Look, it's a printer, it's a copier; no, it's a mopier

Abstract

Commercial printers, service bureaus, printing centers, small-office/home-office businesses and quick printers are about to witness a major push for embedded systems technology by suppliers of desktop printers, scanners, fax machines and printers. The ongoing convergence of desktop printers and copiers is creating a new class of multifunction peripherals (MFP). These MFP devices combine multiple systems functions (print, copy scan and/or fax) in a single system. Xionics Document Technologies Inc. is the leading supplier of embedded system technology for printer manufactures and a leading developer of innovative software and silicon for printing, scanning, copying, processing, and transmitting paper documents to computer peripherals. Printer manufacturers that have adopted the Xionics technology include Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Seiko Epson and Panasonic. Another important application is Electronics for Imaging's Fiery XJe embedded controller for turning digital color copiers into high-speed network printers. Ricoh Corp.'s Aficio 2000 series is the first to adopt the technology.