(Read the original press release here.) 

Ricoh is not a newcomer to production inkjet. Beginning with the creation of the InfoPrint Solutions Company, a joint venture between Ricoh and the IBM Printing Systems Division in 2007, they were on a path to becoming a significant player in the production inkjet press market. Beginning with InfoPrint 5000 and evolving and growing through intense efforts in plants in Japan and Boulder, Colo., they have released many new presses and innovations with the most recent being the VC70000, their premier continuous-feed press. Unlike some of their digital printing machine competitors, like Canon, Fujifilm, and Xerox, Ricoh has not had both a continuous-feed and a cut-sheet production inkjet press in the market. While continuous-feed inkjet has been growing for a while, the real future growth will be in cut-sheet presses.

The adoption of continuous-feed inkjet was dependent on the replacement of less efficient continuous-feed toner presses, but never really had that much of an impact on offset or even cut-sheet toner migration in commercial print. Cut-sheet inkjet brings cut-sheet offset and toner media selection variability to inkjet which will provide more impetus for migration to support the demand for short-run jobs.