WTF, Memjet Partners with Fuji/Xerox, Canon/Oce & Toshiba

I was surprised to say the least!  While reading through the Drupa Press Releases (for those who don't know, DRUPA is the worlds largest print & imaging show. It's held once every four years in beautiful Dusseldorf, Germany.  I like to call it the Olympics of Print & Imaging) I read that Fuji/Xerox, Canon/Oce and Toshiba have partnered with Memjet to produce wide format systems that will incorporate Memjets Waterfall print head.

Fuji Xerox will integrate Memjets Waterfall printhead into a 42 inch roll feed wide format system for printing technical and production graphics.  Up to 1600x1600 dpi resolution. 1600x1600 will print at 150mm per second and lower resolution will print at 300mm per second.  What!  mm per second?  WTF is that?  A quick conversion will tell us that 25.4 mm equals one inch. Dang at 300mm per second you'll get full color output at 11.8 inches per second!  Thats' fast! The video on the left is the Fiji/Xerox unit at Drupa  Awesome!
Not to be outdone, Toshiba has also partnered with Memjet.  Here's a snippet from the Press Release:

Under the partnership, Toshiba TEC Corporation will initially work to integrate Memjet components into a Multi-Function Peripheral (MFP) product targeted for the office market. The MFP will feature a scanner, photocopier and color printer that produces high-quality color pages at 60 pages per minute, thanks to Memjet's revolutionary page-wide print head, controller chip, software and ink. A future MFP product co-developed by both companies is being exhibited at drupa, the world's largest print industry event in Dusseldorf, Germany, in the Memjet booth, Hall 5, E28.

So, while Fuji/Xerox and Canon/Oce are focusing their efforts on wide format, Toshiba will concentrate with incorporating the technology with MFP's.  I haven't heard of anyone writing about or seeing the "future" MFP at Drupa yet.  Wish I was there, maybe in four years, right?

Now Canon/Oce has developed a device called "Project Velocity" and it seems this will be an Oce wide format system that will also use the Memjet Waterfall print head.  In a recent press release it was stated that there would be a working wide format system on preview at Drupa for printing maps and posters at a speed of 500AO format sheets. I'm not even going to look that up. It's fast!  This system is reported to house six rolls of paper.

I've been following Memjet and Silverbrook Technologies for sometime.  Recently some of their print heads have shown up in print devices that were more the size of an A4 printer.  I've only seen one and all I can say is that the user was excited about the speed but..... let me put it this way there was an issue with the color.  However, with partnering with the like of Xerox, Canon and Toshiba and the possibility of having color matching rips, I'm thinking the sky is not the limit any more for Memjet.   

-=Good Selling=-

Ricoh Adds Wide Format Color "OMG not the gel"

I'll make this one pretty quick.  I was alerted to an email that Ricoh unveiling a unique four-colour wide format printer and giving demonstrations at Drupa 2012.  I posted the press release here Ricoh Adds Colour to Its Wide Format Portfolio.

I'm all for new products, I've still got my feet on the street and since Epson 7700 and 9700 is now being sold by others (this was exclusive to Ricoh for awhile), well we need something we can call our own, right?

Take a look at the picture on the left, this thing is ugly! right!

About two years ago, I was able to see samples from the wide format gelsprinter and was asked to rate the color samples for Ricoh.  I'm sure I was not the only one, but with my experience in wide format it was my pleasure.  I asked about the print technology as was politely told that the technology was still under wraps.  The print quality?  It was actually very good from what I saw.

Anyway, back to this new wide format Gelsprinters.  I like Ricoh products, well most of them....except for the Gelsprinters.  About three years ago I sold 35-50 of them in one year.  They were fast, had large ink cartridges, decent quality and the printers were inexpensive!  I had one myself, and then I had two and finally three. In all 3 I got the system error 0999 code (which basically means a maintenance kit is required), to this day I think there maybe two or three left that are still running. One account had the system error code in every printer (not all at once but over time).

What's my point? From what I read this new Ricoh Aficio™ MP CW2200SP is using the same print technology.  I can only pray that these systems will run much better than the gelsprinters that I'm accustom to.

-=Good Selling=-