Steve Brown, Canon Australia graphic arts business manager says, “Our approach to commercial print market is to show that Canon solutions can enhance the printers ability to meet the needs of the market, enabling them to take uneconomical jobs off the press and move them to one of our digital solutions”. Those solutions include monochrome and colour printers, large format inkjet printers, and innovative products such as the digital business card and stationary printers.
Canon is evolving from an office equipment supplier into a major business partner for the professional print market. It says it now has the hardware, software, support and most importantly, expertise and knowledge to add value to organisations in many areas of printing and publishing, with particular strength in the creative services, print for pay and corporate print environment.
The stand at drupa has been designed to reflect this evolution and is divided into three main zones, Commercial Imaging and Graphic Arts zone, Intelligent Publishing and Intelligent Production Printing. It has been created to simulate real professional print scenarios and applications in order to demonstrate how Canon can provide complete solutions including hardware, software and professional services, to improve processes and workflow for the customer.
In the Imaging and Graphic Arts zone, the focus is on proofing and the production of colour output in laser and large format printing, including the 8200, 7200 and 6200 printers, with emphasis on the benefits of colour management and workflow.
Visitors to the Intelligent Publishing zone experience high volume black and white production printing with what Canon says is cost-effective and high-quality colour. There is an emphasis on how job submission and production workflow improvements can increase the speed, flexibility and cost effectiveness of digitally printing a variety of applications, like books and manuals. On-demand business card production is also being shown in this zone.
Although the emphasis on production workflow is also the main theme in the Intelligent Production Printing zone, Canon will also demonstrate it solutions for transactional print production and management, as well as its E- maintenance service concept.
According to Brown, commercial printers are taking Canon’s entry into the professional market seriously. In the US Canon has signed an agreement to distribute NexPress 2100, but Brown thinks it is unlikely to happen in Australia in the immediate future. Canon US has also partnered with KPG, and the fruits of that agreement are likely to be seen in Australia.
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