As part of its drive into commercial graphic arts the company has also opened a new dedicated print production demonstration centre at its Sydney headquarters to showcase its latest products. The new demonstration centre includes pre-press and proofing solutions, along with wide format and digital colour printers. It also boasts a customer training section, which incorporates software and hardware training, as well as an applications development unit.
The major investment by Canon in print production sector is partially aimed to make up for lost time, as the much delayed imagePRESS C7000 caused the company to lose ground to rivals Fuji Xerox and Konica Minolta between Ipex 06 and drupa 08. Prior to 2006 Canon was perceived as a market leader in digital colour printing with its CLC range of colour printers.
The latest digital colour printer is the imagePRESS C6000, an entry level version of the imagePRESS C7000VP launched last year with 30 units so far sold into Australia. The C6000 has the same engine as the C7000, and full inline finishing capability including folding, stitching, binding and laminating.
While not matching the C7000VP’s speed of 70 prints per minute, the C6000, is cheaper and only requires single phase power inlet, and still reaches speeds of 60 prints per minute, although this may drop to 41 for heavier stocks. Duty cycle is 50,000-150,000 prints a month, which is roughly half that of the C7000.
The new press is being marketed at small to medium size print service providers that want to add short-run document production to their existing digital output services. The device is also tailored to central reprographic departments and in-plants that need to control colour printing costs, quality and turnaround times.
Canon is quoting a price per A3 colour sheet to printers of around 8.5c, but is aiming to introduce a toner exclusive pricing strategy by the end of the year for commercial printers, in order to align itself with commercial printers’ current, offset, pricing strategy.
Tony Wills, senior general manager of Canon Australia says the new digital printing products as well as the new print production centre will be an important part of the company’s evolution into commercial print. He admitted the C7000VP was delayed in its launched which cost Canon business, but says in the long run the product has been a success.
He says, “While the 7000 was delayed around two year, which did lose some business, we didn’t want to launch a product that wasn’t completely ready. People can criticise us for being late to .market but the product has been a success with 30 units sold in Australia since its launch.” Wills says in the US Canon is currently selling around 100 units a month
The new print production centre comprises an entire floor at the Canon’s north Ryde headquarters, which has adapted a print factory style theme to enable customers to trial products in a realistic environment.
Will continues, “People are being drawn to centralised print production and we are at a stage where w are investing heavily in research and development. We have done customer research locally and globally, which is being incorporated into our products, we are sparing no expense in what is a new business for Canon.”
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