IBM Unveils Color Emulation Feature for Powerful, High-Speed Printer

IBM Unveils Color Emulation Feature for Powerful, High-Speed Printer

IBM announced today that an innovative AFP Color Emulation feature for its flagship Infoprint 4100 production printer is expected to be generally available beginning June 23, 2006. This component is designed to help clients preparing to migrate to high-speed color printing start their preparations today. It is also designed to allow print shops to send color output to both the web and a printer and to provide the flexibility for them to print in either high-quality monochrome or on a separate color device, depending on job requirements.

The color emulation feature can enable clients to design applications using GIF, TIFF, JPEG, or FS45 color objects and print them on the Infoprint 4100 without first having to convert them to the IPDS format. Using IBM’s innovative 256-level grayscale technology, this can help increase application versatility and reduce conversion cost, since one set of applications and resource libraries can be used for printing on both color and monochrome systems. In addition, the color emulation feature supports printing of FS11 check images commonly used in the financial services industry.

“This is the latest example of how we’re delivering on a solid roadmap to provide a cost-effective, full-color, high-speed solution for the printing of variable data,” said Karen Fukuma, vice president, production solutions, IBM Printing Systems. “Clients have told us they want the flexibility to print in color or monochrome, without sacrificing quality or sustaining high process costs.” POWER Technology Drives Color Emulation, Higher Speeds, Lower Costs Available on select models, the IBM Infoprint POWERâ„¢ controller represents the evolution of IBM’s proven Advanced Function Common Control Unitâ„¢ architecture and facilitates the creation of this new color emulation feature. The workload for grayscaled color object support on the Infoprint 4100 is handled by multiple POWER5â„¢ processors, providing highly scalable processing capability.

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