NEW YORK--March 11, 2004-- Canon U.S.A., Inc., a subsidiary of Canon Inc. and the nation's market share brand leader in color laser copier/printer solutions*, formally announced its strategy for meeting growing business demand for affordable, color-enabled Multi-Function Printing (MFP) devices during a celebratory Tuesday, March 9 evening event. Along with other products shown this week at the AIIM and ON DEMAND trade shows in New York City, Canon also highlighted its two new color-enabled copiers that will help it to capitalize on what it sees as a multi-billion dollar office color market over the next five years. At a press conference and customer reception held at the Good Morning America studios in New York's Times Square, Canon, the overall market brand leader in color laser copiers for 17 consecutive years, unveiled its color-enabled imageRUNNER C6800 and imageRUNNER C3100 Series, two hybrid devices that are unique in their ability to provide occasional color, with no diminution of black-and-white functionality or productivity. "Canon's color strategy - in part - is based on an evolving market opportunity, that color MFP devices are decidedly influencing the document creation and workflow process in corporations," said Tod Pike, senior vice president, Imaging Systems Group, Canon U.S.A. "With the addition of the imageRUNNER C6800 and C3100 Series, Canon is now able to fulfill an even broader range of business needs with color enabled-MFP devices, allowing our customers to enhance their business communications by generating more effective and powerful documents through the increased use of color." Canon, which is #2 in worldwide patents, also showcased its innovative Multifunctional Embedded Application Platform (MEAP), a technology that leading analyst firms have reported as having "the potential to change the role of the copier." MEAP is another hallmark of Canon's innovation and commitment to creating office products that bridge today's hybrid paper-and-digital, monochrome-and-color information culture. MEAP is a new embedded platform for building customized document applications that integrate hard-copy operations directly into the workflow of enterprise software applications.