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Ricoh Ends Joint Venture with IBM

May 19, 2010  By


At the IPEX show this week, Ricoh announced that it is launching a new brand identity for InfoPrint, a venture until this point, had been jointly run by Ricoh and IBM. As of July, InfoPrint will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Ricoh.

The re-branding will consist of a new logo for any piece of equipment produced after May 14th. “The new logo illustrates the strategic evolution of our brand,” said Peter Lazaroff, InfoPrint Solutions’ Vice President of Marketing Communications. “It is a logical progression from the joint venture logo — which our many stakeholders have come to recognize — to our new logo, which includes several familiar elements, yet speaks to the progress of InfoPrint Solutions.”

At the show, InfoPrint also introduced the InfoPrint 5000 MP, additional InfoPrint 4100 models and new workflow software.

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The IBM/Ricoh joint venture was announced in January 2007 where Ricoh initially will acquired 51 percent of the new InfoPrint entity, which stemmed from IBM’s Printing Systems division. The venture had always intended for Ricoh to progressively take more ownership in InfoPrint over the course of three years, culminating in the full ownership.

“This agreement is key to Ricoh’s efforts to become a leading global
provider of output and print solutions,” said Masamitsu Sakurai,
President and CEO, Ricoh at the joint venture’s announcement in 2007. “We will invest the necessary resources to
make InfoPrint Solutions Company into a core business. Building on our
long association with IBM, we look forward to creating an
infrastructure that can address complex solutions and mission critical
environments.”


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