London, 14 March 2005

Riso (UK), the leading digital printer manufacturer, has appointed Printware, the UK's largest independent colour printer reseller, as a new dealer for the HC5000, the world's fastest sheet-fed full colour A3 inkjet printer.

Printware is recognised as the leading UK reseller for colour laser printers and has relationships with all the major printer manufacturers including HP, Oki, Konica-Minolta, Lexmark, Epson and Xerox.

Richard Thompson, Managing Director, Riso (UK), said: "The HC5000 is creating a new market segment for colour print and from all the feedback we are receiving from customers and dealers alike, it is creating quite a stir. The HC5000 is a new and ground breaking product for a new marketplace. The fact that Printware has decided to invest in our product demonstrates the new business opportunities the HC5000 can offer resellers in this industry."

In January this year, Riso launched the HC5000. The product offers a print speed of up to 105 A4 pages per minute and a monthly duty cycle of up to 250,000 pages. At an unprecedented cost of less than 2.00 pence per full-colour A4 copy, for the first time ever businesses will benefit from fast and affordable colour printing for everyday communications, thereby creating a new market segment coined ‘Communication Colour' by Riso.

Commented Kevin Jones, Managing Director, Printware: "The HC5000 is clearly a very unique and high performance product. Having been in the print business for about 15 years now, I know there is a definite need among our customers for affordable colour printing. We are very bullish about its uptake in the market.

"As a specialist colour printer reseller, this product is a perfect fit for our business. We see our relationship with Riso as a long term business opportunity and are confident this partnership will flourish."

Printware is making a significant investment in the HC5000. It is investing to create a specialist Riso sales team that it expects to gradually grow in the near future. On the marketing front, the reseller is creating a special section on its website for this product from which detailed product information on the HC5000 can be sourced by customers. Detailed information on the HC5000 will also be included in Printware's quarterly catalogue distributed to all its current and potential customers.