Print on demand pulls EFI and Ricoh together

The two companies have formed a new partnership as part of an overall strategy to penetrate further into the high-end Print-On-Demand market.
Ricoh, a pioneer in digital office automation, which last year bought Hitachi Printing Solutions, has its sights on the high-end POD market. EFI, with its range of digital controllers, superwide format printers and print management solutions for commercial and enterprise printing, is a logical partner.
This business alliance builds upon the relationship dating back to EFI’s founding in 1989. The companies’ collaboration so far includes EFI’s Fiery server technology, with advanced production and workflow control capabilities for Ricoh’s Aficio multifunction products (MFPs).
Both companies share an open standards philosophy facilitates the collaborative process. Both parties are active participants in organizations such as PODi (PPML) and CIP4 (JDF), among others.
Specifically, the two companies have committed to working together in the following areas:

Development and marketing of POD workflow solutions to expand both EFI and Ricoh business in the Production Printing market;

Establishing a seamless process ranging from R&D through production, marketing and customer support.

“Following on our acquisition of Hitachi Printing Solutions last year we are now in a good position to take our POD initiative to the next level. EFI provides us with the right workflow solutions for this demanding market,” said Shiroh Kondoh, Executive VP, Head of Ricoh’s MFP Business, “?

“Ricoh's and EFI's joint objective in extending our relationship is to provide Ricoh's POD and production customers with EFI’s industry-leading digital controllers and innovative digital workflow solutions," said Guy Gecht, EFI CEO. "Our new alliance will create greater leverage and synergies between our two companies.”