Düsseldorf, Germany – June 4, 2008: InfoPrint Solutions Company, a joint venture between IBM and Ricoh, today announced the latest enhancements to its next-generation digital publishing and production output solution, the InfoPrint 4100, including advanced controller technology that will drive the uptake of color across the industry.
 
The InfoPrint POWER Controller is a state-of-the-art, common, scalable, portable software platform which powers the InfoPrint 4100 printer family. It was developed using best-of-breed InfoPrint control unit technology and designed for portability across production printer families, including the InfoPrint 5000 color printer.
 
New Advanced Function Presentation (AFP) color emulation functionality means that InfoPrint 4100 printers are now able to receive and convert color images internally in its controller into greyscale and then print them. This is due to support for new types of data on the InfoPrint 4100 including GIF, TIFF and JPEG files.  

This ground-breaking enhancement is a real benefit for those InfoPrint customers who are starting to combine variable data and image color on must-read documents such as statements and bills. This is known as TransPromo and is one of the key trends driving the production print space today. Customers can now reduce costs on application development, maintenance and infrastructure by driving InfoPrint monochrome and color platforms with a single source of data.

Driving accuracy of color with management and conversion tools
The new InfoPrint 4100 models have enhanced accuracy with support for Color Management Architecture for AFP, which delivers consistent output across different devices and data streams. Color Management Resources (CMRs) carry information used to render color and greyscale, and define conversions, calibration and halftoning. They allow a colorized job to be printed on both color and monochrome printers with no change to the base data.
"As we continue to power forward with renewed investment from Ricoh, the deep seams of knowledge and market-leading innovation at InfoPrint continue to come to the fore. Our technology continues to set the standards across the industry and is instrumental in supporting key emerging trends," said Bob Kilcullen, Senior Vice President, Product Marketing at InfoPrint. "These advances to the InfoPrint 4100 are set to further drive color adoption, for customers of all sizes."
InfoPrint created these new enhancements to the AFP architecture with the support of the AFP Consortium. It is expected that these features will be implemented across the industry.
 
Other improvements to the InfoPrint 4100 include:
    •    The new InfoPrint 4100 with Image Enhancement delivers improved halftones, a redesigned hot roll, new toner, firmware and controller code designed to provide high quality printing of greyscale images. This is intended for Print-On-Demand (POD) applications and will benefit customers looking for premium print quality combined with high throughput and lower cost of operation.
    •    High speed commercial print feature – all models of the InfoPrint 4100 up to 330 linear feet per minute now have improved fusing controls, toner and paper path components designed to reliably print on heavier media.
    •    Paper path – InfoPrint has improved the overall robustness of the paper handling capabilities of the InfoPrint 4100, to help the machine handle the rigors of emerging and diverse applications, print room environments and customer expectations. Enhancements include a system that detects torn or folded edges on the paper, designed to prevent jams and stop data loss due to printing on damaged area of the paper.
    •    Operator usability – Several enhancements have been made available in toner load counters, keyed cartridges to prevent use of the wrong toner, as well as improvements in collector systems.  These enhancements provide customers with better cost and operation control and environmental friendly operation.
 
The InfoPrint 4100 provides benefits to all segments of publishing and printing markets. POD, direct mail and enterprise transactional printers can reduce operation costs with the higher speed, throughput and flexibility of the InfoPrint 4100.  Commercial printers can benefit from its broad range of media support, combined with high level of print quality for text, graphics and images for a competitive advantage.