Ricoh and Heidelberg Form Global Alliance

Ricoh and Heidelberg announced plans for a global strategic partnership. As a first step, both companies agreed to enter into a global distribution contract for Ricoh's Production Printing Product portfolio. This agreement enables Heidelberg to sell Ricoh's latest color digital press, the Ricoh ProTM C901 Graphic Arts Edition—Ricoh`s high speed color digital press with Ricoh PxPTM Chemical toner, as well as appropriate future production printing offerings in Ricoh's pipeline. The global strategic cooperation, which includes Ricoh services and support, will start in April 2011. The first markets will be UK and Germany, with a phased rollout to follow in other regions with completion targeted for drupa 2012.

Digital printing continues to grow as commercial printers extend their business models to offer marketing services, short run color, and same-day service. Offset printers are increasingly seeking to complete their portfolios with a flexible digital solution integrated into their existing high quality offset environment. The Ricoh and Heidelberg partnership will support them in growing their core offset business and enable them to offer more flexibility towards their clients using Ricoh's latest digital print technology. Today, offset printers have access to a nearly unlimited range of printing substrates, spot colors, and state-of-the-art coating applications as well as speciality inks through Heidelberg's market leading offerings. By adding Ricoh's leading digital production printing technology, professional printers will be able to offer the well-known advantages of variable data printing, instant delivery of urgent print jobs and cost effective production of shorter run lengths.

The Ricoh Pro C901 Graphic Arts Edition addresses the needs of commercial printers to build a high quality, digital color printing environment. Featuring a production speed of 90 ppm, it is one of the fastest and most productive system in the digital value segment. This segment includes systems providing production speeds between 60 ppm and 90 ppm with an actual monthly production volume from 80,000 to 300,000 A4 pages and beyond. Providing high quality output, the Ricoh Pro C901 Graphic Arts Edition is an ideal solution to meet the expanding demand for shorter print-runs, variable data printing and rapid delivery on a wide range of substrates.