Canon global

What do you think was the greatest factor in achieving development success?

Nagahara

Each team was able to cooperate without getting obsessive about their respective technological areas or territories. I think having low barriers between teams was the main factor that led to success. What do you think?

Takayama

I agree. In order to make the best product possible, we often worked together with the print head group and image processing group. We took every opportunity to meet, regardless of regularly scheduled meetings. I think this greatly helped the ink development team.

Kudo

Because there were so many issues to address, you could say that we had to talk to each other a lot (laughs). However, having more opportunities to talk also meant we had clashes of conflicting opinions. At such times, I believe that a factor in our success was everyone's strong approach toward pursuing a common goal.

Nagahara

In addition to such collaboration between horizontally aligned teams, the cooperative relationship between vertically aligned teams was also very close during this project. The production division also got involved at a relatively early stage, which enabled us to revise the course of design with an eye to mass production.

It seems that Canon's culture of promoting collaboration between teams worked even better than usual. Now, what about the technology itself?

Kudo

I must admit that I felt the same way. This strength doesn't simply come from handling many products, but from developing most products in-house, enabling the company to pool technological knowledge and apply it to new development.

Yamamoto

If you think of knowledge as opinions, these are pooled not only within the company, but also across our affiliates. By getting feedback from salespeople at our marketing subsidiaries who are in charge of photo enthusiasts, we were able to hear many useful opinions. Another strength of Canon's product development is being able to quickly utilize these types of valuable resources.

I think the PRO-1 is the best consumer inkjet printer currently on the market. How would you like it to be received by the users?

Takayama

While this doesn't only apply to the PRO-1, I would be happy if we could instill the mentality among users that they can't go wrong if they choose a PIXMA PRO-line printer.

Nagahara

That's exactly right. However, I genuinely hope that people will enjoy making the most of this series by creating greater quality prints. I'm confident that users will be able to print photographs that are much higher in quality than in the past, and that even professionals will be pleased with what they see. In particular, I think the image quality of monochrome photos will leave them amazed.

Yamamoto

Only Canon can provide a comprehensive solution that begins with the EOS series of digital SLR cameras, includes Digital Photo Professional image editing software and Print Studio Pro printing configuration software, and concludes with output using the PIXMA PRO line of printers. I hope that professional photographers will realize greater efficiency in their work and that entry-level photographers can improve their skills.

What are your thoughts regarding the development of the PRO Series?

Nagahara

I would like to see the high-image-quality printing technologies that we developed be simplified and reduced in cost so that they could also be used in general consumer models.

Yazawa

I'm more interested in professional-use models. I would like the lineup to achieve a level of image quality that would please even professionals who are loyal to silver-halide photography. At the same time, I would like to pioneer a new world of printing possibilities enabled by inkjet printers.

So, I guess you could say that the goal you just reached is the starting point for your next endeavor. Thank you for your time today.