Ricoh, IBM Form Joint Venture

Long a leader in digital office solutions, Ricoh is making a move into the production printing environment. It has formed a joint venture company with IBM, based on IBM’s Printing Systems Division. Ricoh will own 51 percent of the joint venture, to be called the InfoPrint Solutions Co.

“For Ricoh it signals the beginning of new stage in our strategy for global growth,” said Masamitsu Sakurai, Ricoh’s president and CEO, speaking in Japanese at a New York press conference. “We believe we can adopt our existing technology and production known-how to the production printing field.”