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Ricoh Develops New Inkjet Printer Based on Gel-Type Ink November 20, 2003 (TOKYO) — Ricoh Co, Ltd, a Japanese office electronics equipment marker, held a press conference to announce its new inkjet printers. This is the first time the company has entered the inkjet printer market.
“It is a special press event, because the president of Ricoh attended,” said Masamitsu Sakurai, president, CEO, and COO of Ricoh (photo1). This message represented a strong expectation the company has of the new products.
Some markers such as Epson Corp of Japan, Canon Inc of Japan, and Hewlett-Packard Co of the US sell inkjet printers mainly for home use. “We are proud of our position as a major office electronic equipment maker. We could not deliver inkjet printers to offices in the past, although we have had inkjet printing technology for over 30 years,” said Sakurai. “With the new inkjet technology involved in the new products, we just started to develop the new market, that is, inkjet printers for office use,” added Sakurai.
In offices, laser printers usually are used because of speed. Conventional inkjet printers have a weakness in that they take time for the ink to dry. Small companies and individual divisions or groups in large companies must use monochrome laser printers because color laser printers are expensive and inkjet printers are too slow. As Sakurai said, Ricoh sells the new products in the low-end and mid-range office printer market.
At the conference, the company introduced three technologies to achieve the fast inkjet printers. The most important one is new ink. For inkjet printers, pigment ink and/or dyestuff ink are used in general. Pigment ink has as a weakness long drying time, and dyestuff ink has a soft point at blotting. The new ink overcomes these drawbacks, according to the company. New ink is based on pigment ink, but it has a new feature. Just after the ink was launched on paper, moisture of the ink was absorbed into the paper and the liquid ink became the stable and dry gel.
Two other technologies are a large inkjet head and a paper feeding mechanism. They also contribute to the high speed processing. The company announced two models at the conference (photo2). One, the IPSiO G 707, is 89,800 yen and its performance is 8.5 pages per minute at color printing. The other, the IPSiO G505, is 59,800 yen and its performance is 7 pages per minute at color printing. Both models will be shipped in Japan in February 2004. (108.10 yen = US$1)
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