Sanriotown.com set to become the official meeting place for fans of Hello Kitty

London, 27 March 2008 – Burda:ic has just announced the launch of the European Hello Kitty online portal at www.sanriotown.com. Licensed by Sanrio Digital, this new official Hello Kitty site will offer fans a free online community in six different languages. The portal will provide a one-stop shop for everything a Hello Kitty fan will ever need to know about the popular Kitten and will offer them hours of entertainment.

Fans will get the opportunity to chat about anything on the site’s forums, from Hello Kitty and other Sanrio characters, to fashion, love, music, games and much more. Users will get the chance to meet Hello Kitty and Friends, blog about all that’s pink, take part in quizzes and all kind of entertaining activities and buy Hello Kitty merchandise at the online shop. Fans can also share their fun with other fans by playing a selection of online games available. The ‘Dream Studio’ feature is all about creativity, allowing users to upload and personalise their videos and photos with a range of special effects.

Hello Kitty was invented by Sanrio designer, Yuko Yamaguchi, in the 1970s and since then has enjoyed global popularity. The name actually comes from the book, ‘Alice Behind The Mirrors’, by Lewis Carroll. Over the years, Hello Kitty acquired more and more relatives and friends.

Hello Kitty’s fan base has widened in the past decade, appealing originally to young girls but now has a far wider following including young women and celebrities (the majority of fans are between 14 and 29). This is reflected in some of the stylish and wonderful merchandise that’s available, from bags, clothes, jewellery and accessories, to electrical devices and even car tuning items. Hello Kitty is now one of the most famous and most loved brands worldwide, so much so, the  brand has become a fashion icon.

According to Achim Kaspers, VP of Marketing, Burda:ic will launch the online game ‘Hello Kitty Online’ as an MMOG (massively multiplayer online game) in 2008. “By playing this game, fans will be able to share virtual adventures with their favourite Kitty and Friends,” says Achim Kaspers.

Join in the Hello Kitty fun at: www.sanriotown.com

Arrow Imaging invests over £200k in three Kodak i1860 scanners
The new i1860 scanners will contribute to processing 5 million documents per month, some 238,000 every day, up from 3.5 million last year
Existing Kodak scanner technology redeployed at Arrow Imaging’s disaster recovery site

March 27, 2008 – Eastman Kodak Company today announced that Arrow Imaging Limited, a Tamworth-based service bureau, has purchased three high performance i1860 production scanners to process an ever increasing amount of client documentation and add capacity for future growth.  Capturing up to 200 pages per minute[1], the i1860s installed are the fastest production scanners ever made by Kodak.

Arrow Imaging specialises in offering a range of bespoke document management services from physical storage, document collection and disposal to higher value scanning, archiving, hosting and software solutions.  An accredited Invu document management software partner providing sales, implementation and training services, it is British Standard ISO 14001/1996 and ISO 9001/2000 accredited[2]. 

Founded in 1981, the company employs over 70 staff and has over 400 clients in numerous vertical markets where paper management is crucial such as aerospace, manufacturing, construction, energy, financial services and healthcare.  Key customers include among others Dunlop, Bostik, George Wimpey, Balfour Beatty, Daimler Chrysler, Derbyshire Building Society, E.ON, West Midlands Ambulance Service and Seven Trent Laboratories. 

Nick Hawkes, Arrow Imaging’s sales director, says “Our consultative approach to helping clients means that on average we retain customers for 12 years.  Given this, along with 45 additional new business wins last year, turnover has increased year on year from £1.9 million in 2005 to £2.55m last financial year. This growth has driven the requirement to add additional scanning capacity to meet our day-to-day operational needs.”

The quantity of pages Arrow Imaging therefore scans per month has burgeoned, increasing from 3.5 million in September 2007 to 5 million today which equates to 238,000 per day.  This has driven the need for the Kodak i1860 scanners which were purchased direct from Kodak distributor, Avnet, in the second half of 2007 in a deal worth over £200,000.  Deployment was staggered with one scanner installed in September, October and December respectively.            
This is allowing Arrow Imaging to manage its additional workload without the need to recruit more staff, with the new units working alongside a number of Kodak 7520 scanners already in place.  

Hawkes says, “We’ve always used Kodak’s equipment right back to the days of microfilm. With the addition of the i1860s to our fleet, we’re moving our existing i840 production scanner and a number of Kodak 5500 mid volume scanners to our disaster recovery site a few miles down the road in Fazeley to ensure business continuity should there be an issue at the main Tamworth centre.”

Over and above throughput speed, the new i1860s offer additional benefits to Arrow Imaging such as the ability to cope with a broader range of paper size and paper quality, from till receipts to A3 sized documents even in a high speed production environment.  With Kodak’s feature rich Capture Software, Arrow Imaging can scan into any format based on client need including TIFF, PDF, black and white, grayscale or colour.

In turn, Arrow Imaging can make scanned images available to clients through its online DocuNet portal – a web hosted solution offering customers 24/7 access to their information – or through individual CD-ROMs or a networked solution called CD Manager.  Hawkes explains, “CD Manager is a software solution we’ve developed which allows a customer to load data from CD/DVDs onto their systems and make it available to all users over the corporate LAN.  It’s a fantastic tool to enhance staff collaboration and access to the information we process on their behalf.”

Arrow Imaging is backed by Kodak’s service and support organisation to ensure ongoing operation.  Hawkes says, “Anything with moving parts has to be maintained, and the service we get from Kodak is excellent.  We have a ‘4 plus 4’ contract meaning four hours for an engineer to get on site and four hours to fix any issues.  This completely meets our needs.”

Jonathan Tripp, Kodak’s document imaging marketing manager, UK & EAMER, said, “We are delighted to have been chosen over obvious competitors to meet Arrow Imaging’s future scanning requirements.  It’s a reflection of our product quality and shows our commitment to the high volume scanning market where reliability and document throughput speed is key.”

[1] Rated speed
[2] ISO 14001 is a standard providing a framework for developing an environmental management system along with associated auditing.  The purpose is to protect the environment and prevent pollution through improved organisational performance.  ISO 9001/2000 is a quality standard.