Brother Expands Line of Color Inkjet MFCs; New MFC-3100c and MFC-5100c Target SOHO & Remote Office Users with Aggressive Price Points.

Technology & Business Editors/Writers

BRIDGEWATER, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 7, 2001

Brother International Corporation announces the introduction of two new color ink jet multi-function centers, the 5-in-1 sheet-fed MFC-3100c and the flatbed 5-in-1 MFC-5100c.

Both models are completely new additions to Brother's current line-up. The MFC-3100c and MFC-5100c are compatible with PC and Mac(1) operating systems; the new models function as a color fax, color printer, color copier, color scanner and PC Fax.

The MFC-3100c will be available on the market in early October 2001 with an estimated street price of $199. The MFC-5100c, the flatbed version, has an estimated street price of $299 and will be available in late October 2001. Both models represent entry level price points for the Brother color ink jet line-up of sheet-fed and flatbed models.

"Brother's history in the color multi-function market had been focused on the `high performance' consumer at step-up price points (as with our current MFC-7300c, MFC-7400c, and MFC-9200c). As the color ink jet all-in-one market continues to grow and expand, however, we plan to have a line-up that covers additional segments," says Don Cummins, Vice President of Marketing for Fax, Multi-Function and Printer Products. "The new MFC-3100c and MFC-5100c models are an expansion of our line-up which targets these now emerging lower price segments, and the great news for the consumer is that we have maintained a strong feature set that one normally expects from a Brother MFC product."

Both new models are based on a new Brother color ink jet engine that prints at up to 10 pages per minute black and 8 pages per minute for color. They offer photo quality print resolutions of up to 2400 x 1200, and their small compact size makes them ideal for any home office environment.

In addition to color printing, color copying, and color scanning, both models also provide standalone color faxing or PC faxing. Their 4-cartridge system for ink consumables allows for more economical operating costs compared to the 2-cartridge system, used by some other competitor's models.

Functioning as a stand-alone fax, they can send and receive both black & white and color faxes via a 14.4K bps fax modem. Using the ITU-T30 standard for color faxing, both models can send and receive color faxes between a wide range of other fax devices that also comply with this popular standard.

As a color copier they have the ability to reduce and enlarge images from 25% to 400% in increments as small as 1%. They require no PC connection for the copy function. This feature provides convenience copying in the home and office, eliminating the need to travel to a copy center or to the copy room.

The MFC-5100c builds on the base features of the MFC-3100c with a flatbed design for the versatility of copying scanning or faxing from bound documents. It also includes a larger memory (4MB or 200 pages v. 2MB or 100 pages)(2), increased document feed capacity (30 sheets v. 20 sheets) and a higher scanning resolution (up to 9600 dpi v. up to 2400 dpi). Both models come with Scansoft(R) PaperPort(R) and TextBridge(R) OCR software.

Parallel and USB ports are also standard.(3) Drivers for Windows(R) 95/98/Me/SE/2000/NT 4.0 and Apple(R) iMac/iBook/G3/G4 are included with the MFC-3100c and MFC-5100c, right out of the box. Apple's new "OS X" drivers for these products will be available for download from the Brother website. Drivers for Microsoft's new Windows(R) XP operating system will be available for download from the Brother website by November 2001.

ABOUT BROTHER INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION

Bridgewater, N.J., is the corporate headquarters for Brother in the Americas, from Canada to South America. It has fully integrated sales, marketing services, manufacturing, research and development capabilities located in the United States. In addition to its headquarters in Bridgewater, N.J., Brother has branches in California, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Tennessee and Texas, as well as subsidiaries in Ohio, Canada, Brazil, Chile and Mexico.

Additional information may be obtained from Brother Customer Service at [phone], the Brother fax-back system toll-free at [phone] or by visiting the company web site at www.brother.com.

NOTES: All brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

(1) Includes Windows(R)95/98/Me/SE/2000/NT 4.0 and Apple(R)iMac/iBook/G3/G4

(2) Using Brother No. 1 chart available on request

(3) Cables are not included