ROCHESTER, N.Y.--Dec. 30, 2002--Xerox Corporation's Document Centre 500 Series, introduced in June 2002, is one of the company's most successful recent product launches, substantially boosting office sales volume and earning an Editor's Choice Award for the Document Centre 555, from Better Buys for Business. In the first three months after their introduction - third quarter 2002 - the Document Centre 535, 545 and 555 digital multifunction systems demonstrated a 31 percent surge in U.S. orders in the 31-60 page-per-minute digital multifunction segment of the office market, when compared with the previous quarter. Orders were also 14 percent higher than third quarter 2001. "Customer response to the 500 Series family has been exceptionally strong. With unparalleled productivity and pricing starting at just $8,555 - up to 30 percent less than previous Xerox products - these products are real winners," said Gil Hatch, president, Xerox Office Systems Group. Engineered to perform all steps of the printing process at once - receiving, processing and printing job after job without pausing - the 500 Series boasts job-processing speeds that are as much as 30 percent faster than previous Xerox models and operate significantly faster than competitive products. Testing* conducted by Buyers Laboratory Inc. has shown that the print productivity of the 500 Series models evaluated is superior to that of competitor models tested in the same group. The Xerox Document Centre 500 Series digital multifunction systems offer black-and-white copying, scan to e-mail, Internet faxing, and printing speeds of 35, 45 and 55 pages per minute. Latham & Watkins, one of the country's top 10 global law firms, recently replaced more than 100 competitive machines with 90 Document Centre 555's and several Document Centre 460's and 440's. For the law firm, productivity came not only from the product itself but also from a charge-back solution installed by a Xerox partner, Control Systems, Inc. In October, the Document Centre 555 was honored with an Editor's Choice Award from Better Buys for Business, one of the nation's leading authorities on document imaging equipment. It is the sixth year in a row that Xerox's Document Centre systems have been recognized by Better Buys for Business. This year the Xerox Document Centre 555 and 470 digital multifunction systems were awarded Editors Choice Award in the 2003 High-Volume Copier & Multifunctional Category. Each award is given to equipment that delivers the highest levels of performance and offers the greatest value for consumers in a given price range. Better Buys for Business evaluates models from all major manufacturers and receives feedback from customers and dealers. The evaluations include a combination of hands-on testing, user surveys and worldwide visits to manufacturing facilities and trade shows. The Xerox Editor's Choice awards are featured in the recently published Better Buys for Business 2003 High-Volume Copier & Multifunctional Guide.