Can Ricoh, Xerox, Canon & KonicaMinolta be the next GM & Chrysler?

For those who know me, they know that when I'm traveling from appointment to appointment I never listed to the radio, or cd's.

This was not by choice, my buddy Darby (185lb dog), knocked out the SIRRUS antenna one day while getting out of the car and along with the fact that I lost the code for my regular radio, well my rides are pretty dam quiet w, except for the rambling thoughts cruising through my head all day!

Thus this came to me the other day when speaking with a fellow p4p'er in Florida. We got on the topic of A4 devices, my question was "Why have the Big Dogs like Ricoh, Xerox (Xerox/Fuji), Canon and Konica Minolta not come to market with their own A4 devices? Well, the answer I got was surprising and made sense. My fellow p4p'er stated that the Japanese are reluctant to re-tool the factories due the cost involved. There is no money made on the hardware anymore, they are relying on the consumables for profits.

Hey, I'm the guy in the field, on the streets and in the trenches, my customers love the A4 devices that we have from Sammy (Samsung), and if you haven't heard Sammy is doing very well with their A4 devices.

About a year ago Sharp launched their Frontier Series which is an A4 multifunctional device made by Sharp. Just today BLI awarded them "BLI Pick of the Year Awards" for three different models. At a recent Sharp dealer meeting it was noted that 24% of placements in 2008 were A4 devices.

So, while the chickens are roosting in the hen house at night, companies like Sammy, Sharp and Muratec (relabled Sammies) are quietly taking market share from the likes of Ricoh, Xerox (they also relabel a few Sammies), Canon and KonicaMinolta. Gesh, I would have thought by this time that the Big Dogs would have at least stepped up to the plate.

I reached out and made another call to a prominent p4p'er and got these quotes:

* Samsung certainly is doing quite well with its A4s.

* I feel like the reason Sharp is so hot for A4 is because they realize they cannot beat the big dogs at their own game (A3s) so they are looking to build share through A4 while maintaining or slowly growing A3 share. Man do they say how great A4s are every chance they have though. Not sure where this was sourced from, but at Sharp's dealer meeting they said that A4s were 24% of all MFP units in 2008 and 35% of all 31ppm+ MFP unit growth between 2005 and 2008.

* Most of Xerox metered A4s are either sourced from Samsung or most recently Konica Minolta so that's a sign that they don't want to retool and are looking externally for their A4 lines. That said, FujiXerox does make A4 engines for Lexmark and Infoprint, so they have the ability.

* Considering Canon supplies HP with all those A4 engines I would think they would expand in A4 if they wanted. They are probably limiting A4 presence for different reasons.

Ah, Canon the biggest dog of them all and why haven't they entered the market? I'm thinking they have some type of agreement with HP. WOW, we forgot about HP, here's another instance where HP is now replacing their own laser printers and others with their own A4 Multifunctional devices. Yet, all of this is one of the least talked about topics and the mass migration of A3 to A4 is happening before our eyes.

I read an article today from Channel Web, where a representative from Gartner stated "recommended customers use fewer A3-sized printers, which print at 11 x 17 inches, and adopt more A4-sized devices, which print letter-sized documents, to cut costs."

Sammy is poised to steal even more business, if you think they're satisfied with four or five A4 multifunctional devices, well you're wrong. They want to be the manufacturer of choice for dealers in the near future.

So, back to the topic, if the Big Dogs don't a make a move soon with their own A4 platforms where will they be in two years. I'm thinking they could go the way of GM and Chrysler, they've rested on their laurels and their A3's engines far too long, and instead of investing money in new factories and re-tooling, they all opted to buy market share by purchasing the likes of Savin, Oce, Global, Danka, Gestener, Ikon, Monroe, and Imagagistics. Did I miss any?

BTW, special thanx to the p4p'ers that helped me out with the additional information. If you like to be a member of the largest and fasted growing group of copier professionals in the world, then take a trip here. Print4Pay Hotel

-=Good Selling=-

Christmas Dogs!

Truly, one of my favs for this Christmas Season!

Copier Sales "Position Yourself as an Expert"

Do you feel that you are the one of the best at selling MFP's? Do you consult more to the end user and then let the customer buy from you? Are you consistently producing print assessment reports for customers that have and instant ROI?

If so, you need to add this weapon to your arsenal. In your territory look up the 10 largest CPA firms. Once you have them, be prepared to make the calls to success!

CPA firms are in the business of making money as are all of us, they have many business clients that have trusted their services for years and years. What we want to do is to add value to the CPA's service's that they provide to their business clients, by added a new service for their customers. A customized Print Assessment Report for their clients.

Positioning yourself as an expert in the field of print assessments, meaning you are offering your services to the CPA firm for their clients, the CPA firm can either bill out this service or include it as an additional service that they offer for their clients. Your goal is to sell your knowledge and nothing else. Have copies of Print Assessments that you have completed to show the accounting firm what the typical report entails, here you are breaking the mold from the common copier salesperson and establishing yourself as the expert. You can even offer a FREE print assessment to the accounting firm to show them your expertise and your creative ideas for print assessment and print migration.

You can start by telling them about the high cost of printing to multiple devices and that you specialize in provided a detailed print assessment cost of what they are spending and a solution to save their clients money and or productivity. Your fees can be as much as $150 per hour plus expenses for your work.

All of the information needed is at your finger tips, companies like Ricoh offer a COG (customer opportunity generator), this software program gives you real life per page cost for about 95% of all the print devices that are on the market. For the other 5% you can do your research on the Internet.

In reference to all of the print device software that is on the market..... they are ok, however nothing is better than visiting every single print device, generating a report and then interviewing the end user for their needs. Interview can uncover tremendous savings and opportunities for all.

If you would like a copy of my print assessment report please log in to the Print4Pay Hotel and become a member www.p4photel.com/eve. I'll have the document posted in the Industry Proposals and Quotes forum (you'll need to purchase a Premium Membership for $15.00)

-=Good Selling=-

MFP Weekend Indsutry Notes 12/4/09

Gathered from Print4Pay Hotel Members from around the world and a few moles in very good places!

The falling value of the U.S. Dollar is having huge impact in Japanese manufacturers.

Details:

- Japanese yen was trading at its strongest against the dollar in 14 years, climbing to as high as 84.83
(in other words, the dollar is worth only 85 yen, in contrast, it was worth 110 yen a few years ago)
- Canon’s CEO, Fujio Mitarai, said Japan is “standing on edge of a cliff”, and that Japan needs “urgent steps to counter this critical situation”
- Japan’s electronics companies lose a combined $369 million in annual profit for each 1 yen appreciation against the dollar according to Daiwa Research Institute Ltd.
- In contrast, the South Korean won has fallen 20% against the U.S. dollar, thus helping
the record profits of Samsung.

According to research firm, IDC, Samsung is the number one supplier of A4 MFPs during the last two quarters worldwide.

Lexmark launched a new A3 series of b/w laser printers, the W850 series, featuring:
- Replaces W840 series
- Base MSRP of $2899.00
- Print engine made by Fuji of Japan (also sold by Xerox as Phaser 5550 series))
- Top speed of 50ppm print only
- 1200x1200dpi
- 35K yield toner cartridge that sells for $241.99
- 60K drum yield for $180.99
- Comes standard with two paper drawers and stack sheet bypass, with
total paper capacity of 1,100 sheets
- Maximum paper capacity with optional drawers of 5,100 sheets
- Adding paper drawers and/or cabinet make unit floor standing
- Built-in print controller
- 10/100/1000BaseT ports
- PCL, PostScript and XPS print drivers
- 800MHz processor
- 256MB RAM standard (can expand to 1GB
- Optional 80GB hard drive for spooling jobs from network
- Maximum duty cycle of 300K/month
- Auto duplex optional
- Optional finishers offer stapling and hole punching

Panasonic announced it has purchased India’s top electrical accessories company, Anchor Electricals, for 9.2 billion yen.

Hewlett Packard gave out information on using dots per inch (DPI) versus bit depth with color printing:
- “DPI (dots per inch) is the traditional measurement and indicator of a print device’s out quality. With the advent of color printing however, other factors have a dramatic effect. In particular, increasing the number of colors per dot (bit depth) greatly improves image quality. Amazingly, some inkjet printers with only 600dpi print resolution are able to produce photographic results due to the range of color they can fit in to a single dot. The image enhancement technology that provides this capability……has forever changed the usefulness of DPI as the sole metric for determining print quality”
- “Ironically, the historical emphasis on DPI as the critical factor for assessing print quality has made these print quality improvements difficult to explain.”
- “The bottom line, use your eye, not DPI, when evaluating image quality”

Hewlett Packard gave out more details of its last quarter’s financial performance:
- Net revenue down 8% to $30.8 billion
- down 3% in Americas
- down 17% in Europe
- Net revenue for full fiscal year down 3% to $114.6 billion
- Operating profit for full fiscal year was $10.1 billion
- Services revenue increased 8% to $8.9 billion
- Imaging and Printing Group (printers and MFPs) was down 15%
- Printer/MFP supplies revenue down 8%
- Commercial printer/MFP hardware sales down 32%
- Commercial printer/MFP unit shipments down 38%
- Profit of $1.2 billion
- CEO, Mark Hurd, stated the following on this division; “IPG is poised for recovery and is getting on the attack. Demand is improving for our printers. We are also encouraged by our managed print services funnel, which are at record levels. Now with a printer refresh coming, we feel pretty good about it.” (is he referring to the impending launch of the full Canon MFP product line?)
- CDO, Cathie Lesjak, stated; “if we have to trade off some operating dollars for growth we will”
- HP predicts that 2010 total revenue will be $119 billion

Ricoh announced that its Aficio MP 9001, a 90ppm b/w MFP, won 4.5 stars from Buyers Labs Inc. BLI’s duplex productivity test results were high on the Ricoh due to its document feeder that scans both sides of original at same time.

Ricoh won a court case in Wisconsin. Quanta Storage was ordered by a U.S. District judge to pay Ricoh $14.5 million as a penalty for violating Ricoh’s optical disk drive patents.

Ricoh announced that is C900 production color system won Fogra certification, a standard used in Europe.

Canon’s Senior Director of Production Print, Denis Grif, announced that the company sold a imagePRESS C6000 production color system to Urner Barry Printing & Mailing of Bayville, NJ. He also stated that Canon now has 61 factory direct offices in the U.S. serving 38 major metro areas.

PC Magazine gave Canon its “2009 Readers’ Choice Award for Service and Reliability” for its digital cameras and desktop color inkjet printers/AIOs.

A recent article in Graphic Arts magazine, had following statistics about toner:
- “companies persist in calling their toner “dry ink”, even though it’s really a minutely milled plastic powder”
- “with a couple of exceptions, toner is produced as blocks or sheets of plastic….these are pulverized”
- With pulverization process, toner particles are 4 to 15 microns in size, and are
random-sized, rough-edged, shards of plastic.
- Particle of talcum powder is 10 microns
- Human hair is 70 microns
- Hewlett Packard’s Indigo production color system uses toner particles that are pulverized in
Israel to as little as 1 micron, and then mixed with liquid carrier, to create a viscous paste.
- Indigo inventor, Benny Landa, stated that particles are so small that if they were not contained in liquid carrier they would just float around the room.
- HP’s Indigo is only digital system that offers option of white toner

Sony predicts that by the year 2013, over 50% of the HDTV’s it will produce will be three dimensional systems (3D). The company will launch its first 3D unit in late 2010.

MedAssets Supply Chain Systems announced that Konica Minolta is its preferred vendor for MFPs. The 3 year agreement is accessible by its 33,000 member locations in the U.S., including health systems, hospitals and non-acute care providers.

Xerox announced it sold one of its iGen4 production color systems to Angstrom Graphics, a print shop in Cleveland, OH and one to Manor Creative, a print shop in East Sussex, England.

QuoCirca Research, announced that Xerox is the Market Leader in its evaluation of managed print services in Europe.

Ursula Burns, CEO of Xerox, and Antonio Perez, CEO of Kodak, were named by President Barack Obama to lead a $260 million program called Educate to Innovate, which will explore how social networks can be used to connect teachers with companies and improve student performance.

Toshiba announced it will partner with Nantong Huada Microelectronics Group in China for computer system chip assembly, to move more manufacturing out of Japan.

Toshiba’s bid to build a nuclear plant near San Antonio, TX is for $8 billion.

Some questions have been raised about copier bid award in New York. Oneida County awarded a 5 year copier contract to Arlott Office Products, even though its president is Oneida County Legislator, James D’Onofrio.

PrintAudit, provider of managed print services software, announced that is won a contract from Pitney Bowes Management Services, Inc., which will use it to sell MPS to its customers in the U.S.

The country of Indonesia announced that it wants to have copiers made in the country, instead of bringing them in from Japanese manufacturers. Details:
- Currently spends $210 million per year on copiers in the country
- Dataproducts of Malaysia and Teco Group of Taiwan both will spend up to $25 million each to build copier plants in the country
- Indonesia’s Industry Minister, Ramon Bangun, stated; “I’ve promised them that the government will gradually stop imports once they have realized their plans.”
- Ramon also said he would invite three Chinese manufacturers to invest in copier plants in the country.

The Equipment Leasing and Finance Association (ELFA) announced:
- Business volume for month of October was down 32.8% year over year
- Receivable over 30 days increased 17%
- Charge-offs rose by 25%
- Credit approvals dropped 71.7%

Three 16 year old boys were arrested in Easton, MD for making fake $20 bills using a color copier.

Lafayette County Arkansas Sheriff Victor Rose announced that Demarcus Tucker, Dexter Lowe & Edzell Wyrick were arrested for making fake $10 bills using a color copier. They were caught when they attempted to buy cigars with the counterfeit money.

According to the Printing Industries of America:
- number of printshops in U.S. declined 18% compared to last year
- total industry employment is down 11.6%
- real output per employee is up 11.8%
- industry output down 4.5%

Madison Advisors of New York announced findings of a study of companies who are trying to reduce their employees’ printing habits:
- Average amount of suppression is 8% to 16%
- Some as high as 70%
- Majority of companies have a 5 year plan of 26% to 50% reduction of paper
- Financial institutions planning for 50% to 75% reduction in paper

-=Good Selling=-

WANTED Federal Printers "Dead or Alive"

Going through my alerts last night I ran across and article from the Washington Post, the Federal Bureau of Engraving and Printing has posted WANTED Posters for desktop printers.

Get this the Bureau of Engraving is offering to Federal employees $75 gift cards for their desktop printers.

From the Washington Post Article:

"For a limited time, to incentivize you to voluntarily give up your active personal printer, BEP will share the savings with you," the flyer said. "You will receive a gift card in the amount of $75 if you turn in an active personal printer."
Get this, our government paid for these printers and now they're giving employees gift cards to relinquish them! I've got a better idea, take them away, no gift cards given, use the network printer for you prints and get up off your butt!

There is an estimated 534 printers, at $75 a pop that represents a total cost of $40,050. Atta boy Feds, way to spend our money when you could easily just take them away and tell everyone to print to the network printer or multifunctional device.

I for one applaud the fact that finally the Bureau has recognized that small convenient lasers printers have an extremely high cost per page, and the work or 10 oer 12 small printers can be done by one network printer or one multifunctional device. However, giving out $75 gift cards to relinquish something the Bureau provided the employees with is downright wrong!

Here's a few facts that most people don't realize about networked multifunctional devices:

Lower cost per page, typically multifunctional devices can have a page cost of .007 or less compared to .03 cents per page for small desktop printers

Less consumable items, most desktop laser printer utilize and AIO (All in One Cartridge), and these are thrown away after a few thousand prints, multifunctional devices use bottles or cartridges of toner which can last as much as 30,000 pages and then the container is sent back to the factory to be refilled.

Longer life span (who the heck is going to repair a $300 laser printer when the cost to have someone on-site to replace a part will cost $200 or more, fact is the printer is thrown in the trash and another is purchased. How wasteful is that?

Virtual mailboxes, users of multifunctional products now have the luxury or printer to a mailbox (space on the hard drive) and then can walk to the printer, enter their pin code and have all of the documents print while they're at the printer!

These are just a few of the features that are available on most multifunctional devices and networked printers.

My God, what's next, we'll offer employees additional gift cards to print on both sides of the paper, or give them gift cards for not printing at all and creating electronic files?

The Bureau needs to get a set of balls and tell it like it is, we're taking your printer, get up off your butt. If you don't like it, show them the door!

-=Good Selling=-

Print4Pay Hotel Updates

This months winners for Premium Memberships were announced on the Print4Pay Hotel Message Boards.

These Premium Memberships are possible through the sponsorship from Print Audit and Dealer Marketing Systems.

Jason R (Top 5 Posters) wins a 6 Month Premium Membership from Print Audit

jswinberlin (Top 5 Topic Starters) wins a 6 Month Premium Membership from Dealer Marketing Systems.

For those of you not familiar with the Print4Pay Hotel, P4P Hotel is social site dedicated to Imaging Industry Professionals. We have over 2,300 members from around the world and average 75 plus new members every month. The Print4Pay Hotel forums has generated over 75,000 threads in 45 forums related to Imaging Industry.

We share information, inspiration and ideas about our industry. The site is FREE, and new members are welcome! Click anyone of the links and you'll get to the registration page.

Updates:

5 Most Active Topics

UPDATE 3-Canon buys Dutch Oce for $1.1 bln, fights Ricoh by Art Post (with 34 posts and 540 page views)

A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Copier Demo/Appointment by Art Post (with 16 posts and 173 page views)

Dealer and Direct Branch Counts by GIntel (with 9 posts and 133 page views)

Weekend Industry Notes from 11/01/09 by Neal (with 9 posts and 127 page views)

How long have you been in the copier industry? by Art Post (with 4 posts and 128 page views)

Weekend Industry Notes from 11/01/09 by Neal (with 9 posts and 127 page views)

-=Good Selling=-

Top Ten Predictions for the Copier Industry in 2010

It's that time of the year again!!

Can we all be thankful that 2009 is going, going, gone!!!

The office equipment industry was rocked this year with additional consolidation with the likes of Canon, OCE, Nuance, e-Copy, Xerox and HP.

I've got good news, this is going to continue into 2010!

Who will the players be in 2010?

Here's my predictions for 2010, enjoy!


1. HP makes Hostile bid for Xerox


2. Kyocera acquires Sharp's MFP business


3. KonicaMinolta acquires Toshiba's MFP business


4. Ricoh acquires Kodak Print Production Group


5. Matt Espe is announced and new Ricoh CEO


6. Samsung purchases Memjet technology


7. Samsung is number #1 in world wide MFP placements


8. Panasonic finally throws in the towel!


9. Print Management Software is now a standard bid spec for the federal government (GREEN rules)


10. Okidata acquires Lexmark


Yeah, I know some of these are far fetched, who knows we've seen crazier things happen in the industry, right? If you've got anything to add, post it here and I'll add the comments!





-=Good Selling=-

You're now selling Managed Print Services "Your Thoughts Now

Well, very interesting is all I can say. About a week ago, we posted a new poll for Managed Print Services "Your Thoughts Now". We asked, since you're now into MPS, how's it going?

As of right now, more than half rate it as a failure or not reaping the profits that they thought they would, while another 25% states that it's ok and only 9% stated "It's been a great success for us".

If you're into MPS take the poll, I can't wait to see the final numbers on this one.

We'll have this poll running till the end of the year.

-=Good Selling=-

This Week in Xerox "TWIX Notes"

- Xerox announced it has sold one of its iGen3 90 production color systems to the in-house printshop at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota:

- Replaced a Xerox DocuColor 6060 and two Konica Minolta bizhub PRO 1050s
- Added a Xante’ Ilumina Digital Envelope Press (relabeled Okidata color LED printer)
- Purchased two Hewlett Packard Edgeline CM8050 color inkjet units to print letterhead

- Xerox provided a few details about the sales of the ColorQube color wax copier so far:
- Claims that over half the units sold replaced competitive color or b/w MFPs
- 25% of clicks are “useful color pages” (contain b/w and very small amount of color)
- 50% of clicks are “everyday color pages” (some color)
- 25% of clicks are “expressive color pages” (lots of color)
- “color pages are running higher than expected”
- Would not disclose how many units were sold so far

- Xerox announced it will now offer an embedded version of Equitrac usage tracking/control software for its EIP (extensible interface platform) equipped MFPs.

- Xerox is using a test report from Buyers Labs Inc. (BLI) to tout that its MFPs are faster and more productive as network printers than its competitors. However, what I've heard is that the tests that were done used “banner sheets”, to separate the print jobs. Banner sheets are rarely used by end users, as they are considered wasteful. However, since many MFPs treat these banner pages as separate print jobs, they process slower than a Xerox MFP that treats banner pages as part of the print job.

Summary: if customer does not use banner pages, they most likely will see no speed increase with a Xerox.

- Xerox announced it will resell CAStor content storage software from Caringo Inc. of Austin, Texas.

-=Good Selling=-

MFP Weekend Industry Notes

- Dell Computer reported its last quarter’s financials:
- Revenue down 15% to $12.9 billion
- Income down 54% to $337 million
- Large enterprise business revenue fell 23%
- SMB (small to medium size businesses) revenue fell 19%
- Consumer revenue down 10$
- Public sector revenue down 7%
- Perot Systems division revenue fell 12% to $629 million
- Desktop PC revenue fell 26%
- Desktop PC units fell 15%
- Mobile PC revenue fell 14%
- Server sales fell 6%, units down 7%

- Premier Purchasing Partners, which is a healthcare alliance of more than 2200 hospitals and 63,000 healthcare sites, announced that it will now offer Konica Minolta, Ricoh & Xerox products to its membership. The new contract, with these offerings, will be launched 1/1/2010.

- ABBYY Software Ltd., the OCR manufacturer headquartered in Russia, announced that Ingram Micro will distribute its products to resellers (VARs & dealers) in the U.S.

- Secunia, a network security alert firm, announced that denial of service network attacks could be carried out using a vulnerability found in some Hewlett Packard Color LaserJet models.

- Hewlett Packard announced that it won bid to supply Kmart locations with a version of its Edgeline color inkjet MFPs. The HP Photosmart ML1000 Minilab will allow Kmart stores to sell digital photo printing. (OMG, did Kmart not read about the edgelines??)

- Okidata announced that it will relabel Nuance document management software (PaperPort) as an option for its MFPs and call it the Okidata Desktop Capture Solution.

- IKON, a division of Ricoh, announced that it will resell software from KnowledgeLake, which offers viewing and retrieval technology for Microsoft Sharepoint.


- Ricoh’s factory direct branches will now offer the ability for their sales reps to:
- bundle in software and computer hardware into a lease
- bundle in professional services/network service, by a pass thru approach on a lease, so end users can pay for the service monthly

- In Japan, Ricoh launched the MP-C1800 A3 color laser MFP offering:
- 18ppm top speed
- Slower, less expensive version of existing MP-C2200
- Will replace the C1600/615C, which is a color inkjet copier, based on Ricoh GelSprint technology
- 4 tandem OPC drum design
- Optional fax board

- The U.S. Postal Service announced it will end 2009 with a $.38 billion loss.

- Sharp now shipping new low end b/w laser MFPs, the MX-M200D, MX-M260 & MX-M310 offering:
- MX-M200D offers 20ppm top speed
- Replaces AR-M207e
- Based on Pegasus A3 engine design, first launched in 2003
- Base MSRP of $4090
- Comes standard with 40 sheet document feeder
- Unlike other Sharp models, does not offer the textured plastic exterior
- Small, non-touch screen monochrome LCD panel
- Toner yield of 16K based on 5% coverage per page
- Developer and drum yield of 50K
- Comes standard with USB port and 48MB RAM
- Scans in color and b/w, but only TWAIN scan standard
- Optional network printing and scanning for $750 with PCL print driver
- PostScript print driver for $395
- Fax board for $660
- 10MB fax memory for $195
- Comes standard with two 250 sheet paper drawers and 100 sheet stack bypass
- Auto duplex standard
- Additional 250 sheet drawers are $450 each
- No finishing options
- MX-M260 and MX-M310 offer 26ppm and 31ppm respectively
- Based on Andromeda A3 engine launched in 2003
- Replace the AR-M257 & AR-M317
- Base MSRPs of $5650 and $6995 respectively
- Come standard with USB port and 32MB RAM
- Optional 1GB RAM
- No scanning standard
- Optional print controller for $1195
- PCL print driver
- PostScript print driver for $395
- 300MHz processor
- 64MB RAM (can upgrade to 320MB)
- $395 for data security kit
- No hard drive option for spooling or storage
- Network scanning is additional $1095
- Scan to email/FTP/desktop in b/w only
- Application Integration Module allows end users to enter data at control panel for their scans for $349
- Fax board is $1195
- No second fax line option
- Toner yield of 25K based on 5% coverage per page
- Developer and drum yields of 75K
- Come standard with two 250 sheet paper drawers and 100 sheet stack bypass
- 8.1” monochrome LCD touch screen
- 100 sheet document feeder with top scan speed of 39opm
- Can add two 500 sheet drawers for $795
- Optional internal stapling finisher for $1795

- Lexmark now shipping a floor standing A3 b/w laser MFPs, the X860 series offering:
- Are actually made by Fuji of Japan
- Similar versions are also sold with Xerox DocuCentre name on them
- X860de is 35ppm for base MSRP of $5989
- X862dte is 45ppm for base MSRP of $8249
- X864dhe is 55ppm for base MSRP of $10,799
- Will be sold by 150 Lexmark dealers in the U.S.
- Will also be sold with Ricoh will also sell under the InfoPrint name
- Large full color touch screen color LCD control panel
- Built-in print controller
- Embedded Solutions Framework (eSF) allows for embedded applications
- 800MHz processor
- 80GB hard drive and 256MB RAM
- Can upgrade to 1.28GB RAM
- 10/100/1000BaseT & USB ports
- PCL, PostScript & XPS print drivers
- Network scanning in b/w or color
- Fax board for $300 more
- Toner yield of 35K based on 5% coverage per page
- Comes standard with two 500 sheet paper drawers and 100 sheet stack bypass
- Auto duplex standard
- 75 sheet document feeder, with 55opm top scan speed for b/w and 27opm for color
- Add two more 500 sheet paper drawers for $899 or 2,000 LCT fo $1399
- Optional side mount 2000 LCT for $1249
- Stapling, hole-punching finisher for $1375
- Booklet making finisher for $2699

- Lexmark announced it will now offer Ringdale’s FollowMe for its printers and MFPs that allow for an embedded application. FollowMe enables end users to enter a PIN code, Windows login, ID card reader or biometric reader to authenticate and track usage.

- Due to downsizing, Lexmark is now trying to lease 135,000 square feet of office space in Lexington, Kentucky.

- Another imaging software company plans on entering the market in the U.S. to compete with Nuance eCopy and NSI’s AutoStore:
- New Dynamic Solutions (NDS) is based in Brugge, Belgium and is now selling products in Europe
- Will enter U.S. in early 2010
- In Europe is now selling its “ScanFlow Suite” to work with Ricoh (ScannerVision),
Konica Minolta (Document Navigator) and Toshiba (eBRIDGE Capture & Store)
- Founded in 1983
- CEO is Rene Brunt, who formerly worked for Ricoh
- Is a C++ based application
- Employs 25 people
- Software is embedded in the MFP, and uses color LCD touch screen control panel
- Approximately $223 for entry level “Express” version
- $748 for “Office” version
- Each additional MFP licensse is $148
- Optional modules for OCR/ICR, forms recognition, barcode recognition ($298 to $1497 each)
- Customizable control panel
- Has two dozen connectors to third party applications

- Quark of Denver, makers of QuarkXPress desktop publishing software, announced it is launching a web-to-print website, so it can better compete with Adobe InDesign. The website, QuarkPromote.com, allows end users to use a free design tool, and choose from hundreds of templates, and then order prints from a Sir Speedy, PIP or Signal Graphics printshop.

- Since Xerox bought ACS, HP bought EDS and Dell bought Perot Systems, many have speculated if Computer Sciences Corp. is also up for sale. According to company president, David Booth; “We like our position. We truly believe that there’s a role for companies like ours in the market”

- Samsung of Korea now shipping the CLX-8540ND color laser A4 MFP featuring:
- base MSRP of $8249
- 40ppm top speed
- 100K/month max monthly duty cycle
- Built-in print controller with 800MHz processor
- 1GB RAM
- 160GB hard drive
- 10/100/1000BaseT ports
- Maximum paper capacity of 2,720 sheets
- 600x600dpi (9600dpi with interpolation)
- Optional hanging stapling finisher
- Color touch screen LCD control panel
- 20K black toner yield
- Color toners yield 15K

- According to a Chinese newspaper, Toshiba is considering selling off its notebook computer manufacturing division to Asustek of China. Asustek makes computer motherboards, and its own PCs, selling in the U.S. through Best Buy and other retailers.

- According to survey conducted by the Photizo Group, half of the companies that are using a managed print services program, have done so by partnering directly with an equipment manufacturer.

-=Good Selling=-

Happy Thanksgiving from the Print4Pay Hotel!

May everyone have a healthy, and Happy Thanksgiving.

At this time of year please make a gesture with extra change, gifts or work to the needy!

Copier Sales "What Comes Around Goes Around"

If you've been in the business as long as me, you'd be considered ah... well.....OLD! Believe it or not sometimes OLD is good!


Over the years I've sold many systems and developed many relationships. Additionally in these years I've seen business relationships change. Change is a part of our business, whether technology or our contacts.

I can remember an article of years gone by that spoke about customer/account attrition, going by memory I believe the article stated that you could lose up to one third of your accounts each year due to a voluntary or involuntary churn.

Just lately I've had some calls from contacts who have moved to other companies and even a few who have started new companies, thus new opportunities were created! So even in the worst of times there are some silver linings among the doom and gloom.

So, this Holiday season, make sure you touch base with all of your customers, until you make the call, you may not be aware of a change with your relationship. Consider this, even if your contact has moved on, with your call you've just established the beginning of a new relationship with someone else.

-=Good Selling=-

Copier Sales "New RFP's Uploaded to Print4Pay Hotel"

I've posted some new information that's been posted on the Print4Pay Hotel Message Forums.

New RFP's For You!

Multifunctional Copier Rental

RFP for Printers, Copiers, and Multifunction Devices "Due 12/4/09"

Bid for Toshiba 2830 "Due 11/30/09"

Soliciting proposals to lease/purchase a digital

Digital Archiving Project for the Central Library "Due by 12/3/09"

Printing Solution "Due 12/08/09"

All of these for you! Keep in mind that you need to be a member to view the Print4Pay Hotel message boards. Become a member of the largest group of copier professionals in the world!!

-=Good Selling=-