Also Announces Intention to Offer New Means to Produce Highlight Color BOULDER, Colo., May 14, 2002 ... IBM today introduced new convenient and cost-effective enhancements available for its popular Infoprint 4000 and 4100 high-speed, high-volume production printers. Available on all new units in both families and as options for existing Infoprint 4000 printers, these latest enhancements further increase productivity, leverage current printer investments and provide application flexibility for IBM's production print customers. IBM also intends to make available color Customer Changeable Developer (CCD), which allows user to produce highlight color on their existing IBM Infoprint 4000 and 4100 printers. "The Infoprint 4000 and 4100 enhancement options provide customers with the flexibility to choose which output capabilities will be most beneficial to their business needs," stated Robert Cooper, product manager, color and black-and-white continuous forms solutions, IBM Printing Systems. "The new solutions, which include heavyweight paper support, more convenient cost-effective print operations and operator efficiency features, help enhance print productivity while protecting a customer's existing software and hardware investment." Key enhancements to the Infoprint 4000 and 4100 printers include: --Infoprint 4100 Operator Console Now Available Without Charge for Infoprint 4000 IBM's industry-leading user interface for the Infoprint 4100 family, the Enhanced Operator Console, is now available as a standard no-charge feature for new Infoprint 4000 printers. Existing Infoprint 4000 customers have the option of upgrading to the new console, allowing them to leverage their current investments. --Operator Productivity Enhancements New, easy to use, Console Operator privileges allow operators to set print registration and create, store and reuse snapshots of printer setup parameters like, contrast levels and fuser and platen temperature settings, extending print operators' productivity by shortening the print job setup time. For control and ease of administration, enterprises have the flexibility to grant these privileges to individual operators or to groups of similarly skilled operators. --Flexible, Cost-Effective Operations Management Any Enhanced Operator Console can do double-duty as an Infoprint Manager workstation, making it possible for operations managers to manage all their print jobs and queues while right in the print room. For example, operators can preview print queues from the printer, allowing them to prepare for upcoming form changes or reschedule print jobs. --Greater Application Flexibility Heavyweight Paper Support enables direct mailers and commercial printers to run a broader set of either simplex or duplex applications using heavier-weight media. The Infoprint 4000 IS and ID family of printers, with the new feature installed, can print on paper stock up to 160 gsm (42 lbs.) whereas the previous limit for duplex printing was 105 gsm (28 lbs.). Additionally, the maximum paperweight specifications for the Infoprint 4100 HD1/HD2 have been extended up to 160 gsm (42 lbs.). --Color and MICR Customer Changeable Developer IBM also intends to offer, later this year, color Customer Changeable Developer (CCD), providing customers new ways to produce highlight color on their existing black & white printers. In addition, a CCD Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) feature, currently available for the Infoprint 4000 family, is also planned to be available for the Infoprint 4100 family. Pricing and Availability General availability of the enhanced operator console functions and the heavy weight paper support will begin in the U.S. on May 31 and June 28 for the Infoprint Manager operation on the Enhanced Operator console. Orders for these options can be taken immediately. U.S. list prices are as follows: Heavy Weight paper support is $2,000** per engine IPM on Enhanced Operator Console is $4,500 per system These new systems and options can be purchased through IBM Printing Systems' remarketers and IBM sales representatives.