The firm plans to have a dedicated team in place in time for Digital Print World, when it will unveil its new black and white production printer, the 105ppm bizhub pro 1050, which it previewed at Drupa. 

Due to ship at the beginning of next year the 1050 is an oversized A3 cut sheet printer handling coated stocks up to 300gsm with a duty cycle of 1.5m A4 pages per month with a price of between 50,000 and 100,000 depending on configuration. 

KonicaMinolta is looking for a manager, three sales people, an engineer and a sales support executive for the new division. 

The firm is looking for further value added resellers to market its products in addition to Openshaw. 

Faster production colour machines than its 50ppm 8050 will also be previewed next summer and the firm plans to capitalise on its third place in the office imaging market following the merger as it expands into print for pay.  

"Following the merger we set three objectives to develop colour, the solutions side of the business and thirdly our position in the market place," said marketing communications manager Chris Baker. 

Story by Barney Cox