Press release Konica Minolta makes history with winning the A3 MFP Line of the Year Award for the fourth year in a row Langenhagen, Germany, January 2014 There could hardly be a better start for Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe into 2014 than with winning the BLI’s A3 MFP Line of the Year for the fourth time in a row – unparalleled in the decades-long history of BLI Awards. Each year Buyers Lab, world’s leading provider of information and testing services to the document-imaging industry, awards the vendor whose product line is best, based on an extensive list of criteria. Konica Minolta convinced the jury across all areas - reliability, image quality, ease of use and productivity. In addition, Konica Minolta has also won four individual device awards following BLI Pick of the Year Awards for the bizhub C364e, bizhub C454e, bizhub 554e and the Mono Printer for Mid-Size Workgroups bizhub 4700P.
“To be awarded A3 Line of the Year already for the fourth time in a row is an extraordinary honour for us. This prestigious award fills us with pride and confirmation for our continuous efforts to enable our customers’ businesses. With the development of new top-class products as well as offering future-proof software and services, we – i.e. our customers and Konica Minolta together – are well positioned for continued growth”, says Olaf Lorenz, General Manager, International Marketing Division Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe. The fact that the company has been awarded with this accolade for the fourth year in a row speaks for itself: Konica Minolta is known for its customer centricity and understanding of its partners’ challenges; a development that is being mirrored by Konica Minolta’s evolution from a hardware to a services provider in recent years. The assessment considers criteria such as the breadth of the vendor’s line and its ability to provide quality products suitable to a broad spectrum of customer needs,
1
from low-volume to high-volume. “What it boils down to with Konica Minolta is consistency,” said George Mikolay, BLI’s senior product editor for A3/Copier MFPs. “Whereas competing lines may stand out in certain speed bands, or in either colour or black, Konica Minolta’s engines stand out across the board – in reliability, ease of use and image quality – in virtually all speed bands in both colour and black. No other vendor brings the same quality of performance across its product line to the same degree.” BLI Managing Editor Daria Hoffman underlines: “What Konica Minolta has achieved with a fourth consecutive Line of the Year win is unprecedented. The fact that year after year Konica Minolta continues to surpass the competition is a testament to the sustained quality of its A3 line.” Reliability has proven to be the quality most important to buyers, and Konica Minolta’s product line has proven its mettle in this regard. Its current A3 products have logged more than 1.5 million impressions in BLI’s lab with consistently reliable performance. “In fact,” said Mikolay, “at real-world monthly usage volumes, it would take five Konica Minolta devices before users would experience even a single misfeed a month among them.” BLI Manager of Laboratory Testing Pete Emory added, “The reliability Konica Minolta devices have consistently shown, from the low end to the high end, truly separates its line from others we have tested.” And the fact that Konica Minolta’s devices have user-replaceable colour drums means that, unlike with many competitive devices, a service call is not required to replace them – a design that maximizes uptime.” Furthermore, Konica Minoltas bizhub C364e, bizhub C454e, bizhub 554e and bizhub 4700P have won the BLI Pick of the Year Awards in the speed ranges from 31- to 40-ppm, 41- to 50-ppm and 51- to 60-ppm. Similarly to the “Pick”-winner of the previous year - bizhub C364, bizhub C454 and bizhub C554 – the tested products of Konica Minolta are convincing with their reliability and quality during the whole printing process. Their – over all devices identical – multi-touch operation and panel customisation allow operating the device panel like a smartphone or tablet PC. This asset of overall consistency regarding functionality and usability also applies to Konica Minolta’s software and OpenAPI as well as IWS application platform. Users benefit from the easy, intuitive usability and the option to customise the user interface to their needs. Besides the efficient productivity and performance improvement, the bizhub C364e, bizhub C454e, bizhub 554e boast in addition an enhanced scan function which allows for the creation of Word or Excel documents directly on the user’s PC. Especially the bizhub C364e and the bizhub 554e impressed the jury. “Add it all up and the bizhub C364e provides users with uptime that its peers in this speed band just can’t match,” said BLI Research Editor Jessica
2
Schiffenhaus. BLI Manager of Laboratory Testing Pete Emory added, “The bizhub 554e offers many great features, but above all, it’s proven to be very reliable.” Beside the “Pick”-winning bizhub C364e and bizhub C454e, Konica Minolta’s currently available A3 business colour models include the highly recommended bizhub C224e, bizhub C284e, bizhub C554e; the bizhub C654e and bizhub C754e. Konica Minolta’s currently available A3 monochrome models include the “Pick”winning bizhub 554e, and the Highly Recommended bizhub 364e, as well as the bizhub 215, bizhub 224e, bizhub 284e, bizhub 454e, bizhub 654e and bizhub 754e. Konica Minolta also offers production devices, including the PRO-Award winning bizhub PRESS C7000 (2013) and bizhub PRESS 1250/1250P (2014), which further add to the scope and breadth of Konica Minolta’s offerings.
About Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe GmbH, based in Langenhagen, Germany, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Konica Minolta Inc., Tokyo, Japan, forming part of its Business Technologies business area. As a leading global service provider in the field of IT- and document processes as well as digital production printing solutions the company excels in service-led business consulting, implementation and management and provides a range of world-leading printing systems and solutions. In this context, Konica Minolta’s Optimized Print Services concept (OPS) combines consultancy, hardware, software implementation, and operation in order to enhance business process efficiency and cost-effectiveness. To support customers optimally with powerful and sustainable solutions, technology leader Konica Minolta continuously invests in research and development work and regularly sets new standards. Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe is represented by subsidiaries and distributors in more than 50 countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). With over 30,600 employees around the world (as of June 2012), Konica Minolta’s Business Technologies business area earned net sales of over EUR 5.4 billion in financial year 2012/13.
3
For further information about the company, visit www.konicaminolta.eu. Product images are available at www.konicaminolta-images.eu. Terms and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and are hereby acknowledged.
Contact Konica Minolta Silke Z端hlke Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe GmbH Phone: +49 (0)511 7404-5604 silke.zuehlke@konicaminolta.eu
4