LAKE SUCCESS, N.Y.--June 14, 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(1), and eCopy, an innovative provider of document distribution and integration solutions, today announced that they were honored with the 2004 BERTL's Best Innovation Award for the eCopy ShareScan Open Platform (OP) software for Canon's Multifunctional Embedded Application Platform (MEAP). The BERTL's Best Innovation Award is bestowed on a product that brings unique value to the market. This is the second year in a row that Canon's MEAP technology has received BERTL's Best Innovation Award. Last year, Canon received the award for the MEAP technology itself, while this year's award was received for eCopy's ShareScan OP, the first commercial application using MEAP technology. eCopy ShareScan OP for Canon MEAP enabled imageRUNNER devices represents the latest software for document distribution and integration, and sets a new competitive standard for simple, secure, and cost effective electronic distribution of paper documents. "Innovation can take many forms, from using technology in a new and novel way, to creating something with the potential to change the way business might be done in the future," said Carmel Rowley, chief executive officer, BERTL. "We feel that eCopy's ShareScan OP for Canon's MEAP technology has the potential to dramatically change the way documents are processed in corporate environments." MEAP Technology: Canon Innovation MEAP, another technological first for the industry from Canon, is an embedded platform for building customized document applications that integrate hard-copy operations directly into the workflow of enterprise software applications. A MEAP powered Multifunction Product (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, such as eCopy's ShareScan OP, link them 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, offering considerable integration possibilities into customer business workflow processes. "Innovation is at the core of Canon's market success, and eCopy's ShareScan OP for MEAP is one of those innovations that is going to change the document processing landscape significantly," said Dennis Amorosano, director and general manager, Integrated Solutions Group, Canon U.S.A. "The BERTL award helps to validate our commitment to being the industry's innovator." eCopy ShareScan OP eCopy ShareScan OP 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 enabled device. "eCopy's ShareScan OP for MEAP is unique because it is the only integrated solution on a MFP," said Edward Schmid, president and CEO of eCopy, Inc. "It provides greater ease-of-use and lower total cost of operation because of the single touch panel user interface for scanner, copier and printer operations. It also is an expandable, open application that can be customized and tightly integrated with other applications using the ShareScan OP software developer's kit." The eCopy Suite enables organizations to transform paper documents into information that is easily integrated into commonly used business applications. Using ShareScan OP, organizations can provide open access to scanning from a MEAP enabled imageRUNNER that connects to e-mail, fax, document management, and other networked enterprise applications for a low-cost, easy, instantaneous distribution and management of digital copies of paper documents.