According to GIL managing director Paul Wilkinson, the new product belonging to `Adam family' for a niche market could download Internet, connect to networks, memorise, copy and print 20, 35 or 45 copies per minute depending upon the model. He said, ``We've not yet decided the price, but it will be competitive, looking to the range of services to be rendered.''

What the Calcutta-based office automation major is really upbeat about is the next-in-line `baby of the Afficio family,' christened `Radius,' for the lower-end users, expected to be introduced in India by the end of the year.

Talking to The Financial Express, he said, ``The basic idea is to allow every office have at arm's length all the facilities of a multipurpose equipment. However, it will be slower, turning sixcopies per minute, as it is meant for small office set-up with low volume of work like writing letters and reports.''

Wilkinson, who was here to open the branch office-cum-training centre on its own premises on Wednesday, said Gestetner was perhaps the only company which straightaway went from mechanical duplicators to digital CopyPrinters, bypassing the analogous copiers. The digital technology has the advantage of scanning the text or picture, memorise them and print sharper pictures.

He said the GIL's recent tie-up with California-based software and hardware major Elesys Inc, headquarterd in Silicon Valley, is set to revolutionise Indian office automation industry by introducing `Controller' interface technology to facilitate computer connectivity to Gestetner CopyPrinters, increasing the productivity and the range of the utilities.

In the single largest training programme with any country, he said, Elesys vice-president (marketing and sales) Louis Kemeny trained 150 GIL staff at different locationsin India, acquainting them with `Controller' interface technology for providing Gestetner CopyPrinters with networking capability. The gadget is compact, small and match with the integral system. He is scheduled to train 100 more people in November.

For the $1.6 billion Gestetner Holdings, owning 51 per cent stake in GIL, he said, India is considered second to none in introducing its latest products.

He recalled that Adam was introduced in India around the same time as Europe in November 1997 so also the latest high-volume and high-speed CopyPrinter models 5450 and 5306 early this month. These models could churn out two copies per second or 130 copies per minute, at an extremely low cost of 7 paise per copy and if run for three colours at 21 paise per copy. The latest models could provide copies in 11 colours, capable of electronic sorting of up to 16 pages with one push button.

He said that GIL turnover was Rs 62 crore in the calendar year 1998 and has set a target of Rs 77 crore in 1999, despite thecopier industry was facing a tough market in India because of too many players.

Giving a revenue breakup of the products line, he said that about 6,000 duplicating machines comprised 20 per cent of the total sales, 180 digital photocopiers 10 per cent and 640 copyprinters the remaining 70 per cent.