MFP Weekend Industry Notes

12/15/08

- Buyers for large companies discussed their plans for how many MFPs they were going to acquire in 2009. The Print & Imaging Summit in Bonita Springs, FL, had attendees from these large firms:
- Bank of America
- Kaiser Permanente
- The Home Depot (“We’re not looking to spend a lot of money – basically to keep the lights on. We don’t even know what we have, to be honest. Corporate offices are the Wild West, and we’re looking to do a lot more self-assessment” from Greg Malkovich, Strategic Sourcing Manager)
- ConAgra Foods
- Lockheed Martin
- Interior Health Authority
- Deloitte Services (“Our print and image fleet is probably about 4,500 printers or MFPs and about 700 copiers. We’re looking to put more things together and reduce the number of devices. We’ve also done a horrible job of tracking what we print. In terms of spending, our copiers are always leased and our printers are always bought.” from Anna Garrett, Senior Manager)
- American Family Mutual Insurance (“We’ved had all these functions centralized since 2001; all print, all mail, all our IT functions are under one organization, and we’ve seen some real benefits from that. We’re headed for our second generation of MFPs and we partner quite heavily with our finance area and do a lot of tracking of end usage. We used to have 2400 printers and 460 copiers, and have maybe 800 printers and 225 copiers now. We’re seeing reductions because we’re rightsizing – it’s not just for our budget.” from Lawrence McNish, Director of Document Processing Resources)
- Alliant Energy (“Our copier and printer fleet from Xerox are all up for renewal this year. We have less budget to spend like everyone else, but I don’t like leases because of what happens at the end of a lease. I don’t like the lack of flexibility. I’d like to put something in place that allows me to rent. Plus, even beyond putting ink on paper, you have plenty of issues with document management” from Cynthia Meyer, Senior Buyer, IT)
- UPS (“We’re trying to get our arms around that, and trying to figure out our strategic direction.” From Keran O’Reilly, Lead Business Systems Analyst)
- IBM (“On our printer side, we had HP and Lexmark both, and they’re bought from resellers. It’s my observation, though, that HP and Lexmark support the reseller and not necessarily the client.” From Greg Cunningham, Manager of Service Strategies and Optimization)

- IBM announced it will partner with Samsung of Korea to develop software for printers and MFPs.

- DocuWare announced that it won a bid to provide document management to Krispy Kreme in 13 locations in the west.

- DocuLex announced it won a bid to provide document management to Nassau County, Florida.

- Countries in Europe that belong to the EU are considering tacking a 3% to 14% duty on printers and MFPs that are imported into the country. Manufacturers like HP, Lexmark, etc. are fighting this in court in Luxembourg as this would put a major dent in sales.

- Duplo, maker of duplicators, and relabelers of Sharp copiers, announced it will redesign its logo and add the tagline; “From Print To Documents”

- Buyers Labs Inc. gave out more details on the new Frontier series of A4 color laser MFPs from Sharp. The MX-C311 features:
- Base MSRP of $7095
- Maximum monthly duty cycle of 150K/month
- Sharp recommends that it run max average of 6,000 per month
- 8.5” color LCD touch screen
- 31ppm top print speed
- Comes out of box with one 600 sheet paper drawer standard, so if needed, can be placed on a countertop
- 100 sheet stack bypass
- Up to 28lb. bond only in drawers, and up to 110lb. index only in bypass
- Can add more drawers to make unit floor standing, up to 2,100 sheets
- Footprint of only 17.25” back to front
- Maximum paper size of 8.5”x14”
- Supports OSA (optional embedded software)
- Built-in print controller
- Actual maker unknown
- 1GB RAM (expandable to 2GB)
- 80GB hard drive
- 1GHz processor
- 10/100/1000BaseT and USB ports
- PCL and PostScript print drivers standard
- Optional XPS print driver
- Scanning included; TWAIN, FTP, e-mail/LDAP, folder, SMB, URL & HDD
- 1000 copy control codes
- 48 job programs
- Copy resolution is 600x600dpi
- Print resolution of 1200x1200dpi (does not offer 8 bits per pixel)
- Optional fax board (only 400dpi)
- Document feeder holds up to 50 sheets, but only runs at 35opm top speed
- optional attachment allows for business card feeding
- Optional internal finisher can staple up to 30 sheets of 20lb. paper in corner only

- Hewlett Packard announced it is freezing salaries in a cost containment move.

- HP also announced that it now has 140 Elite level dealers in the U.S. selling managed print services with HP MFP devices.

- Ricoh loses executive. Vince Hanson, who was Ricoh’s Manager of Solutions Marketing, has left to become VP of Sales & Marketing for Information Access Systems, Inc., an electronic content management provider.

- According to Ricoh Executive, Nobuski Majima, for every $1 spent on printing by print shops, up to $6 is spent on managing the print workflow.

- JetMobile launched a box that attaches to anyone’s printer of MFP to provide secure printing. The “SecureJet Box” won’t allow the printer or MFP to print out the job until an end user keys in their secret code, set when they send their print job.

- Oce’ announced it will relabel three more Konica Minolta b/w models. The bizhub 361, 421 and 501 will be called the Oce’ VarioLink 3622, 4222 and 5022.

- Xerox makes management change at one of its Global locations. ImageQuest of Wichita, KS, will have former owner Bob Hughey step down to lesser position, and replaced by Paul Black, who was working for competitor, Imaging Office Systems.



- Snapshot of Oce’ offices and personnel:
- Total employment of 24,000
- Total revenue of $4.6 billion
- operates in more than 90 countries
- CEO is Rokus van Iperen
- maintains research and manufacturing centers in Netherlands, United States, Canada, Germany, France, Belgium, Czech Republic, Romania & Singapore
- Oce’ North America is headquartered in Trumbull, CT with additional business units in:
- Chicago, IL
- New York City, NY
- Boca Raton, FL
- Salt Lake City, UT
- Conventry, RI
- Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
- Total revenue of $2.3 billion
- 11,000 employees

- Samsung of Korea announced that its profit margins of its LCD display business have “vaporized” and that it may slash capital spending by 30% in 2009.

- December 9th marked the 40th anniversary of the computer mouse. It was invented by Bill English, a former employee of Xerox, which never marketed the technology. Logitech, one of the world’s leaders in mouse making, announced it had sold its billionth mouse.

- Fuji of Japan, maker of most Xerox MFPs and printers, announced it is working on new software as options for its products:
- ability to scan to similar documents (like two architectural designs), find the differences, and then output a page showing the differences
- ability to scan a document in one language, and have it translated into another when it is printed out
- making paper that has embedded fibers, so that if printed with confidential data, it will trigger an alarm if an employee tries to remove it from the office
- embedding plant fibers in paper, to distinguish it from unauthorized copies

- The Garaway School District of Ohio awarded a copier bid to COMDOC, a local Ricoh dealer. The contract is $4209 per month, with b/w clicks for $0.005 each.

- A Toshiba dealer in Fresno, CA announced it will give away bicycles to high achieving students in the area who have overcome adversity. Zoom Imaging (aka WOLCO) will have Santa Claus on hand to award the gift to 150 deserving students.

- Sharp announced it will close factories in Mie and Nara, Japan that make low resolution LCD displays due to slow sales. 300 employees will be let go.

- How does Canon make up for the $1 billion in lost sales when Ricoh purchased IKON? Don Dixon of Gartner Group suggests that they hook up with HP. “I’ve advocated some kind of (agreement) between Canon and HP, modeled off the Fuji-Xerox joint venture……………Whether Canon has the temerity for something like that is the question.”

- Kodak announced it would stop 401K matching for its employees as well as a salary freeze in a cost cutting move.

- Kodak announced that it has now placed 30 of its NexPress production color systems within locations of Consolidated Graphics Corp.

- In a recent survey of printshop owners, the two production systems that had the highest amount of copies in between service calls were the Konica Minolta bizhub PRO C6500 and the bizhub PRO 1050.