The following appears on mfpreport.com
By Brian Bissett
We first noticed and mentioned last month that the 13 and 16 ppm MP 1301 and MP 1601 A3-size monochrome MFPs that Ricoh launched in Japan were conspicuously lacking the Imagio name. Then we noticed this month that the related 20 and 25 ppm MP 2001 and MP 2501 series of A3-size monochrome models in Europe were similarly lacking the Aficio moniker. That seemed more than a coincidence, and Ricoh Europe subsequently confirmed that it is not.
Ricoh Europe said it dropped the Aficio name in February 2013. The brand will n
o longer appear on any new MFPs or printers. The company explained, “Aficio is being phased out as Ricoh aligns its naming conventions under the Ricoh ‘imagine.change.’ brand. It aims to make it easier for clients to recognize Ricoh offerings and allows Ricoh to communicate in a more streamlined manner as we expand our software and services portfolio alongside our hardware.”
Ricoh announced a restyled logo with the tag line “imagine.change.” at the start of the current fiscal year (The MFP Report, Apr 12). At the time, Ricoh said the new corpo- rate ID “captures the essence of Ricoh’s approach — always moving forward with new ideas for improving its customers’ business, and understanding that change is driven by the power of the collective imagination that exists inside an organization.” The new branding in 2012 also coincided with Ricoh’s fiftieth anniversary doing business in the US and with the discontinuation of the IKON name in the US.
Ricoh Americas has subsequently confirmed that it too is dropping the Aficio name on new models. The change was not yet evident in the US, where the only products announced in February were the new Pro C901 and C901s production color models we will cover next month. And they would not have been Aficios even before the branding change.
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