Canon debuts PictBridge products

Nearly eight months after Canon joined hands with the likes of HP, Epson, Sony, Fuji and Olympus to announce the standard for transferring digital imaging files from any digital image capturing device to a photo printer directly without a PC, the company has launched 11 PictBridge compliant products–becoming the first one to do so. The new communication protocol allow users to seamlessly connect digital cameras or digital video camcorders to photo printers directly, regardless of the make and brand, as long as the equipment is PictBridge compliant.

The 4.0 mega pixel digital camera Canon bubble jet i905D printer Canon bubble jet i865 printer

In an exclusive media preview at Canon’s Hanoi plant, the company’s assistant director, Consumer Imaging and Information (CII) division, Hiroshi Hara said that these were part of the 18 products that the company plans to launch during the second half of 2003. Canon plans to start shipping the 11 PictBridge compliant products from October this year. The India launch is scheduled for November 5, 2003.

Canon has moved from the analogue to the semi-digital to the digital and now to the PictBridge way of image capturing and printing solutions, which help bring different digital imaging devices together and give consumers the ability to print directly.

Ever since PictBridge was first announced by Canon in December 2002, the company has been single-mindedly focusing on converting its ideas from the design board stage to reality, determined to take on the first mover’s advantage. That it now wants to use these 11 products as a springboard to consolidate its presence across South and South-East Asia was also pretty evident from the large contingent of journalists from across the region–India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

For the camera company, which was set up in Japan in 1934 as Kwanon, Canon has come a long way to becoming a global photographic and digital imaging giant. Unfortunately, however, the company has so far failed to become a formidable force in the professional camera space. Canon is going full throttle ahead to plug this gap in its otherwise strong market presence. The company has been spending around 10% of its total revenue each year on R&D–so much so that between 1985 and 2002, the company had 19,902 US patents to its name, one of them being the digital image processor DIGIC and its latest variant DIGIC DV. Combine this with the newly acquired PictBridge variants and one can look forward to the company bridging this gap.

“Advantage Canon,” should we say?

SHUBHENDU PARTH/CNS in Hanoi, Vietnam