Konica Minolta jazzes up with bizhub PRESS C8000

Konica Minolta hits the right note with the launch of its new bizhub PRESS C8000 in Sydney.

Australian jazz trumpeter, James Morrison, blew at Blue, the swanky hotel located at Sydney’s Woolloomooloo Wharf, as 150 guests gathered to see the launch of Konica Minolta’s new flagship digital colour press, the bizhub PRESS C8000.

Customers and staff were flown in from around Australia for the launch and accommodated at the plush hotel for the night, underlining Konica Minolta’s growing reputation for serving up lavish hospitality at industry events.

Pictured: Proving himself multi-talent, the techno-savvy James Morrison blew a mean trumpet with iPad in hand.

The launch of the bizhub PRESS C8000 certainly warranted the celebration, marking the company’s push into the mid-range digital colour production market and building on the success it has achieved over the past five years in the digital ‘lite’ sector.

Hiro Kaji, managing director, Konica Minolta Business Solutions Australia, said the printing industry had not been an easy market for the company, best known as an office equipment supplier, to enter five years ago but, in the process, it had learnt a lot.

“We’ve put everything we’ve learned from the printing industry into the C8000,” he said.

The bizhub PRESS C8000 is an 80 A4 impressions per minute digital colour system with a 500,000 impressions monthly duty cycle. It can print on a full range of coated and uncoated stocks up to 350gsm with a maximum sheet size of 330 x 487mm.

Notable features include a built-in humidifier to return moisture to the sheet to prevent curling and inline densitometry control for real-time colour management. The C8000 prints at 1,200 x 1,200dpi and features a maximum capacity of 10,760 sheets for long production runs.

“The C8000 is proof of how serious we are about the printing industry,” said Kaji-san.

David Procter, national marketing manager for Konica Minolta Australia, then officially unveiled the C8000, announcing that it was time for the company to take the next step into the mid-range market.

“We want to take a step up,” he said. “We believe we have something that will make a real difference.”

Pictured: Brett Palmer with the bizhub PRESS C8000.

To highlight the versatile qualities of the new press, James Morrison swapped his trumpet for an iPad and played a new composition based on sound samples of the C8000 in operation.

No doubt, the sound of the press pumping out the sheets will be sweet music indeed to the ears of Konica Minolta and its customers.