Canon Extends Support of EFI Fiery-Based Production Workflow Solution to Maximize Customers’ Productivity and Equipment Investment

EFI Fiery Central Added to imagePRESS Workflow Solutions Program

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Lake Success, N.Y. and Foster City, Calif. – March 25 , 2008 – Canon U.S.A., the overall brand market share leader in digital color printing systems in the U.S. i, and EFI (Nasdaq: EFII), the world leader in customer-focused digital printing innovation, today announced the inclusion of EFI Fieryâ Central powerful modular, PDF-based production workflow solution as part of Canon’s imagePRESS Workflow Solutions program. Encompassing EFI’s unmatched expertise, Fiery Central enables print service providers in medium to high-volume print-on-demand environments, such as corporate reprographic departments (CRD), print for pay, and commercial printers, to increase job volume, decrease turnaround times and maximize their Canon imagePRESS and imageRUNNER product investment.

“Helping customers optimize their digital workflow and automate redundant tasks is necessary to maximize profits on their digital printing operation. By integrating the Fiery Central production workflow solution and EFI’s and Canon’s high-end production solutions, our customers can better manage their end-to-end digital workflow and streamline monochrome and color production printing to further develop and enhance their digital business,” said Janet Cain, senior director, Canon U.S.A., Inc.

“With Fiery Central, we’ve extended the Fiery power familiar to many Canon customers, delivering an unprecedented production workflow solution that optimizes their resources and increases their production,” said Frank Mallozzi, senior vice president, worldwide marketing and sales, EFI. “With Canon now offering Fiery Central for more of their digital color printing systems, more customers will realize the tremendous value of EFI’s robust portfolio of integrated products specifically designed to drive their increased competitiveness, efficiency and profitability.”

Readily enabling connection to multiple imagePRESS and imageRUNNER devices, Fiery Central is a powerful yet flexible solution that leverages Canon customers’ existing investment in Fiery-driven Canon imagePRESS server, Canon ColorPASS and Canon imagePASS technology and their familiarity with the Fiery workflow. Further, JDF connectivity enables a broadened range of integrated workflows. To address customers’ specific needs and expand as their workflow requirements change, Fiery Central comes in three modular components, Fiery Central Focus, Fiery Central Flow and Fiery Central Balance.

Fiery Central Focus, the base module, provides a centralized job management solution for multiple Fiery-driven imagePRESS, ColorPASS and imagePASS digital servers in a production environment. Focus includes award-winning Fiery applications such as the EFI Command WorkStation® (CWS) interface, EFI Hot Folders to automate the job set-up process and reduce errors, and EFI Driver, which simplifies the process of setting up, submitting and monitoring print jobs. The Focus module also includes EFI Scan, which improves the job process by scanning black and white and color documents to the workflow and provides manipulation of scanned content. Focus also has two options for digital document preparation: The Compose feature eases job composition and make-ready by allowing users to visually assign and communicate page-level attributes and tabs to any printer. Impose reduces production time and errors by allowing WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) display for nearly any imposition scheme and by creating templates for simple, scalable workflows.

Customers are able to add on optional modules to Focus to address their needs:

Fiery Central Flow automates manual tasks and offers advanced digital prepress capabilities in a simple, cost-effective solution. Leveraging Fiery technology that delivers powerful capability via an intuitive interface, this module is icon-based and features a unique Visual Workflow to optimize productivity by providing job progress at-a-glance. Fiery Central Flow incorporates file conversion, preflight, color management, approval, routing to another workflow and proofing processes into customizable workflows that can be edited and managed by users of any skill level to optimize resources and increase production.

Fiery Central Balance increases productivity by combining multiple Canon devices into a “printer group” for optimized asset utilization. For complex documents, Fiery Central Balance routes jobs to one or more devices within the printer group for load balancing and maximum speed. With this module’s intelligent routing function, jobs can be split by volume, color/black and white and deployed to the best engine or combination of engines.

As the print service provider’s business grows, imagePRESS and imageRUNNER engine connectivity can be added to accommodate changing production requirements. Fiery Central’s modular structure enables production of complex documents easily, faster and more efficiently.

Fiery Central support includes the following Canon digital printing systems, delivering a single high-end production workflow that brings together analog and digital processes: imagePRESS series, imageRUNNER Pro series, Color imageRUNNER C5185 series with a ColorPASS or imagePASS server and, imageRUNNER 7105 series with an imagePASS–S2, as well as legacy engine support. Fiery Central is integral to a highly efficient end-to-end workflow, which includes customer’s document submission via the web with EFI Digital StoreFront™, Fiery-driven imagePRESS servers, ColorPASS and imagePASS digital servers, and optimal print shop management with EFI Print MIS solutions.

Fiery Central is among the Canon imagePRESS Workflow Solutions, comprising Canon and third-party solutions that add value in imagePRESS customer environments. This Canon program focuses on key workflows in production printing environments to maximize efficiencies and help printers build and grow a profitable digital print business. Fiery Central represents EFI’s next generation of digital print production workflow technology, leveraging the company’s industry-leading Fiery digital print server technology widely used by Canon customers.

Availability

EFI solutions designed for Canon U.S.A., Inc. are available through Canon U.S.A., Inc. authorized dealers , at 1-800-OK-CANON and http://www.usa.canon.com. Fiery Central will be available through Canon U.S.A., Inc. authorized dealers later this month.

About Canon U.S.A., Inc.
Canon U.S.A., Inc. delivers consumer, business-to-business, and industrial imaging solutions. The Company is listed as one of Fortune's Most Admired Companies in America and is on the 2007 BusinessWeek list of "Top 100 Brands.” Its parent company, Canon Inc. (NYSE:CAJ) is a top patent holder of technology, ranking third overall in the U.S. in 2007†, with global revenues of $39.3 billion. To keep apprised of the latest news from Canon U.S.A., sign up for the Company’s RSS news feed by visiting www.usa.canon.com.
i Source – Gartner Dataquest – “Printer, Copier and MFP Quarterly Statistics – Database, 4Q2007” , February 2008
†IFI Patent Intelligence Press Release, January 2008

About EFI
EFI (www.efi.com) is the world leader in customer-focused digital printing innovation. EFI's award-winning solutions, integrated from creation to print, deliver increased performance, cost savings and productivity. The company's robust product portfolio includes Fiery® digital color print servers; VUTEk® superwide digital inkjet printers, UV and solvent inks; Jetrion® industrial inkjet printing systems; print production workflow and management information software; and corporate printing solutions. EFI maintains 26 offices worldwide.