Nice initiative: test drive some of the latest Xerox Innovation – Open Xerox is an Open Innovation space to explore Xerox technologies, interact with Xerox scientists, or even establish innovation partnerships.
Currently only one demo is available online – Natural Language Color Editing. This technology lets user use common words and phrases to change and improve color images – no need for advanced photo editing skills and tools. Nice example of making very complex technology much simpler to use and accessible, with a simpler version being part of the Xerox 7500 color printer driver.
As we have seen in many of my previous posts, color can really help augment your document. The “Less Paper Office” is not only about printing less, it’s also about printing better to make your documents more powerful – and here comes a great new way to do so.
I don’t usually blog much about Xerox machines, but the new ColorQube 9200 is a real breakthrough. It brings together Xerox’s well proven solid ink technology with very advanced Multifunction device technology, including very high-speed network connectivity, speeds up to 85 pages per minute, and a configurable / programmable User Interface (Extensible Interface Platform) that lets you scan documents directly into your business process applications. You can read more on the technology innovations such as illuminated paper path, long-life repaceable cleaning unit, and others, or even see a virtual demo here.
If all this was not enough, the new ColorQube 9200 introduces a new – and cheaper! – way of printing in color. This new flexible pricing plan, based on a 3-tier model, makes you pay a price which much closely matches the actual color ink you use. In particular, this plan allows you to print much more powerful documents (Black plus Useful Color, i.e. highlight color on word documents) at the black-only rate!
To make it even more convincing, you can even use the associated Cost Savings Calculator to simulate how much you could be saving with this new offering!
As we know, the “Less Paper Office“ is mainly about printing less, but does include some exceptions or “micro trends”. Printing higher-quality, personalized, color documents is one of those -as it allows maximum impact for your printed document. This includes brochures, transpromo statements, leaflets, or cards. These documents however require more preparation, and generate more defects, as the final document, once printed, often does not quite match the electronic version - wrong colors, poor assembly, or other unpleasant side-effects, which make the final document unusable – and waste paper and money.
Xerox’s Research Centre Webster is working on a number of technologies to address these problems. One “cool” technology is 3-D Document Visualisation, which lets the user “preview” the final print result in 3-D, allowing her to test various finishing options, such as folds, gloss, binding, texture, and many other parameters.
(For those of you who cannot see the video embedded here, please follow this link)
This should expedite the review and approval process for quality color prints. This process, according to InfoTrends, can be six times more expensive than the actual printing of the document. Not to mention, of course, the “green” and sustainability consequences: achieving the desired look and feel for the final document are a great step towards one more step towards the Less Paper Office.
I am in charge of ingesting smarter document technologies into Xerox. My group has a unique position between Xerox Research which I originate from, and our services operations, field and sales people. Our mission is to make smarter document management pervasive to all of Xerox's services and realize our vision of the document of the future.
