Xerox launched a four-pronged attack on SA markets at Computer Faire yesterday, with new laser printers, production printing systems, document management software and services. The announcement follows a worldwide launch in New York two weeks ago.
Although most Xerox printers are available in SA and other developing markets, some have been adapted to suit extreme climatic conditions, and will in certain cases be pitched at different areas in the office as in the US and Europe. "A home laser in the US might well be suited to the workgroup in developing regions," says Kaz Herchold, VP for Office Group in developing markets.
Two laser printers, the Phaser 7300 and 7700, are among the workgroup offerings. The printers` most salient feature is single-pass technology, printing a colour image in one pass, as opposed to the four passes (cyan, magenta, yellow and black) required by traditional colour lasers. The 7300 tabloid printer prints 37 pages per minute (ppm) in monochrome, and 30 in colour.
Guy Lomas, colour marketing manager for Xerox Middle East, India, Europe, Russia and Africa, says colour in European offices doubled between 1998 and 2000. The 7300, Xerox`s fastest workgroup colour laser, features a 500MHz processor and prints at 2 400 dots per inch (dpi). The 500MHz barrier has been long in the breaking, and together with falling prices, this speed and quality will no doubt drive colour acceptance in the office.
Advanced media capabilities include a toner density adjustment facility and a media sensing display, cost saving features (including Run Black mode), Web-based management tools, installer tools and sensors determining toner or paper levels.
Multitasking
Also exhibiting multifunctional printing devices, Xerox displayed its recently unveiled WorkCentre Pro 420, a printer/copier system with productivity features usually found at the higher end, such as duplexing (two-sided printing) and electronic pre-collation. Its multifunctionality is its value proposition, taking up less space and costing less than two devices - furthermore eliminating clusters of smaller devices in the office.
The 420 prints both sides at 11ppm and one side at 20ppm. Mehmet Sezer, Xerox SA marketing director, says Xerox customers have saved, on average, 15% to 20% in productivity gains and reduction of overall printing costs.
The WorkCentre 420 is aimed at customers with printing requirements of up to 15 000 prints per month. It prints in 600x1 800dpi with 256 shades of greyscale. Other WorkCentre products include the 315, 320, 412, 423 and 428.
Corporates that need colour are served by the midrange DocuColor range, which prints at less than R1 per page, while the ColorGrafX system serves the high-end and graphic art industry. The former uses Emulsion Aggregation toner, which is grown rather than crushed into uniformly spherical particles, enabling the use of less toner for the same effect. The ColorGrafX system is a wide-format printer that uses inkjet technology.
The company also launched DocuShare 3.0, which is Web-based document and content management software that captures, stores, manages and shares hard copy and electronic documents.
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