Canon in-house publishing solution helps partners increase service revenues

Canon has launched a major update of its easy-to-use desktop print publishing solution for small and medium offices, iW Desktop 3.0.1, enabling Canon channel partners to provide more value to their customers and to benefit from increased print volumes as a result.

In conjunction with Canon's imageRUNNER ADVANCE platform of MFDs, the new iW Desktop 3.0.1 allows organisations to easily create professional-looking and personalised printed documents in-house. This solution is ideal for all offices producing those documents that take time to collate and need to impress, such as proposals, reports, information packs and brochures.

iW Desktop saves organisations the time and costs associated with outsourcing high-value documents, making it a perfect additional value-add solution for partners to provide to their customers. iW Desktop is an affordable and scalable solution that works directly with a Canon MFD and print driver without the need for additional equipment. This provides partners with the opportunity to sell Canon's print publishing solution to both small and medium-sized enterprises.

Matthew Wrighton, OIP Product Management & Strategy, Canon Europe, comments: "Our customers still place great value on printed documents. The interim results of our recent office insights report^[1] have shown that businesses share one third of their printed materials with clients. These documents are often critical to business success and therefore need to be of the highest quality, whether they are customer proposals or marketing brochures.

iW Desktop 3.0.1 has been developed in line with customer demands for high-quality in-house publishing and provides partners with a solution that is unique in the market.

"From our trials we've seen that the easy usability of iW Desktop leads to an increased number of documents printed in-house, with iW Desktop users publishing up to 37% more colour documents in-house than those without.^[2] This new solution provides partners with a very real opportunity to provide customers with a simple solution to their everyday print publishing challenges whilst also increasing revenue opportunities."

The new variable data printing function is easy to use and links to any excel or CSV database. It allows users to simply drag and drop variable content such as logos and contact details and publish it as a personalised, professional-looking printed document or PDF, ready to be shared with customers. Users can also set-up time saving one-click office publishing templates.

iW Desktop is compatible with all Canon office devices and delivers the most value when combined with printers with automatic finishing, for example, the imageRUNNER ADVANCE range, which offers staple, hole-punch, booklet and folding capabilities. iW Desktop 3.0.1 allows partners to increase revenue by selling a powerful in-house publishing solution comprising of hardware and software. Partners can also offer iW Desktop 3.0.1 as a free 45-day trial, including a personalised URL which directs users to the partner's site to purchase the full license once the trial period has ended.

Canon iW Desktop is available to download now from: http://software.canon-europe.com.

^{[1] Canon commissioned independent specialist market research company RS consulting to undertake the research (working title: 'Canon Office Insights') upon which the interim results are based. 729 end-users and decision-makers across Europe were questioned online throughout September 2012.
[2] Based on a 2011 survey of 97,000 print devices installed in Japanese small and medium enterprises. iW Desktop users published on average 37% more colour documents on colour segment 3 (20 to 29ppm) printers and 19% more across all colour devices.}