Panasonic, which is celebrating the 25th anniversary of its Panafax® brand, has taken top honors in the 2002 Digital Office Awards sponsored by Business Equipment Research and Test Laboratories Ltd. (BERTL), an independent testing Organization, located in the United States and England Panasonic received BERTL's Best Fax Products rating for outstanding quality, design and innovation in its fax and Internet fax devices.

The winners in the internationally acclaimed "BEST of the BEST" competition were announced in May, 2002, by BERTL.

According to Carmel Rowley, BERTL CEO and managing director, the award is based on the testing facility's independent evaluation of 200 digital imaging devices, including fax products, which took place over a 12-month period.

"In addition to product evaluation, we factor in product feedback from end users and resellers," Rowley said. "The corporate sector is BERTL's primary focus. In judging which manufacturer most deserved to be classified as providing the 'BEST of the BEST,' in terms of functionality and performance, we immediately thought of Panasonic."

"The company delivers highly functional departmental workhorses and Internet fax- capable devices designed to cater to international corporations that struggle to reduce overhead and running costs," Rowley continued. "I believe that Panasonic was, in fact, one of the first to market with Internet fax technology and has maintained a dominance in this sector of the fax market ever since."

Rowley added that another critical factor in BERTL's selection of the "BEST of the BEST" award is product reliability. "In our 12 years of testing products, BERTL has never had a bad experience with a Panasonic fax," Rowley said. "Indeed, the feedback we have received year after year from product resellers and end-users has supported our own lab experiences."