December 14, 2009 – Wokingham (UK) – Buyers Laboratory Inc. (BLI), the world’s leading independent evaluator of document imaging products and solutions, today announced its Fall 2009 “Outstanding Achievement Award” winners, honouring innovative products and solutions from Canon, Ricoh, Lexmark ABBYY Inc. and InfoPrint. The Fall 2009 “Outstanding Achievement Award” winners are:

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Canon Inc. imageRUNNER ADVANCE Series Outstanding Achievement in Ease of Use Outstanding Achievement in Scanning Xerox Corporation Outstanding Achievement in IT Friendliness Ricoh Americas Corporation Outstanding Achievement in Print Driver Innovation Lexmark International, Inc. Outstanding Achievement in Printer Design Innovation Lexmark T654 RFID UHF Option Outstanding Achievement in Custom Print Solutions ABBYY Inc. ABBYY TouchTo 1.0 Outstanding Achievement in Integrated Scan Solutions InfoPrint Solutions Company Outstanding Achievement in Printer Design Innovation

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“Every year, BLI has the privilege to test hundreds of document imaging products. And every year, a few of those stand out as truly unique offerings that advance the state of the art or address a particular customer need in a groundbreaking way,” said BLI Managing Editor Daria Hoffman. “With our ‘Outstanding Achievement’ awards, we are able to showcase the bar-raising technologies and capabilities in document imaging we see in our lab testing and give them the recognition they deserve.”

Canon Honoured For Superior Ease Of Use and Scanning
“With the host of new scanning features found on the Canon imageRUNNER ADVANCE Series and the new Quick Menu that greatly enhances ease of use, the process of converting hard-copy documents into digital files has never been quicker or easier,” said BLI European Laboratory and Research Manager David Sweetnam. The entire walk-up menu system has been updated and, while maintaining the same overall menu structure that has been a favourite of BLI for many years, the updated icons and overall experience make the control panel more intuitive than ever before, all aided by a large SVGA touch screen which BLI technicians found very responsive. “Canon has raised the personalization capabilities of the office MFP to new heights with the introduction of the Quick Menu,” said Sweetnam. In addition to the customary shared one-touch buttons that have been offered on Canon devices for many years, users are now able to store their own personal workflows, including all settings and destinations, as a single one-touch button. These one-touch Quick Menu items are linked to the user account and can be accessed via the hard button located on the console control panel. Scan to USB capabilities have also been enhanced to include the ability to create folders on USB memory drives before commencing scan-back tasks—a feature unique to Canon—aiding users’ ability to locate files on the drive at a later date. Similarly, document filing has been improved with advanced storage capabilities allowing users to create personal folder structures to aid in locating their stored documents. These folders can be accessed by other Canon imageRUNNER ADVANCE devices on the network or from the desktop.

Canon Also Raises The Bar For Scanning
As softcopy and hardcopy convergence continues to be a mission-critical workflow for companies, Canon has raised the bar in the feature set it offers for scanning on its next generation imageRUNNER ADVANCE print platform. Canon has added true Adobe PDF into the scanning architecture of its devices to its already impressive offering that includes searchable PDF creation, personal digital signature attachment and compact PDF file sizes smaller that of most competing units. The first MFP vendor to adopt true Adobe® PDF, Canon is now able to offer a selection of new scanning features including direct integration with Adobe® Policy® Rights Management Server and the addition of Reader Extension PDF. As a result, recipients of a file scanned from a Canon imageRUNNER ADVANCE model receive a much more valuable document than the image file sent from other MFPs—one that can not only be read but edited and annotated with “sticky notes.” Canon has also introduced for the first time on an MFP the ability to convert scan files into Office Open XML (OOXML) files, which can be opened directly into Microsoft Office (currently limited to PowerPoint 2007). In addition, Canon has introduced specific low-cost direct scan integration module options allowing direct integration into Microsoft SharePoint and its own imageWARE Document Manager document management application into its devices without the need to purchase additional third-party or other costly generic scan-routing applications. “All this additional scanning capability is backed up by a new 300-sheet single pass duplexing document feeder and exceptional scan speeds throughout the line that surpass rival units by a considerable margin,” said Sweetnam. “Documents are the lifeblood of any organization and handling hard copy and electronic documents is an integral part of office life,” said Paul Rowntree, European Marketing Manager, Canon Europe. “Canon imageRUNNER ADVANCE is a groundbreaking print platform that delivers improved efficiency, security, cost savings and a lower environmental impact. By automating paper-intensive document processes through powerful scanning functionality and a new user-friendly interface, Canon imageRUNNER ADVANCE enables workforces to become more productive.”

IT Friendliness Earns Xerox High Praise
“When it comes to IT friendliness, Xerox’s devices have the total package, featuring highly automated setup procedures, detailed device status right from the print drivers, as well as universal drivers that simplify deployment and robust security features,” said BLI Assignments Editor George Mikolay. “Whereas most competitive vendors require users to install additional software that bogs down the network for feedback, with Xerox’s bidirectional print drivers, no other utilities need to be installed in order for users to check the status of the device directly from the drivers,” said BLI Manager of Laboratory Testing Pete Emory. “The drivers also automatically detect configured accessories and provide updated and accurate information in real time without requiring users to take the extra step required with most competitive devices,” said Emory, who added the information provided is very detailed, including information on remaining paper and toner supplies and a list of active jobs and completed jobs. Also making life easier for IT administrators are Xerox’s Global and Mobile Express print drivers. Honoured with a Fall 2008 BLI “Outstanding Achievement” award, these drivers enable users in environments with a mix of products to print to just about any device on the network—printer or copier, Xerox or non-Xerox—with just one driver installed. Further contributing to the overall IT friendliness of Xerox products is a robust security feature set that includes full system Common Criteria Certification for many devices and hard drive overwrite as a standard feature, as well as administrative utilities that offer robust reporting. “Xerox has a long heritage of technology innovation. We recognized long ago the importance of delivering products, tools and services that meet the needs of users as well as IT administrators,” said David Bates, Vice President, Office Marketing Programs, Xerox Corporation. “Xerox delivers the right technology to help businesses save money, safeguard documents, and improve work processes.”

Ricoh Simplifies Printing With Universal Driver
Ricoh’s Universal Print Driver allows users to find and print to a variety of Ricoh and non-Ricoh printers and MFPs on a network, while offering a consistent driver feel, even in mixed product environments. “Available in PCL and PostScript varieties, Ricoh offers the same driver look and feel, regardless of the device used to print documents, which simplifies ease of printing and ultimately increases worker productivity, because users don’t need to become familiar with different drivers for different devices,” said BLI Senior Printer Analyst Marlene Orr. “In our lab testing of the Ricoh Universal Driver, we found it simple to discover, select and print to a variety of models, both Ricoh and non-Ricoh, on our test network,” added BLI Senior Test Technician Tony Maceri. “The PrinterSwitcher utility is very user friendly and allows users to select and save a list of favorite printers, which is presented each time a job is sent to allow printing to different devices with minimal effort. Even better, the driver doesn’t have to be reinstalled or reconfigured if new printers are added to the network; just click discover in the PrinterSwitcher and the list is instantly updated to include the new devices, allowing users to take advantage of newly installed devices without waiting for IT to deploy new drivers.” “At Ricoh, we are constantly looking to develop new solutions that, at the end of the day, make the lives of our customers easier and free up time for them to focus on critical business functions,” said Joyce Ouellette, Director, Solution Marketing, Ricoh Americas Corporation. “By providing a single, advanced driver that can work across virtually any printing device, companies are able to simplify printer support, obtain a lower total cost of ownership, and still having access to full featured printing, making each printing experience seamless.”

Lexmark Praised For Moving Beyond The Box
With the new T656dne, which incorporates the company’s embedded Solutions Framework (eSF platform) and eTask touch-screen interface, Lexmark is the first vendor to offer a single-function printer that can be enhanced with a variety of software solutions that run on the device itself. “Lexmark printers have always been praised by BLI for their outstanding ease of use, but now Lexmark has raised the bar, greatly increasing ease of use, not only for walk-up printing, but also simplifying administrative functions at the control panel by incorporating its highly regarded touch screen eTask interface into its award-winning T Series printer line,” said Orr. “But even more significant is that, by incorporating its eSF platform to the design of a single-function printer, Lexmark has taken the T Series from being ‘just a printer’ to being a much more flexible device with a range of capabilities made possible by its suite of software solutions for enhanced security, print on demand and cost accounting, among others.” “Lexmark listens closely to its customers to fully understand their needs, and they have challenged us to go beyond the box and rethink what a printer can do,” said Marty Canning, Lexmark Vice President and President of its Printing Solutions and Services Division. “The result is the innovative and industry-leading Lexmark T656dne monochrome laser printer, a device that pushes the boundaries of everyday printing and brings workflow management to a single-function device. We continuously work to drive innovation in our products and solutions, and we are proud to have earned this distinguished award for the advanced functionality we’ve brought to the Lexmark T656dne.”

Lexmark Makes RFID Printing More Convenient And More Affordable
The Lexmark T654 RFID UHF Option is a unique solution that lets companies create labels and documents embedded with passive RFID (radio frequency identification) chips and circuitry on Lexmark’s legal-capable T654 monochrome laser printer. Unlike dedicated thermal-based RFID printing devices, the T654 RFID UHF Option enables companies to have a cost-effective multi-purpose device, since the T654 laser printer can be equipped with additional paper drawers for printing non-RFID media, such as everyday business documents. In a shipping department, for example, this enables a single device to create both the RFID-equipped shipping label and the accompanying plain-paper packing list, bill of lading, or manifest. “Previous to Lexmark’s laser-based offerings, companies had to rely on a single-purpose thermal-based printer with limited media-handling abilities. The Lexmark solution enables a single device to create both RFID-equipped output as well as plain-paper documents—and does so more cost effectively than a dedicated RFID thermal printer,” said BLI Associate Editor Jamie Bsales.

ABBYY TouchTo Lets Users Perform Indexing At The Scanner Control Panel
ABBYY TouchTo 1.0 is a unique add-in available for the Fujitsu fi-6010N Network Scanner that allows users to OCR index fields and route the data along with the scanned documents to back-end repositories such as DocuWare and Microsoft SharePoint simply by touching the appropriate data on the scanner’s touch-screen control panel and pressing the Send button. “By eliminating the need to manually enter the index data required to retrieve documents, TouchTo allows for faster document processing,” said BLI Research Editor Lisa Reider. “And since there is no re-keying of pertinent data, TouchTo also cuts down on operator errors, ensuring that crucial index fields are properly stored in an organization’s document repository.” While ABBYY has launched TouchTo with Fujitsu’s fi-6010N network scanner, thanks to the availability of an SDK it has the ability to port the technology to any operating system running on touch-screen-enabled devices utilizing scan or camera-based capture technology. In addition to integrating directly with DocuWare and Microsoft SharePoint, TouchTo can route documents to any ODBC-compliant database, as well as network and FTP folders. “Being recognized as a Fall 2009 ‘Pick’ winner shows that we are accomplishing what the company had set out to do when we developed ABBYY’s data capture products,” said Carmela Wong, Vice President of Marketing at ABBYY USA. “ABBYY’s TouchTo technology integrates with the Fujitsu fi-6010N iScanner, turning it into a solution that helps manage the increasing amount of information being produced today. TouchTo gives people a simple way to transform data into more easily accessible and useful knowledge.” “We’re pleased that Buyers Lab has chosen ABBYY TouchTo on the Fujitsu fi-6010N network scanner as a Fall 2009 award winner for ‘Outstanding Achievement in Integrated Scan Solutions,’” said Scott Francis, Vice President of Marketing for Fujitsu Computer Products of America, Inc. “As more organizations extend their workforces across dispersed networks, Fujitsu is committed to offering superior scanning solutions that allow customers to easily and efficiently share scanned documents across the entire network. With this goal in mind, we’ve worked closely with ABBYY on the TouchTo OCR technology integration, and the industry recognition from Buyers Lab reinforces its compelling business value to companies looking to expand their capture deployment.”

InfoPrint Praised For Printer Design Innovation
InfoPrint Solutions Company, the joint venture between IBM and Ricoh, has earned praise from BLI for incorporating the embedded platform and touch-screen interface from its MFP line into its single-function printer line. The new 1892 printer represents the first single-function printer from the company to incorporate the embedded platform and touch-screen interface to allow for implementation of software applications. “InfoPrint has added real value and versatility to its single-function printer line by incorporating the touch-screen and preloaded applications,” said BLI Senior Test Technician Tony Maceri. “One particularly useful application is the Form and Favorites, which allows users to easily print a selection of predesigned forms and Web documents right from the control panel, ensuring they always have the most up-to-date documents. And because it is built on the embedded solutions platform, users can also add customized applications designed to suit their individual business needs.” “We are delighted to receive this prestigious accolade from BLI for our InfoPrint 1892 printer, the first single-function printer to include an embedded platform and touch-screen interface,” said Paul Preo, Vice President, Distributed Solutions, InfoPrint Solutions Company.

About Buyers Laboratory
Since 1961, Buyers Lab has been the leading independent office-equipment testing lab and business consumer advocate. In addition to publishing the industry’s most comprehensive and accurate test reports on office document imaging devices, each representing months of exhaustive hands-on testing in BLI's US and UK laboratories, the company has been the leading source for extensive databases of specifications and pricing on copiers, printers, fax machines and multifunctional products. The company's databases cover over 10,000 products and have a long-standing reputation for being the industry’s most trustworthy and complete source for global competitive intelligence. They are available to BLI subscribers online via the company's bliQ competitive information service. This encyclopedic resource also provides quick and easy access to BLI's First Look Reports, Field Test Reports, Lab Test Reports, Solutions Reports, and BLI-produced articles. In addition to the testing of office equipment for its subscribers, Buyers Lab provides consulting services to buyers and a vast array of confidential for-hire private testing services that include document imaging device beta and pre-launch testing, performance certification testing, consumables testing (such as toner, ink and photoconductors), software and solutions and print media testing (including virgin and recycled papers). For more information on Buyers Lab, please call +44(0) 118 977 2000, visit www.buyerslab.com, or e-mail info@buyerslab.com.