CHICAGO-- Canon U.S.A., Inc., today announced that Canon Inc. and Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG will collaborate to develop connectivity between Canon's imagePRESS C7000VP digital press and Heidelberg's Prinect Digital Print Manager offering in the North American market. The collaboration will focus on creating seamless hybrid offset/digital workflow for commercial printers. Poised to revolutionize digital printing, Canon's imagePRESS C7000VP digital press will deliver consistent print speed at 70 pages-per-minute (ppm) for letter-sized output in color regardless of the weight of the media combining productivity with a level of quality that rival offset. Prinect Digital Print Manager, a part of Heidelberg's Prinect workflow management system, allows for the integration of print systems, whether offset or digital presses, into a unified workflow, optimizing printing processes and systems capabilities. "Canon is focused on moving into Commercial Printing," said Masaki Nakaoka, chief executive, Canon Inc. "Through the connectivity with Prinect, we can provide high quality businesses for commercial printing customers." "With the integration of Canon's new imagePRESS C7000VP into the Prinect workflow, Heidelberg will add even more flexibility for printers to integrate their complete production environment," said Dr. Peter Leu, vice president, Product Management, Prinect. "In this way, Heidelberg is leading the path integrating print shop processes and thus cutting production costs." Based on open industry standards using JDF and PDF, the connectivity will allow production data to flow between the imagePRESS C7000VP digital press and Prinect system, giving users the ability to view and better control jobs, manage production costs and optimize system usage. The connection between the imagePRESS C7000VP digital press and the Prinect Digital Print Manager will be available in the first half of 2007.