Konica Minolta

Ramsey, N.J. and Cleveland, Ohio – June 1, 2009 – Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc. (Konica Minolta), a leading provider of advanced imaging and networking technologies for the desktop to the print shop, has been recognized as 2009 Supplier of the Year by Corporate United, a national Group Purchasing Organization (GPO) of Fortune 1000 and Global 2000 companies.  For the third time, this prestigious award has been bestowed on Konica Minolta, having also been named Supplier of the Year in 2004 and 2006.  The award was presented on May 14 at the annual Corporate United SYNERGY Conference in Chicago.

The Supplier of the Year Award is given to the vendor who ranks highest in overall member satisfaction based on a survey of Corporate United member companies.  The survey, which reviews 18 Corporate United category agreements, allows its members to rate suppliers based on relationship management, value, level of quality, scope of offerings and overall satisfaction.

“We are proud to honor Konica Minolta as our 2009 Supplier of the Year,” said Corporate United President Marc Rosen.  “This honor is a testament to the remarkable products, services and overall performance Konica Minolta provides our membership.”

Ramsey, N.J. and Foster City, Calif. – May 20, 2008 – Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc., a leading provider of advanced imaging and networking technologies for the desktop to the print shop, and EFI™ (Nasdaq: EFII), the world leader in customer-focused digital printing innovation, have launched the Fiery® IC-305 v2.0 with customized color profiles for the newly available bizhub PRO® C65hc from Konica Minolta allowing production printers to support both traditional and new sRGB workflows.

The bizhub PRO C65hc ("hc" stands for High Chroma) incorporates innovative new toner technology enabling customers to expand their color printing palette beyond the typical four-color devices in the marketplace, expanding their capabilities and helping to differentiate their business with clients. The print production system creates brighter, more accurate color by reproducing a larger portion of the sRGB color gamut than previously possible.

EFI utilized its award-winning Color Profiler Suite technology to develop a set of color profiles specific to the HC toner. Fiery technology allows the bizhub PRO C65hc to be more flexible, supporting the use of traditional as well as new sRGB workflows, giving customers the ability to quickly and precisely produce a wider variety of customer jobs. Fiery support of the new sRGB workflow also enables the production printer to more faithfully reproduce colors on screen. This leads to increased accuracy with soft proofing, faster turnaround of jobs, and less waste.

"The bizhub PRO C65hc with its new High Chroma toner technology better meets the demanding color needs of our customers, particularly graphics professionals and commercial printers that require higher quality output," said Kevin Kern, vice president, marketing, Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc. “Acting as the system’s color and workflow controller, Fiery plays a critical role in developing a solution that meets such strict requirements.”

Ramsey, N.J. – May 5, 2009 – Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc. (Konica Minolta), a leading provider of advanced imaging and networking technologies for the desktop to the print shop, today announced that BERTL® Inc. has named Konica Minolta a 2009 BERTL Readers’ Choice Award winner in two key color areas.  Earning awards for Color Range and Color Quality in Segments 1-3, 11-45 pages per minute (ppm) Division, Konica Minolta’s line of color printers and multifunctional products (MFPs – print, copy, fax, and scan all in one system) are recognized for their overall excellence.

For the fifth year, BERTL conducted a global, industry-wide survey covering all major manufacturers’ copier, printer and MFP performances.  BERTL asked its readers to relate their opinions about how different manufacturers handle key issues such as ease of use, reliability, image quality and training.  Responses were received from corporate executives, enterprise buyers, technical professionals, resellers and end users in more than 90 countries.  Konica Minolta was awarded 2009 Readers' Choice recognition in the following key categories:

Reader’s Choice Award: Color Range, Segments 1-3 (4th Year Winner) When considering pages per minute, features and options, Konica Minolta earned the highest rating for its Color Range this year.  Color is a diverse, fast moving and aggressively fought-over market where resellers vie for lucrative after-sales market sales, placing everything from desktop printers and workgroup MFPs through to pre-press proofing solutions and production megaliths.  Respondents were asked to explain how they view the color range of products for each manufacturer, with Konica Minolta earning the highest rating for its Color Range.

Reader’s Choice Award: Color Quality, Segments, 1-3
A print job can reflect back on the user, so output quality is an important attribute.  Konica Minolta’s high rating for Color Quality reflects well on what they hold important.  With color continuing to gain momentum worldwide, the Color Quality has become increasingly important to users. BERTL surveyed its readers to determine how they view each manufacturer's overall ability to deliver high-quality color output.  Konica Minolta continues its excellence in this area and is recognized with an award this year.

Tokyo (March 27, 2009) – Konica Minolta Business Technologies, Inc. (Konica Minolta) is pleased to announce that it will offer its cutting-edge digital color multi function peripheral (MFP), bizhub C550, to the US based Microsoft Corporation to jointly demonstrate Distributed Scan deployed in the Windows Server 2008 R2 at the coming AIIM International Exposition (AIIM Expo) – an event to showcase content and information management applications, tools and solutions – to be held in Philadelphia, USA from March 30 to April 2, 2009.

The bizhub C550 is designed to provide numerous integrated document solutions and capable of enhancing features such as supporting Distributed Scan.

Distributed Scan is a function to automate scanning workflow fixed in advance by interactively linking Active Directory, Distributed Scan Server installed in the Windows Server 2008 R2 and MFPs. When MFPs support this feature, management of multiple servers, such as Microsoft SharePoint Server and E-mail server, will become seamless and facilitate customers' workflow.

Ramsey, N.J. - Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc. (Konica Minolta), a leading provider of advanced imaging and networking technologies for the desktop to the print shop, today launched the bizhub® 362/282/222 Series of monochrome multifunctional products (MFPs - print, copy, fax, and scan all in one system). The bizhub 362, bizhub 282, and bizhub 222 systems serve as the secure "hub" for small offices and workgroups including accounting, logistics and human resources.
With advanced security, printing, copying, scanning and optional faxing, the new monochrome MFPs are ideal replacements for stand-alone machines still prevalent in many offices. The bizhub 362, bizhub 282 and bizhub 222, which can be used as network devices or independently, produce 36, 28, and 22 pages per minute respectively.

"With increased performance and productivity, these new monochrome products provide enhanced value to our customers," said Kevin Kern, Vice President, Marketing, Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A. Inc. "Combined with the powerful security capabilities of the bizhub 362/282/222 Series, our customers can continue to count on Konica Minolta for a secure print environment."
Digital imaging systems face a wide range of security threats including computer hacking, theft, fraud, and sabotage. The bizhub 362/282/222 Series offers a full spectrum of advanced security features, including an Account Track function that requires ID and password and tracks user volume; User Authentication via Active Directory or MFP; SSL Security; Secure Printing/Secure Batch Printing; SMTP Authentication; POP3 before SMTP Authentication and APOP (Authenticated Post Office Protocol).

Tokyo (April 2, 2009) – Konica Minolta IJ Technologies, Inc. announces the launch of Nassenger VII, a high-speed inkjet textile printer equipped with newly developed high-performance inkjet printheads. Sales of the printer will begin in the European market in mid-April, 2009.

The new Nassenger VII, is characterized by newly developed 512-nozzle high-speed drive inkjet printheads to deliver a maximum print speed of 210m² per hour (about 3.6 times faster than its predecessor, Nassenger V) making it one of the fastest inkjet textile printers in the world. This printing speed allows Nassenger VII to be highly productive, comfortably meeting the needs of print works for short-run production of a variety of printing in small lots. Furthermore, equipped with a multi-gradation recording mode to control droplet size, the new printer enables the reproduction of a wide range of tones from the lightest to the darkest. Whereas it is quite difficult to produce a subtle gradation using the conventional screen textile printing, the new mode allows to meet varying design needs of the textile industry while constantly ensuring high-quality printing.

Ramsey, N.J. –  March 25, 2009 – Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc. (Konica Minolta), a leading provider of advanced imaging and networking technologies for the desktop to the print shop, today announced the availability of the bizhub® PRO 950.  The advanced, monochrome production print system can produce everything from corporate reports and booklets to flyers and manuals at high speeds, with long-running capability and flexible auto-finishing.

The bizhub PRO 950 system provides end-users access to industry-leading print management capabilities.  The newest system in Konica Minolta’s award-winning line of monochrome production print systems incorporates seamless interfaces to Konica Minolta's Printgroove® Production Suite and later this year will also support EFI's advanced MicroPress 8 solution making the bizhub PRO 950 an ideal end-to-end print management system. In addition, PageScope Web Connection allows IT administrators to easily combine the bizhub PRO 950 system on one network to increase productivity.

"The bizhub PRO 950 system enables print professionals to deliver high quality on-demand production printing with superior reliability," said Kevin Kern, Vice President, Marketing, Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc.  "Perfect for short-run, on-demand print jobs, the newest monochrome workhorse from Konica Minolta provides quality output at a highly competitive total cost of ownership."

Ramsey, N.J. – March 18, 2009 – Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc. (Konica Minolta), a leading provider of advanced imaging and networking technologies for the desktop to the print shop, today announced the general availability of the bizhub® PRO C65hc, which produces vivid color quality that surpasses other color production print systems on the market.

The bizhub PRO C65hc ("hc" stands for High Chroma) incorporates innovative new toner technology enabling it to produce a wider color gamut than the typical four-color device in the marketplace. The unprecedented spectrum of color caters to graphics professionals and print shops that require higher quality output. Advertising agencies, graphics arts firms, creative design studios, photography studios, direct mail organizations, and commercial printers all stand to benefit from using the bizhub PRO C65hc.

"Konica Minolta has spent the past two years developing the bizhub PRO C65hc and the new High Chroma toner technology in order to meet our customers' most demanding color needs," said Kevin Kern, Vice President, Marketing, Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc. "Our customers rely on Konica Minolta for delivering great image quality, and the bizhub PRO C65hc delivers exceptional quality and produces images that practically jump off the page."

The bizhub PRO C65hc gives organizations a considerable advantage for cross media communication, unifying corporate and brand identity across different communication platforms. It produces brighter, more accurate color because it reproduces a larger portion of the sRGB color gamut than previously possible. A critical competitive advantage for Konica Minolta, this eye-catching output is closer to what is displayed on sRGB monitors versus traditional four-color devices.
The bizhub PRO C65hc builds upon the solid foundation of superb image stability and higher productivity featured in Konica Minolta’s flagship color production print system, the bizhub PRO C6501. Delivering 65 color prints per minute, the bizhub PRO C65hc ensures higher productivity with three input trays for a standard 1,500-sheet capacity, a 250-sheet bypass tray, and an optional high capacity paper feed unit for a total of a 7,500-sheet capacity.

Ontario, Canada and Ramsey, N.J., U.S.A. – PrintFleet Inc., a global leader in managed print software and supporting professional development services, has been selected by Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc. (Konica Minolta), a leading provider of advanced imaging and networking technologies for the desktop to the print shop, as a core technology component of their  Optimized Print Services Program.

With a formal launch of the Optimized Print Services (OPS) Program during the January Vision 2009 Dealer event in Orlando, Fla., Konica Minolta has chosen PrintFleet technology as a core component of their OPS offering. opt-MONITOR leverages various program components designed to empower KMBS Dealer Partners to control their clients  output devices while working to drive the costs of printing and imaging down.  opt-MONITOR is a print assessment and ongoing preventative maintenance and optimization program offering.

Ramsey, N.J. – January 21, 2009 – Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc. (Konica Minolta), a leading provider of advanced imaging and networking technologies for the desktop to the print shop, today unveiled a new line of compact, affordable desktop color printers and All-In-Ones (AIOs) for use in the small office/home office marketplace.  The new magicolor® 1600 Series, which comprises two AIOs and two printers, ranks among the smallest-sized printers offered in the entire industry, and marks the smallest and lowest-priced color laser printers ever offered from Konica Minolta.

The magicolor 1600W, magicolor 1650EN, magicolor 1680MF, and magicolor 1690MF present affordable alternatives for users looking to upgrade from their existing inkjet printers, or require a smaller color laser printer that can fit into virtually any situation.  The magicolor 1600 Series of color printers and AIOs are versatile, environmentally friendly, and won’t interrupt a conversation while printing, as they print at only 50 decibels, and when on standby mode, emit as much noise as a whisper, at 29 decibels. All print at 20 pages per minute (ppm) black-and-white and five ppm in color.

"The magicolor 1600 Series provides our small office/home customers with printers offering high quality color output at an affordable price,” said Kevin Kern, vice president, marketing, Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S. A., Inc.  “The newest magicolor printers and AIOs also present another choice for inkjet users who are looking to upgrade to laser printing for their professional or personal needs.”