Ricoh Co., Ltd. (President and Chief Executive Officer: Yoshinori Yamashita; head office: Ota-ku, Tokyo; "Ricoh") and Cisco Systems G.K. (President and General Manager: Dave West; head office: Minato-ku, Tokyo; "Cisco") have announced a global strategic partnership aimed at providing cloud solutions to empower digital workplaces that deliver increased productivity in a more secure environment.

 The two companies will jointly develop solutions that deliver simpler and more secure environments in three layers (cloud, network, and device) to promote digital transformation and improve productivity.

 Companies are faced with the significant challenge of improving productivity by using the latest in digital technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT). While many companies are promoting new ways of working, they need to address increasingly diverse workstyles that are not restricted by place or time whilst using cloud and mobile computing.

 At the same time, security threats such as unauthorized access and information leakage are increasingly vicious and sophisticated. To address the advance of cyber attacks entails expertise and huge costs for companies. Small- and medium-sized businesses that cannot afford to have dedicated IT administrators as well as larger enterprises spread across multiple locations need a solution to maintain and manage a secure environment more simply at a low cost.

 In January 2019, Ricoh launched the RICOH IM C Series of next-generation intelligent laser multi-functional printers along with the RICOH Smart Integration cloud platform. By connecting Ricoh laser color/monochrome multi-functional printers and other office devices with the latest cloud services via RICOH Smart Integration, Ricoh brings employees together, contributes to a digital workplace that supports intellectual productivity, and enables smarter ways of working for customers.

 To enable safe cloud use, more than 250 researchers at Cisco's security research team Talos collect threat information and improve security products. Cisco also offers Cisco Meraki for cloud-based simple network management, supporting customers' digital transformation.

 By combining RICOH Smart Integration and Cisco cloud security solutions under this partnership, Cisco and Ricoh will connect, using Cisco Meraki, the RICOH IM C Series of next-generation multi-functional printers and other office devices seamlessly and securely with multiple cloud services. This solution will reduce the time required for implementation, operation, and management. Also, by bringing together RICOH Smart Integration with Cisco’s information leakage detection/prevention and other advanced authentication features, the solution will support processes that require higher security levels. This will be the first partnership program in the RICOH Smart Integration partner program^*1, which is being implemented in Spring 2019.

The two companies will work to provide secure and autonomous network connections for color or black and white office multi-functional printer copier and scanner and other IoT devices. This will deliver more secure connectivity for a diverse set of devices. Integration of Ricoh products and the Cisco Identity Service Engine will enable automated operation and management of connected devices and appropriate security settings, which are increasingly in demand at larger enterprises, and allow companies to make proposals supporting Software Defined Network (SDN) and IoT.

 Cisco and Ricoh will start to implement the solution on a trial basis starting April 2019. After verification, it will initially be offered in Japan after September 2019, followed by a global deployment.

The two companies will work together to contribute to creating digital workplaces which are more secure and enable higher productivity, thus further supporting the growth of our customers.

 The RICOH Smart Integration partner program will support collaboration between a range of partners and Ricoh to develop ways to improve customers’ workflows. We will jointly develop applications that work with RICOH Smart Integration, by offering application programming interfaces (APIs) and software development kits (SDKs) for RICOH Smart Integration.

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