNER C6800 and imageRUNNER C3100 Series, Canon is expanding its top-selling line of monochrome and color networked digital multifunctional imaging systems to include a series of devices that are unique in their ability to provide occasional color, with no reduction in black-and-white functionality or productivity. The release of Canon's new DR-7080C scanner, the first product to leverage both imageRUNNER and DR-SCANNER technology, delivers outstanding image quality geared toward low- and mid-volume production environments. "The guiding principal behind Canon's color strategy is choice," said Tod Pike, senior vice president, Imaging Systems Group, Canon U.S.A. "While an advertising agency or product marketing group may require a high-performance production color laser printer for graphic arts purposes, that capacity typically exceeds the needs of a law firm, real estate agency or healthcare practice. With the addition of the imageRUNNER C6800 and imageRUNNER C3100 Series, Canon also covers the full spectrum of business color needs with devices designed to accelerate the migration to color. "Similarly, the introduction of the DR-7080C scanner increases the range of image capture solutions available to our customers," added Tod Pike. "With the addition of the DR-7080C, Canon is rounding out the DR Series product line and delivering an unbeatable combination of affordable color and black-and-white scanning capabilities, speed and easier workflow integration for applications in almost every type of working environment." Canon will also be showcasing its Multifunctional Embedded Application Platform (MEAP), a technology that leading analyst firms have reported as potentially changing the role of the copier from stand alone devices to fully functional information hubs. MEAP is another hallmark of Canon's innovation and commitment to creating office products that bridge today's hybrid paper-and-digital, monochrome-and-color information culture. MEAP is a new embedded platform for building customized document applications that integrate hard-copy operations directly into the workflow of enterprise software applications. MEAP-powered Canon MFPs will be on display at Canon's AIIM / ON DEMAND booth #3105. Technology Innovation Continuous innovation is at the core of Canon's market success. Canon ranked #2 worldwide among all companies issued U.S. patents in 2003, and has made addressing the growing global demand for business color a primary R&D focus. In fact, Canon's record fiscal year performance in 2003 was largely attributed to strong sales for color network multifunction devices, as well as digital cameras. Last year, Canon also broke new ground with the introduction of the first fully programmable MFP with the integration of MEAP technology. Canon has led color development in imaging and printing, spearheading the adoption of business color through advances in color management technology, ease of use and a significant reduction in color printing costs. The ability to create bridge product solutions comes to fruition in the imageRUNNER C6800 and imageRUNNER C3100 Series. Both offer single-pass color to lower costs without compromising black-and-white quality and speed. Implementing full-color printing in a single drum imageRUNNER device required several engineering feats. Canon's Amorphous Silicon drum in the imageRUNNER C6800 provides a 3,000,000-impression yield for high durability. So as not to "muddy" the issue, the color toners and developers are housed in a separate rotary developing unit form the black developing unit. Canon's Auto Carrier Refresh (ACR) technology ensures consistent distribution of toner on the drum, and the Attenuated Total Reflection (ATR) technology checks the integrity of color "patches" on the drum to ensure uniformity throughout every print run. This commitment to innovation and consistently meeting customer needs is the major factor to which Canon attributes its leading position in the total U.S. copier market. In fact, a recent study released by Gartner Dataquest found that for the sixth consecutive year, Canon is the overall market leader in color and black-and-white U.S. copier sales - in every speed segment*. New Color-Enabled MFPs The new imageRUNNER C6800 and imageRUNNER C3100 Series are networked digital multifunction imaging systems designed to meet the needs of companies that primarily work in black-and-white, but want to bring full-color capabilities in-house. For this large market segment, color applications typically represent 30 percent or less of their total output volume. Both the imageRUNNER C6800 and imageRUNNER C3100 Series are built on the latest version of Canon's Color imagePlatform architecture to drive multifunction performance for multiple tasks and across multiple users. Both hybrid MFP devices support print, copy, scan and send functions in color and black-and-white. imageRUNNER C6800: Designed for high volume corporate departments, the imageRUNNER C6800 offers the same proven quality, reliability and productivity as black-and-white imageRUNNER, with color as a built-in, selectable option. A production powerhouse, the imageRUNNER C6800 operates at 68 pages per minute (ppm) for black-and-white output and 16 ppm for full color output. Black-and-white cost per page is comparable to imageRUNNER products, while color costs average 10-cents a page, making occasional color affordable for every user. imageRUNNER C3100 Series: The imageRUNNER C3100 and imageRUNNER C3100N are targeted at smaller, budget-minded offices with the needs of about half the speed and volume of a imageRUNNER C6800 user. The imageRUNNER C3100 Series offers black-and-white output at 31 ppm and full color output at 7 ppm. Capable of handling the workload of several dedicated devices, the imageRUNNER C3100 Series offers advanced digital copying and Mail Box features, powerful fax functionality, network printing and scanning functions and the ability to distribute information - in color. Capable of growing with the organization, many of the advanced features bundled into the imageRUNNER C6800, such as Universal Send technology and SuperG3 faxing, are available as optional, add-on features. DR-7080C Scanner: Incorporating the state-of-the-art scanning engine developed for the newly released Canon imageRUNNER C6800 multifunction device (MFP), the DR-7080C delivers outstanding image quality with optimized throughput and ease of use. Based on Canon's advanced image processing technology, the DR-7080C achieves speeds up to 70 pages-per-minute in color, black-and-white or grayscale, at resolutions up to 300dpi. The DR-7080C also introduces to this market several innovative - and standard - scanner features on Canon's top-of-the-line, high volume model, the DR-9080C Color Production Scanner, recipient of Better Buys for Business Scan-to-File guide's 2003 Editor's Choice Award, and mid-volume DR-6080 Production Scanner. The expanded capabilities include a high-speed USB 2.0 or SCSI interface, intelligent automatic image rotation, MultiStream(TM)support, and 600 dpi optical resolution. Additionally, the DR-7080C comes bundled with Canon's utility software, Capture Perfect v2.1, to facilitate seamless integration with other office imaging systems. MEAP: Canon's unparalleled MEAP technology is another technological first for the industry. Canon developed the digital MFP as a central communications hub for converting and distributing documents both digitally and in hard copy. Then, Canon built the imageRUNNER platform around a unified architecture and consistent user-interface. A MEAP-powered MFP represents the first software development platform for the creation of embedded MFP applications. Using Canon's Java-based MEAP development toolkit, developers can design software applications linked dynamically to unique customer workflows and run them internally within Canon MEAP-enabled imageRUNNER hardware. MEAP applications are capable of displaying their own unique user interface on Canon imageRUNNER operation panels, and as such offer considerable integration possibilities into customer business workflow processes. eCopy: eCopy ShareScan OP (Open Platform) is the first commercially available software application for Canon's MEAP-enabled imageRUNNER products. With eCopy ShareScan OP, the industry-leading features of eCopy's ShareScan solution are now accessible from within the control panel of a Canon MEAP device. Additionally, with eCopy ShareScan OP's advanced administration and management features, administrators can manage multiple eCopy enabled MEAP devices from one central location.