50ppm Colour Digital Press For Mid-Volume Printers

Xerox has launched the claimed 50 page-per-minute (ppm) Docucolor 5000 digital press.

Xerox has launched the claimed 50 page-per-minute (ppm) Docucolor 5000 digital press.

It is said by the company to be the industry's first digital colour press to address the needs of print operations that have mid-range monthly print volumes that require more advanced printing features.

The company added that the digital printing press, one of a number of new products designed to bolster Xerox's colour printing portfolio, was unveiled at the AIIM/On Demand trade show in Philadelphia (USA).

Xerox said that it will be taking orders for the Docucolor 5000 in Europe from June 5.

The press will be sold through the Xerox accredited production resellers.

The Docucolor 5000 is designed for print providers that average between 30,000 and 150,000 impressions per month.

It features a 2,400 dots per inch (dpi) x 2,400dpi print resolution and laser technology.

The Docucolor 5000's 32-beam laser - compared to a typical two-beam laser - os claimed to allow the press to scan more data faster and at a higher resolution.

Xerox added that the digital press also offers tighter registration and a wider choice of colour management capabilities than light-production digital colour systems now on the market.

Designed to produce marketing brochures, posters and customised direct-mail pieces, amonst other print products, the digital press is also said to maintain its speed when printing on heavyweight, oversized and coated paper.

Jim Hamilton, a director of Infotrends' On Demand Printing and Publishing Consulting Service, said: "The productivity and price of the new Docucolor 5000 opens up new opportunities in the mid-production segment and extends Xerox's leadership.

The Docucolor 5000 offers the image resolution, broad substrate support and robustness of the higher-end Docucolor products at a price point that will make it attractive to a wide range of production sites." And Anoush Gordon, director and general manager of Xerox's Production Group, commented: "The Docucolor 5000 gives customers what they need to enter the digital colour market or grow their current digital colour business right here, right now.

Xerox's 10 years of experience developing industry-leading digital colour printing systems has resulted in an unparalleled product line, with more than 16,000 Xerox Docucolor production systems installed worldwide.

Regardless of a customer's print job requirements, or page volume, we offer the technology, workflow software and business support that lets them thrive in the expanding digital colour printing market." Infotrends' On Demand Printing and Publishing Consulting Service expects that the growth of digital colour printing will continue to accelerate.

Supporting the anticipated growth, Xerox said that it offers the industry's largest digital colour production printing line, with nine products ranging in speed from the 40ppm Xerox Docucolor 240 to the 110ppm Xerox iGen3 digital press.

The company added that last year, customers printed more than 10 billion pages on Xerox production colour systems, making the product line the most widely used in the industry.

According to Infosource, Xerox was number one in the European Colour 41+ppm market for the second half of 2005 with 63 per cent share, which was an increase of nine point year-on-year.

The Xerox Docucolor 5000 has a claimed high-capacity paper feeder that holds 4,000 sheets, with an optional feeder that can expand capacity to 8,000 sheets from four trays.

It can feed all media from all trays, which Xerox believes is a key productivity advantage.

There are two optional finishing devices - a high-capacity stacker, and a stacker and stapler.

A new PC-based user interface is also daid to make the Docucolor 5000 easy to use.

It is the first Xerox digital press that has a user interface driven by a keyboard and mouse, making programming jobs and adjusting images quick and simple.

With the choice of three different colour servers, the Docucolor 5000 can be integrated in to a print operation's existing print workflow.

Print providers can choose the Xerox Freeflow DocuSP colour server - the workstation that processes incoming print files and drives the digital press - or products from Creo or EFI, added the company.

In addition, print providers can use Xerox's Freeflow digital workflow collection of products that are said to align digital and offset printing, automate operations and build new revenue-generating applications.

To help customers maximise their digital investment, Xerox said it is also offering a graphic communications business development starter kit, part of Xerox Profitaccelerator digital business resources.

The kit is designed specifically for the Docucolor product line and has seven parts focusing on the essentials of digital printing.

The kit features aid and support for various aspects of the digital printing business - financial, sales and marketing, creative and design, applications development, paper and media, training, and business development support.

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