In June this year I wrote an article on the Fuji Xerox move into continuous feed color. This article caused a degree of concern within both Fuji Xerox and Xerox as information about this product was supposed to be under non-disclosure. I wrote about it because information about the product had entered the public domain when Fuji Xerox Australia briefed local journalists about the first installation of the product at HPA in Melbourne, Australia. Finally the product that I referred to in my article as the biggest open secret in the industry has been launched on a worldwide basis. This is the new Xerox 490/980 Continuous Feed Printing System.

Working with its partner company Fuji Xerox, the company will introduce its new continuous feed color press into North America and Europe in the first half of 2008. It is available immediately in Japan, China and the Pacific Rim countries. No doubt this will be one of the highlights to see on the Xerox stand at drupa next May.

The Xerox 490/980 operates at a resolution of 600 dpi and is a 20-inch wide printer that prints on substrates in weight from 40 – 160 gsm, and runs at 223 linear feet/minute (69 meters/min), This quoted speed translates to 493 A4 or Letter size pages/minute. Two engines can be linked together to provide a speed of 986 pages/minute in duplex mode.