BERTL has awarded the 2005 BERTL'S Best Award in the category of Best 121+ ppm Cutsheet CRD Device to the Océ VarioPrint 5000 family of printers for its flexible architecture, sophisticated document management software, and the favorable economics it presents, especially for CRD/internal printshop operations. The Océ VarioPrint 5000 family of cutsheet digital printers includes the 5115, 5140, and 5160 models. They boast several features found nowhere else in the industry. The Océ Quick Change Developer Station (QCDS) technology lets users quickly configure the VarioPrint 5000s for monochrome, spot color, or for Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) printing. Another valuable feature of the VP5000 family is its scalable, configurable architecture, which allows these printers to grow in a modular fashion. Users pay for more printer power only when they need it through speed upgrades to the print engine and re-configuring the system to meet their evolving applications needs. The PRISMA suite of workflow software lets users quickly develop job routing flows as well as management, monitoring, and auditing functions. Couple the Océ VarioPrint's hardware and software with the fact that these printers are solidly constructed and offer consistently fast speeds (from 108 - 155 ppm), and you have a unique family of printers that lead the market in their class. The ability to accommodate many different types of print jobs is an essential business consideration in the internal CRD where the high capital cost of the device has to be justified versus the alternative: outsourcing work to commercial print-for-pay establishments. As a result, the CRD manager is looking to amortize the high cost of the unit over as much of the business-critical print workload as possible, from the marketing department's spot-color direct mail print runs to the accounting department's monthly check print run. Our analysts noted that the CRD is a challenging and increasingly complex environment. Océ's VarioPrint 5000 family comes to the rescue. It allows CRD operators to economically use the same printer for mixed job stream. Océ's Quick Change Developer Stations give them the flexibility to quickly change toner for various types of print jobs. With QCDS, an operator could run a job consisting of MICR checks, switch to the standard black toner for another job, then run a dual pass job utilizing a monochrome and spot color imaging unit. Switching out imaging units and realizing lower operating costs more than makes up for the cost of dedicated monochrome or highlight color or MICR printing systems. The VarioPrint 5000's Scalable Raster Architecture boosts productivity by distributing processing between the print controller and an external server: print streams and job flow are managed by a PRISMA server, while image processing is handled by the controller. By dividing up tasks this way, the Océ VarioPrint 5000s achieve greater throughput since the print engine doesn't have to wait for the job data information. Océ offers an extensive family of software products called PRISMA. This modular software suite enables customers to address all stages of a document's life cycle. PRISMA gives users the capability to automate a number of tasks, from document creation, make-ready, e-proofing, and output management, to archiving. It is also capable of working with multivendor systems and data streams, so that PRISMA can help unify workflows and reduce redundancy in staffing and equipment while helping CRD/print for pay buyers leverage their existing investments -as well as Océ devices. The PRISMA software is positioned to support four major business environments: * PRISMA for Networked Offices - focuses on simplifying job submission and print management for user and IT managers alike. * PRISMA for CRDs - delivers a single unified workflow from creation to makeready, proofing, output management, production and archiving. * PRISMA for Transaction - supports Océ and non-Océ devices to create a seamless production business model that grows with you and adapts to your needs over time. * PRISMA for On-Demand - Bridges proprietary job tickets, data streams and systems to maximize productivity while delivering new levels of efficiency.