News Article Business Solutions

Langenhagen, April 2007

Konica Minolta proudly announces the winning of three BERTL awards for its brand new bizhub C550, which uniquely combines cutting-edge design with functionality and form.  These include two Innovation awards for the bizhub C550's biometric authentication and user box features, and one award for Best Departmental Colour MFP Range which goes to the bizhub C550 and forthcoming devices in its range for their outstanding print feature set.

The bizhub C550 is the smallest in its class and is designed to be the hub of the office with its 360° design.  Its unique, compact design features a full colour, wide display and tilting touch screen that can be moved to suit a desired position. This screen features thumbnails of each job in the user box, allowing operators to release documents as and when they need them, which highly impressed the BERTL judges for the first Innovation award win.

As well as its sleek exterior, the bizhub C550 incorporates the BERTL award-winning biometric, finger vein authentication scanner which only allows authorised users to access a company's intellectual property, therefore advancing the device's security.  The forthcoming PageScope Enterprise suite for server-based account management is also included and is supportive of network layer encryption (IPsec) and network layer protocols (IPv6).

The third BERTL award, for Best Departmental Colour MFP Range with an outstanding print feature set, recognised the bizhub C550 and the other forthcoming devices in Konica Minolta's bizhub range. The range was commended for the layout of its user interface on the desktop and device, good image quality across the board with good fine line detailing, excellent halftone and greyscale reproduction, and crisp text down to small point sizes.

In addition to the three BERTL awards, the bizhub C550 also wins in the environmental stakes by featuring the latest thermo technology, known as Induction Fusing. This process keeps the heat stable and an induction heat transfer function provides more accurate and constant heating.  As a result, the machine uses less power and the device warms up in just 85 seconds, which means less time spent waiting for printouts and less energy consumed.

The bizhub C550 also uses Konica Minolta's unique polymerised toner, Simitri HD which needs less heat to set, meaning that the components and extras within the device are considerate to the environment, saving more energy and greatly reducing paper curling which can lead to paper jams and waste. Due to its technologically advanced manufacturing process, Simitri HD polymerised toner also emits 40% less CO2, NO2 and SO2 than conventional pulverised toners.

Olaf Lorenz, General Manager, Product Marketing Division for Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe says, "We are delighted the bizhub C550 has gained so much recognition in such a short space of time.  As the flagship product of our office range we are predicting the bizhub C550 to be a best seller."

"We are constantly developing and pushing our boundaries to develop the best products for our customers.  Our innovation in technology and design will continue to meet the high standards that the market demands."

BERTL award winners and nominees are selected after rigorous analysis of the hundreds of digital imaging devices, software, and management utilities in the market place.   BERTL analyses many factors including print and copy productivity, image quality, accessibility, design and build quality, standard functions and installation to provide the best advice to users and businesses.

About Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe
Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe GmbH is a leading provider of image information products with subsidiaries and distributors in more than 50 countries in the EMEA region. The company places major emphasis on the document management and solution business in the office and production environment, especially in the field of colour output as well as related supplies. Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe is a subsidiary of Konica Minolta Business Technologies, Inc., headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. With a total workforce of 19,800 employees world wide, Konica Minolta Business Technologies gained a net sales of over 4.42 billion Euros in fiscal 2005/2006. Building on its strong core of optical technologies developed over many years as a printer and camera manufacturer, Konica Minolta Business Technologies aims to be a corporation offering products and services that are essential to all areas of digital imaging. www.konicaminolta.eu

Terms and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and are hereby acknowledged.

Product images are available at www.konicaminolta-images.com


Contact

Susanne Doepke
Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe
Phone: +49 (0)511-7404-401
Susanne.Doepke(at)konicaminolta.eu

Konica Minolta team
Firefly Communications
Phone: +44 (0)20 7386 1508
konicaminoltateam(at)fireflycomms.com