MFP Weekend Industry Notes 3-29-09

The following is a quick review of copier/MFP industry news from various trade publications.

- ImageSource magazine announced its Perfect Image Awards, which are given to successful independent dealers:
- Dealer of the Year = Modern Office Methods, a Lanier dealer with multiple locations in Ohio.
- Outstanding Service Program = Modern Office Methods
- Outstanding Sales Program = Thermocopy of Tennessee
- Outstanding Marketing Program = Impact Networking of Illinois/Wisconsin
- Most Innovative Customer Retention Program = Mr. Copy of California
- Best Implementation of Technology Strategies = Fisher’s Document Systems of Idaho
- Best Use of Company Website = Cell Business Equipment of California
- Outstanding Community Involvement = E.O. Johnson of Wisconsin

- Variable data software maker, XMPie, announced a new option, called “Personaleffect E-Media”, which generates personal URLs. When a direct mail piece is generated, the prospects name is created into a website, that the end user can enter to respond to the offer.

- Former Xerox workers have reached a preliminary settlement against their former employer over benefits they claim they should have received. The U.S. District Court approved a $51 million settlement.

- Xerox sales agent, Mr. Copy, won a bid to provide DocuShare document management software to OwnerGUARD Inc., an insurance claims processor in San Diego, CA. The solution was named DocuShare Insurance Claims Workflow.

- Hewlett Packard won a managed print services contract from GES of Las Vegas:
- Originally had 754 copiers, printers and fax machines
- Has 1500 employees in 3 offices
- Was spending more than $1 million per year to own and operate devices
- New contract will reduce costs by 28%
- Now has just 268 HP MFPs

- Hewlett Packard announced it resolved its patent infringement case against Ninestar Image Co. Ltd. of China, which was making compatible cartridges for HP devices.

- Kyocera announced that it will be the official sponsor of the 2009 World Figure Skating Championship in Los Angeles from 3/23-3/29.

- Pitney Bowes announced that its mailing systems division will resell the Riso HC5500 high speed color inkjet printing system to customers looking to create full color variable data mailers. Pitney will compete against Riso branches and Riso dealers with the HC5500, which is jointly made by Riso and Olympus.

- Samsung announced it will offer a Managed Print Services Program thru its printer/MFP dealers featuring:
- Assessment Consulting Tool (ACT) which features a USB device to scan network for printers and MFPs
- Cost Simulation Tool (CST) is a tool to create a cost savings proposal
- SyncThru Admin 5 is a device management dashboard
- CounThru 2 Pro provides remote device management

- A recent study showed that approximately 75% of invoices generated by companies in the U.S. are paper based, thus proving the adoption of electronic invoicing is very slow.

- After starting a managed print services study in 2003, Boeing Corp. announced it finally chose a vendor to award a bid. Details:
- Originally had over 32,000 imaging devices
- Covers 195 offices in the U.S. and 168 locations in other countries
- Printers & MFPs provided by Lexmark
- Management of program provided by Dell Computer (which purchased hardware from Lexmark)
- Roll out will completed by 2011
- Plan is to reduce total imaging spend from $150 million to $110 million per year

- Charles Barbour of Boston was arrested after getting caught making fake $100 bills using a color copier. He allegedly sold fake $100 bills for $10 apiece.

- Staples is running a promo where it will give customer up to a $50 discount towards a new printer if customer brings in an old trade-in printer.

- Lexmark announced a new A4 b/w MFP, the X466DTE, offering:
- MSRP of $1679.00
- 40ppm top speed
- Letter/legal only
- 50 sheet document feeder
- Touch screen full color LCD control panel
- Auto duplex
- First page out time of 6.5 seconds
- Print/copy/fax/scan features
- Two 550 sheet paper drawers

- Toshiba announced a reorganization in its dealer division (called Toshiba EID):
- Steve Rhorer, formerly VP and GM of EID has left, and his position will not be backfilled
- Instead, top dealer division executives will report directly to Mark Mathews, current President & COO
- Larry White, VP of Sales
- Bill Melo, VP of Marketing
- George Colborn is VP of Service
- Sue Wilson head of Supply Chain Management, reporting to Steve Tungate

- Toshiba announced it will sell land it owns for 22 billion yen ($225 million) in an effort to raise cash.

- Equitrac announced it has named Jim Kano as Senior VP of Worldwide Sales & Marketing. He most recently served as VP of Worldwide OEM Sales for EFI, maker of Fiery controllers.

- Panasonic released a new A4 color laser MFP, the DP-MC210 offering:
- 4 tandem OPC drum design
- 21ppm top speed b/w or color
- 3.6” color LCD control panel
- Auto duplex
- 50 sheet document feeder
- 770 sheet paper drawers
- PCL print driver only
- 1200x1200dpi (does not offer 8 bits per pixel)
- Can scan up to 9600dpi in color or b/w
- Comes standard with READiris 7.0 OCR software
- Copy/scan/print/fax
- Base MSRP of $1995.00

- Samsung now shipping a new A4 b/w laser MFP, the SCX-5935FN featuring:
- 35ppm top speed
- Scan/fax/print/copy
- 7” color LCD control panel
- 80GB hard drive
- 80K/month duty cycle
- Auto duplex
- 1050 sheet paper capacity
- 1200x1200dpi
- 70 sheet document feeder
- Base MSRP of $1689.99

- MWAi, maker of remote device management systems, announced it is acquiring Print Control Software/ROI Print Manager. The company will develop end user management software applications. Also announced:
- Shane Hannan was appointed Senior VP of Sales & Marketing
- John Brostrom, who formerly ran ECi La Crosse (and founded the original LaCrosse Software) is now Senior VP of Operations

- Sharp announced it signed a multi-year agreement to be a sponsor of the New York Mets baseball team.

- Sharp lost a patent infringement brought against it by Samsung, over use of the Korean company’s LCD technologies.

- Sharp announced it is recalling 2,000 of its TVs, due to an overheating problem.

- Kodak announced plans to close two different manufacturing operations, and lay off 300 employees.

- The Wilkes County Georgia Board of Education awarded a copier bid to Milner Document Products, a Lanier dealer, which has offices in Georgia, Florida and North Carolina. Details:
- 17 units
- $2126.47 per month lease payment
- $0.009 for b/w clicks
- $0.08 for color clicks
- 36 month lease

- Apparently a lawsuit against Best Buy was granted class action status, over allegations that Best Buy sales reps were paid bonuses to deny honoring the company’s price match policy.

- Kyocera announced it has entered into an agreement with Pantone to get its new color laser MFPs, called TASKalfa, certified by Pantone.

Xerox has Killer Week for MPS & MFP's

Xerox still continues to perform despite a lagging economy. Two very nice awards for them!

-Xerox won a managed print services contract from University of Pittsburgh Medical Center:
- Was spending $10 million per year on machines, supplies & service
- Had 13,000 printers, copiers, fax machines and scanners for its 43,000 employees
- Was one device for every 2.5 employees
- Now has 3,000 Xerox MFPs
- Hope to save 35% annually

Xerox wins a bid for Blue Valley Public School District of Kansas. Details:
- Includes Xerox MFPs with embedded QDirect Scan
- school printshop gets web-to-print RSA WebCRD
- Models included were WorkCentre 7655 color MFPs, WorkCentre 5600 series b/w MFPs
- Installed in 31 schools
- Print center has Xerox 4112 and Nuvera 144 production b/w systems
- Also includes DocuShare document management system

-=Good Selling=-

EzeScan - Ricoh MFD Scanning to Objective with EzeScan Server

Found this interesting video on You Tube in reference to Ricoh and EzeScan. Take a look at the video and if you're interested in seeing a demonstration give me call..

Art

MFP Wars "The Final Five"

How many players do we have now....let's see Ricoh, Xerox, Canon, KonicaMinolta, OCE, Sharp, Kyocera, Toshiba, Muratec and Panasonic.

Many moons ago, I made a few predictions in reference to "what I thought" would happen with Ricoh Americas. To sum it up, my thoughts were that Ricoh would take all non performing dealers and ask them to become Lanier or Savin, while keeping the top Ricoh Dealer performers. It made sense to me in the fact that the Direct Channel would then have less competition for the Ricoh name and the emergence of Print Production Group. Ricoh then buys Ikon and the Direct Channel is now massive, who do you feed first? Do I think this will happen? We'll all seen stranger things happen right....

Xerox remains a strong force with the purchase of Global and then the Global purchase of Conmdoc, as a matter of fact there's a neat Poll on the RFG Family Group. It asks "What Dealer Will Global Buy Next?", there are three dealers listed and all three are giants in their market place. RFG P4P Hotel I'll try to repost here in a few days for everyone.

Canon, OMG!, seems they are signing any dealer that's still breathing, in my market place just a year ago we had two Canon dealers, we now have SIX dealers all competing in the same market place. What a way to errode your prices and saturate the market.

Panasonic seems to have thrown in the towel with their dealer network, and Muratec remains strong as a secondary source. I would have to believe that three of these companies will retire from the MFP market place in a few years. Rumors were rampant a few weeks ago that Toshiba was going to sell it's MFP division to Canon, until Mark Mathews, President and COO, Toshiba America Business Solutions announced that this was not true and they have never engaged anyone. However two weeks ago Norio Saskai was announced as the new President and CEO of Toshiba Corporate.

Toshiba seems like they are betting the ranch Mirco Nuclear Reactors (don't want one of those in my backyard). I don't think we've seen the last of the Toshiba rumors and if the economy keeps going the way it is, things will happen!

Rumors have also been rampant that Kyocera has or will sign an OEM agreement with Canon for their segment 6 systems. Let's be real, there are some great Kyocera Dealers out there, however how many really have the sales force and the bucks to play in that market. I see Kyocera's future as a dominating force for Global Solar Panels, you read more press releases about their solar technology than their MFP technology.

Sharp, your guess is as good as mine, they release some fantastic boxes, trying to play in Print Production and then they pass on the "On Demand Show" in Phili. Go figure.

So, that leaves us with the "Final 5" copier companies, Ricoh, Xerox, KonicaMinolta, Canon and OCE (rumors here with OCE that KonicaMinolta may make a move), these are my bets for who will make the final five. Maybe we can flip Kyocera and Oce.

The big conglomerates such as Panasonic, Toshiba, Sharp and Kyocera may have bigger roads to hoe than MFP's.

-=Good Selling=-

Getting in the Door "Three Questions to ask before prospecting"

Special thanx to Mike Adams for this article. I had the privilege of being able to attend one of Mike's seminars at the dealership I work for today. They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks right? Well, today I didn't learn any tricks but learned how to get more out of my phone prospecting and how to get appointments on the first call! If you're interested in having Mike out at your dealership or branch give him a call and make sure you tell him you saw the article on the P4P Hotel and you will receive a special. Call Mike for the details!

Three Questions to ask before prospecting

Today’s economy makes it more critical than ever for dealers to minimize operating costs, generate increased lead volume at the lowest possible cost and maximize sales results. The most common challenge for most dealers is how to get in the door with the right prospect.

This can be addressed by answering three questions:

Who should we call on?
How should we contact them to schedule a face-to-face meeting?
What offer should we use to entice them to meet with us?

Who Should We Call?

The “shotgun” approach — in which companies canvas large numbers of prospects in hopes of catching a few great leads — is outdated, not to mention time-consuming, costly and detrimental to the morale of the sales force. A targeted approach is needed in order to identify qualified companies and reach the key decision-makers. For most dealers, the greatest potential lies with CFOs, CIOs and high level administrators at mid-major (15-250 employees) and corporate-production print (250 employees or more) account markets, where sales typically exceed the average across all BTA Channel segments by approximately $42,000 and $92,000,
respectively.

To target the most likely prospects in these segments, it is important to acquire or have access to a comprehensive and up-to-date database. The database can be leveraged to prioritize prospects based on the following criteria: type of business, annual revenue, total number of employees and more. Other valuable sources of data are the prospect’s Web site and their advertising. Once prospects are identified, they can be distributed to the sales team in the form of a list for telemarketing.

What Offer Should We Use?

The classic offer of replacing current equipment with new machines is no longer effective. In today’s economy, businesses are less inclined to acquire new capital equipment, so new approaches are necessary. Since most prospects are interested in new ways to lower their operating expenses, a unique approach is to propose that the client outsource management of their printer fleet to your dealership. Dealers who have had success with this strategy do not replace any equipment initially, but are able to reduce the company’s operating costs by 10 to 30 percent by offering a lower per page rate for printing. Once they have developed the client relationship, sales, service and supply opportunities gradually evolve. This approach positions
the dealer in a more consultative role, which can be more profitable while maintaining a consistent revenue stream.

How Should We Contact Them?

Some dealers still do “Blitz Days” where the whole sales team makes personal calls on companies in one geographic area. This is a personal approach, but is costly and does not use sales representatives’ time wisely.

A more effective method for lead generation in these markets is phone prospecting to a targeted list of ideal prospects, combined with canvassing local businesses in the vicinity of prospects where personal appointments have been set via telemarketing. The actual work of generating these leads can be very challenging.

A number of dealers have set up their own internal telemarketing teams to generate these appointments in order to maximize the face time salespeople have with potential clients. Other dealers have chosen to outsource the telemarketing in order to reduce costs such as payroll, database fees and the headaches associated with managing employees.

When targeted correctly through effective telemarketing, mid-major and corporate accounts are easier to sell at a reasonable profit and due to their volume, may also present opportunities for future sales. The best approach, via either telemarketing or outsourcing, is the one that provides your dealership with the highest yield of qualified leads at the lowest total cost per lead.


Mike Adams is CEO of A-Tech Direct. He spent 20 years running a BTA member dealership in Southern California where he was an equity partner and served as vice president of sales and marketing.

He can be reached at (949) 292-1339
or madams@a-techdirect.com.
Visit www.a-techdirect.com.

TWIC "This Week in Canon"

Gartner announced that in 2008, Canon had 21% marketshare of the copier market, making it the leading vendor. (This data was recorded before impact of Ricoh’s acquisition of IKON, which was Canon’s largest distributor)

Canon announced that it has sold an imagePRESS C6000 production color system to a Century 21 Real Estate office in Chicago, where it will be used to produce marketing materials and color postcards.

Canon announced it has authorized Agfa Graphics to resell its imagePRESS production color systems to increase sales to graphic arts markets.

Canon announced it has authorized Heritage Business Systems as a full line Canon MFP dealer in Morristown, NJ.

The information above is a quick review of copier/MFP industry news from various trade publications.

-=Good Selling-=

Weekend MFP Notes from 3/22/09

The following is a quick review of copier/MFP industry news from various trade publications.

Recently, the 35th birthday passed for invention of Ethernet (the technology to connect computers, printers and peripherals):
- Invented by Bob Metcalfe while working at Xerox on 5/22/1973
- He went to work at Xerox when some Harvard professors failed his PhD thesis, which involved hooking up the university to Arpanet, a network that one day would evolve into modern Internet.
- Came up with the name “Ethernet” from the 1800s when American physicists Albert Michelson & Edward Morley disproved the then accept belief that light traveled through an invisible medium known as the “luminiferous ether”
- First two computers hooked together were named “Michelson” and “Morley”
- Metcalfe quit Xerox to start 3Com, and forged alliance with DEC and Intel in 1980.
- 1985, Ethernet became standard known as IEEE 802.3, beating out rival technology from IBM called Token Ring
- In 2008, over 350 million Ethernet switch ports were sold
- Mr. Metcalfe is now a retired venture capitalist due to the fortune he made

Brother Corp. of Japan announced that for the first time in 9 years, it will cut its spending on research and development due to slow sales.

Gartner announced that in 2008, Canon had 21% marketshare of the copier market, making it the leading vendor. (This data was recorded before impact of Ricoh’s acquisition of IKON, which was Canon’s largest distributor)

Ricoh launched new print-only laser engines:
- SP-C821DN offers 50ppm A3 top color speed (print only version of Ricoh color copier)
- SP-C820DN offers 40ppm A3 top color speed (print only version of Ricoh color copier)
- SP-4210N offers 36ppm A4 top b/w speed
- SP-4100NL offers 31ppm A4 top b/w speed


Sharp announced it will reduce its annual factory workers bonuses from 5 weeks pay to 4.

Sharp announced it will offer an embedded scan/OCR software for its copier from X-Solutions of the Netherlands, called “SimplifyScan”. Pricing not announced.

Xerox cut its forecast for first quarter profit nearly 80% due to a slowdown in technology spending.

Xerox announced that it is replacing the person in charge of its global marketing. Quincy Allen is out, and replaced by Eric Armour, the new President of Global Business & Strategic Marketing Group.

In order to cut costs amidst declining revenues, Xerox announced it is suspending the 401K match, starting a hiring freeze, and postponed salary increases in 2009. It will also cut back on travel, end use of outside consultants and overtime. It hopes these actions will save the company $300 million. Its stock price sank to $4.34 per share.

Lexmark, in an effort to boost laser printer/MFP sales after is lost its large distributor Circuit City to bankruptcy, announced it had struck deals to have its products on display at Staples, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Fry’s Electronics & Micro Center.

Springboard Research predicts that managed print services sales in Asia will grow from $392 million to $1 billion in 2012.

Hitachi announced that its current president, Kazuo Furukawa, will step down and be replaced by Takashi Kawamura.

Okidata launched new color MFPs at the ITEX show in Las Vegas. Details:
- CX2640 features 26ppm color and 40ppm b/w with A3 engine
- CX1145 is actually a relabeled Toshiba-made eSTUDIO 451C
- CX2033 is a desktop A4 model at 20ppm

Microsoft signed an agreement with Lexmark allowing the companies to share patents for future products.

Gartner reported data on sales of office equipment for 2008 and revealed:
- total shipments down 5.9% in 2008, as compared with 2.9% growth in 2007
- 20.8% decline in total MFP sales
- 13.2% growth in color MFP sales
- Page printers down 28.5%
- b/w printer sales down 29.9%
- color printer sales down 23.5%
- HP sales down 23.3%
- expects no increase until 2010

North Carolina State University is working on a special inkjet printer, emitting glue produced by marine mussels, to spray on patients to speed up healing after surgery.

As a result of huge losses, Toshiba Corp. announced it will replace its top executive. Atsutoshi Nishida is out, and replaced by Norio Sasaki, who ran the company’s nuclear division. He inherits the task of turning around a $68 billion behemoth that makes everything from memory chips, mobile phones, refrigerators, nuclear reactors, medical CT scanners, elevators, and copiers.

Toshiba announced it will partner with Atomenergoprom Corp. of Russia to build a nuclear enrichment plant in Japan.

According to a survey of executives conducted by Access Markets International Partners (AMI), 77% of midsize businesses, and 47% of small sized businesses in the U.S. acknowledge that their companies will take measures to reduce office printing costs in 2009.

According to the Wall Street Journal, IBM will buy Sun Microsystems for $6.5 billion.

Samsung of Korea announced it has taken steps to stop makers of compatible toner cartridges in the U.S. Investigations have led to the seizure of over 30,000 cartridges worth over $3 million.

An elderly woman in Tennessee accidentally pressed the accelerator instead of the brake, causing her Chevy Malibu to crash into a government office and run over their copier.

MWAi and DeLage Landen (DLL) Leasing have announced a partnership. Apparently, if dealers use DLL as their leasing partner for a copier sale, DLL will include MWAi products so that the dealer can access the copier’s meter reading remotely.

-=Good Selling=-

Selling MFP's "Run With the Big Dogs"

What's the Golden Rule when selling office equipment? Know your competition!

Ever notice every time you walk your dog he or she stops at every tree or fire hydrant, the dogs are checkin out the competition. Who's who, whose doing what and where ya been! Amazing that they can find all of that out in a few whiffs of hydrant!

Well, we as sales people need to know the competition, what they're up to and how to sell against them.

Here's some threads I've uploaded to the P4PHotel Message Boards, click the links and you'll be brought to the page.

How to Beat the Canon imageRunner 3045
How to Beat the Xerox WorkCentre 5645
How to Beat the Toshiba eSTUDIO 435

The Print4Pay Hotel includes boards for Ricoh Family Group, Kyocera, KonicaMinolta, Sharp, Canon and Xerox.

-=Good Sellin=-

Selling Copiers "How to Win Against The Direct Branch"

Just recently I read a brief article from a BLI email on "Dealers Aim to Survive and Thrive Against Direct Sales" , the article was then cut off and I was directed with a thread to read the article in its entirety, well....... I did and all I got was a thread to subscribe for a mere $529.00 to read the article, no how no way will I pay it.

I'm going to give some insight on how to come up a winner more often than not.

I'm going to post the article in its entirety on the P4P Message Boards, all of them. If you want all you have to do is log in and read for free, none of this bs that you have to pay for good information. If you're not a member, membership is FREE, register and you'll be approved that day, just make sure that you register on the correct boards. If you only sell KM and you're trying to get on the Kyocera board, it's not gonna happen, same thing with all of the other boards.

P4PHotelKyocera

P4PHotelKonicaMinolta

P4PHotelSharp

P4PHotelRicohFamily

P4PHotelCanon

-=Good Selling=-

Weekend MFP Notes from 3/15/09

The following is a quick review of copier/MFP industry news from various trade publications.

- InfoPrint, the division of Ricoh that was formerly a division of IBM, announced it will open three large demo rooms to showcase the new high speed color inkjet printing system, the InfoPrint 5000. Centers will be in Boulder, CO, Shanghai, China and Germany.

- Ricoh now shipping an optional EFI Fiery print controller for some of its color laser MFPs. The Ricoh E5100 is now available for the Ricoh Aficio MP-C4000 and C5000. The Ricoh E3100 is now available for the Aficio C2800 and C3300.

- More details on the new Ricoh C900 production color system:
- While advertised as offering vacuum paper feed, this is not included as part of the optional RT-5030 large capacity, 13”x19” paper deck, even though this is the paper supply that handles the heavy 110lb. cover stock.
- Currently, coated stocks are not certified
- The optional RB5000 ring bind unit only punch holes, and then puts in rings, but does not use actual 3 ring binders. It also will not work with tabs.
- Uses pulverized toner instead of polymerized toner
- Uses fuser oil to affix toner to the paper (this is necessary as there is not enough heat and pressure generated to get toner to stick to paper)

- Ricoh’s CFO, Zenji Miura, revised the company’s earning goals:
- Lowered operating profit target by 32%
- Cut sales target by 8%
- Currently, operating profit is 45% less than a year earlier
- Ricoh CEO, Shiro Kondo said; “We are determined to do our best under the new target”

- Ricoh announced a $976 option that will allow some of its color laser MFPs to be able to print from IBM AS400 mainframe computers.

- A study of office workers conducted by Gartner, found that 70% of all copy jobs actually started at a desktop printer first.

- According to Kodak, over 114,000 tons of paper were used for printing in Washington DC in 2008.

- Kodak sold a NexPress S3000 production color system and a NexPress M700 (relabeled Canon imagePRESS C7000VP) to InfoCision, a printshop in Akron, OH.

- Notable Solutions Inc. (NSI), maker of AutoStore document management software, received $5 million from the Edison Venture Fund venture capital firm to grow its business.

- While Toshiba lost 280 billion yen in 2008, the Nikkei English News predicts that the company may break even in 2009.

- Toshiba in Japan, refused to consider a union’s pay hike demands for its factory workers.

- Toshiba announced that it will build a Solid State Drive (SSD) plant in the Phillipines with production hoped to begin in 2012.

- Kyocera announced it has received Microsoft Gold Certification for its printer manufacturing division.

- Hewlett Packard announced it will offer an optional HP Common Access Card solution for the LaesrJet M3035, M4345, M4730, M5025, M5035, M9040 & M9050 printers and MFPs.

- An HP dealer in Pennsylvania won a bid to provide managed print services to the Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper. The contract was for 5 years, and includes a fleet using 5 different types of HP products.

- Hewlett Packard announced it has placed an Indigo 7000 production color system at Nu Graphics Inc. of Boston, Mass.

- According to IDC, worldwide MFP/printer unit sales decreased 17% year over year. Total predicted placements in 2008 were 32.6 million, and revenue fell 13% to $15 billion in the fourth quarter. The company predicts sales will bottom out in 2009, and start a recovery in 2010.

- Another win for Acacia Research, who acquires obscure patents, and then chases firms for licensing fees. This time, EFI, maker of Fiery controllers, agreed to pay a licensing fee because Acacia now owns a digital halftone screening patent.

- EFI also announced it would close offices in Australia, England, France & Italy to reduce costs.

- Douglas Lindle of Elwood, IN was arrested for making fake currency on a color copier, after trying to use a fake $20 at a local gas station.

- Ciara Neil, Corgin Olerud, Joe Sasso & Bryan Walker were arrested in Oregon after they attempted to pay for Girl Scout cookies using fake $20 bills they made on a color copier.

- Samsung had its outlook dropped to “Negative” from “Stable” by Fitch Ratings.

- The Independent Business Association branch in the state of Washington has filed a complaint with the State, over a bid award for copying equipment. The Association claims that the current contract with Associated Business Systems, a subsidiary of Ricoh, forces the State to pay 4 cents per click, with a huge minimum volume. For example, the State Department of Ecology must pay for 950,000 copies per month, and currently being billed $15,493 per month for copies it does not make. They also claim that the state paid $50,000 for print assessments performed by Okidata and Lexmark.

- Hewlett Packard lost a court battle, reinstating a lawsuit against the company filed by Acceleron for infringing on a patent. Acceleron will now pursue collecting license fees from HP.

- According to InfoTrends, the opportunity for selling production print color systems is still growing:
- In 2005, there were 174,806 printshops and CRDs in the U.S.
- In 2005, these shops provided $379 billion in printing
- Predicts that this market will grow 1.94% per year
- Revenues for production color in 2004 were $2.4 billion, and expected to reach $9.4 billion in 2009
- There are 10,267 large shops in the U.S. generating $13 billion in print
- There are 39,553 small shops generating $3 billion
- There are 5,442 copy shops, and 7,136 quick/franchise printshops
- There are 14,636 commercial litho printshops generating $53 billion
- There are 4,795 in-plant data centers generating $9.5 billion
- There are 14,893 direct mail/service bureaus generating $19.7 billion
- There are 3,673 direct mail only shops generating $12 mbillion

- Lackawanna County, New Jersey awarded a new copier contract:
- Hopes to save $83,000
- Will eliminate 15 of its copiers
- Currently has 438 copiers/printers/fax machines
- Topps Business Solutions of Scranton was the winner

- Two managed print services vendors are joining forces. DocuAudit & FM Audit will combine their 12,000 printer model database to provide dealers a more comprehensive tool.

- Xerox offering a trade-in program to boost sales of its desktop color printers. If customer trades in their old printer they can get $50 off a Phaser 8560, $50 off a Phaser 6360 and $250 off a Phaser 7760.

- Xerox placed an iGen4 production color system at Gabriel Group, a printshop in St. Louis, MO.

- The Canadian government is considering regulating colorants used in ink cartridges for inkjet printers, as they are concerned about supposed health risks for ingested ink.

Copier Sales Proposals "Pricing on the Street"

Just wanted to give you all a heads up. I've uploaded two down n dirty RBS Quotes from New Jersey! One for the new MP C5000 and the other for the W2400 Wide Format. Check them out you will be astonished at the pricing! Special thanks to the Print4Pay Hotel members that sent them to me for uploading.


If you're selling MFP's, or still calling them copiers, the Print4Pay Hotel currently has 6 active message boards for Ricoh Family Group, Sharp, KonicaMinolta, Kyocera , Canon and Xerox P4P In the early spring of 2009, we will launch Toshiba and OCE P4P Message Boards!

The Print4Pay Hotel averages 60,000 page views a month, with over 210,000 hits, and over 55,000 threads, we are the Global Resource on the Web for Copier Sales Professionals.

These quotes were uploaded today:

Ricoh MP C5000
Ricoh W2400

Plus

Competing against the Canon imageRUNNER 3045?


Become a member while it's still FREE, talk to your peers, share inspirations, success stories, sales tips, quotes and much more. Start by following the link below.

http://www.p4photel.org/

-=Good Selling=-

The Tug of War- Recycling in a Downturn

Special thanx to Gary Peterson and the crew over at GAP Intelligence for this article. Over the last twenty years since the first AIO cartridge (All in One) there has to have been billions of print cartridges that has made there way to the landfill. Do your part RECYCLE!

“We are recycling not only to protect the environment, but for economic reasons as well. Disposal is simply too costly and too dangerous. The challenge is to redirect the flow of raw materials going to landfill into strengthening our declining local economies. The solution to pollution is self-reliant cities and counties.”

- Neil Seldman, Institute for Local Self-Reliance, 1990

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word “recycle”? Is it the environment or is it how recycling impacts the economy? While the environment is a direct beneficiary of recycling, businesses all around the world profit from developing recycled products and using recycled materials ranging from paper to energy. Without the economic benefits of recycling, the practice would stay limited to the crunchy hippies living in Northern Arizona. As the economy continues to weaken, recycling has been thrown on the back burner and is not reaping the same returns it did when the markets were booming.

Clearly the recycling industry experiences both push and pull movements. Environmental groups have been trying to grow the popularity and acceptance of recycling for decades. Now that Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio have declared global warming a massive threat, the public is taking note and realizing that recycling is not only good for the environment but is “cool.” People see the benefits that recycling has on their lives socially and economically. However, the future of recycling depends on the strength of the economy and without those benefits recycling becomes a secondary thought.

In the past, recycling was mainly associated with milk cartons and cardboard packaging, but has recently extended into the electronics realm. Best Buy offers nationwide free recycling programs for a multitude of electronics. Although such endeavors have inclined Best Buy to help the environment, the retailer’s main motivation is its bottom line, as it knows that recycling is important to consumers for various reasons. Best Buy has a “Field of Dreams” mentality – if you build it they will come, and knows that electronics recycling will increase traffic to its stores.

Both the social and economic attributes of recycling have helped the cause grow. However, the industry is now struggling as companies attempt to stay afloat and sustainable products sink to the bottom of the priority list. Many cities thrive on selling their used goods, including Minnesota’s $3 billion recycling industry. The state depends on recycled goods and over the past few months demand has drastically dropped as a result of the strained economy.

While we may often forget, recycling is a global industry. China is among the world’s largest importers of recycled waste and collects a huge portion of recycled material from the US and England and then returns finished goods. As demand for material items has dropped, China’s importing has also declined, leaving countries like the US and England with thousands of tons of recycled waste. The mounds of recycled waste wait in product purgatory until they are made into new products or get dumped into a landfill.

“My hobby of not attending meetings about recycling saves more energy than your hobby of recycling.”

-John McCarthy

One growing argument is that recycling takes more energy than it is worth. Although it is a proven fact that recycling is beneficial to the environment, there are many residual effects of the recycling industry. A critical eye has been cast on those industries that have a negative impact on the environment. However, does recycling use more energy to produce goods than the power consumed to make brand new items? Is our yearning for a paper-free office actually generating more fossil fuels in the process? How can recycling help us economically when it uses more resources than the alternative?

"Solid wastes" are the discarded leftovers of our advanced consumer society. This growing mountain of garbage and trash represents not only an attitude of indifference toward valuable natural resources, but also a serious economic and public health problem.”

- Jimmy Carter

While it takes energy to make energy and produce recycled goods, we will eventually be able to employ reusable energy to make these products. Until then, we will have to accept the fact that it may take more energy than we are saving. Recycling creates jobs while incinerating garbage is basically a one-man act. The paper industry remains among the largest consumers of natural resources. Despite the internet and the advent of digital documents, paper is not going away. The industry accommodates consumers by offering recycled products but continues to fight the notion that it does not harm the environment to the extent that it does.

Industries need to think long term, even though the short term is staring them in the face. It is simple economics, the short term may appear more attractive, but in fact it is those that plan for the long term that ultimately achieves success. While paper will not go away in the near future, the industry is struggling from much lower demand. Improving production methods, using alternative energy, and modernizing equipment will help the paper industry gain an upper hand. While product development takes time and money, it will surely be beneficial in the long run.


We know that recycling is driven by market conditions. But we also know that recycling can help us secure a more efficient future. We need to think long term. We need to work to maintain recycling efforts in offices and at home and continue purchasing recycled products.

"You can tell how high a society is by how much of its garbage is recycled."

- Dhyani Ywahoo

Is it possible that upholding these environmental initiatives could actually help us get out of the current economic crisis? At the moment, it seems like a vicious cycle and no one is sure where it will go. We must not abandon the positive impacts recycling has had on our society as times get tough. The markets will turn, and it would be beneficial to us all to have recycling and other efforts in place when Wall Street rebounds.

“The case for recycling is strong. The bottom line is clear. Recycling requires a trivial amount of our time. Recycling saves money and reduces pollution. Recycling creates more jobs than dumping in landfills or incineration. And a largely ignored but very important consideration, recycling reduces our need to dump our garbage in someone else's backyard.”

-David Morris of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance

"TWIC" This Week in Canon

Canon announced it has replaced two Xerox iGen3 production color systems. Go To Digital, a printshop in Laurel, MD, replaced the two Xerox units with two new Canon imagePRESS C7000VP systems.

- Canon announced that it is lowering its profit target for 2009 by 75% due to declining demand for its products, and the loss of DANKA and IKON distribution. It does however expect revenue to grow by 6% in 2010. Chairman, Fujio Mitarai, stated that “We will continue to aim for the top 100 status, but we are not sure if e can achieve that in 2010” in regards to his quest to make Canon one of the 100 largest companies in the world.

- Canon announced it has placed other imagePRESS C7000VP production color systems, this time at Ron’s Printing Center in Longmont, CO, and Copresco Printing of Chicago, according to Dennis Griff, Senior Director for Production Print for Canon.

- Canon has launched programs to aggressively assist its dealers go after the IKON/Canon machines in field:
- “Canonball” program provides a check to end user to cover up to 9 monthly IKON lease payments to make it easier to upgrade to a new Canon from the Canon dealer.
- “Double Stretch Your Dollar’s program provides up to $8000 to upgrade a Ricoh product to Canon

The information above is a quick review of copier/MFP industry news from various trade publications.

-=Good Selling-=

Selling is a lot like Fishing!

On my recent vacation in Deerfield Beach, Florida, I had the chance to catch up on some fishing. The day before I was to go fishing I thought I would check out the pier and see what types of rigs were being used, what was being caught, the type of bait they were using and possibly what was the best time to go fishing. So, off I went before the sun was up, I made it to the pier in about 15 minutes (walking).

The fishing pier was about a quarter mile long and shaped as a T, I noticed there were two types of fishing going on. One group of anglers were armed with five or six fishing poles each. They were fishing for the REALLY big ones, Tarpon, Wahoo, Cobia and Barracuda. The other group of anglers were fishing for the REALLY small ones, Grunts, Runners, Puffers and some other name I can't recall.

Our first group the Really Big Ones would bait up all of the their poles, cast them out and then wait, and wait and wait some more. After being there for four hours there was not one REALLY big fish caught by the REALLY BIG ONES, as a matter of fact they caught none! They were caught up in the waiting game.....

Our second group the REALLY SMALL ONES were only using one pole each. However this type of fishing seemed to best if you were there to catch fish. Once they lowered the lines they were getting hits and bringing fish in, no big fish, but never the less, they were bringing one and two pounders consistently. These guys were constantly changing their baits, cutting their baits and railin and palin fish! That's what they came for, heck they didn't even have the time to rest!

So, where's the meat in all of this? Well, the guys who fished hard and were willing to take the smaller fish were the guys who went home with fish. The guys who wanted the big ones, got nothing and went home with no fish. Seems to me this is alot like sales, you can be the guy who only goes after the big ones or the guy who is willing to work harder and take the smaller ones. Day in and day out the guy who works hard and takes the smaller fish out fishes the guy who waits on the big ones.

A friend of mine once said, "the hardier you work, the luckier you get"

-=Good Selling=-

MFP Weekend Industry Notes from 3/08/09

The following is a quick review of copier/MFP industry news from various trade publications.

Xerox won a bid to provide 3,500 printers & MFPs to KeyCorp, a large financial company. Details:
- Reduced equipment from 10,000 placements to 3,500, removing fax machines, desktop printers and scanners.
- 6 year contract
- Xerox claims it will save KeyCorp $6 million over total contract term
- 120 locations involved
- Was a managed print services contract

Xerox is bundling its 700 model color laser MFP with special software in an attempt to market it to photo finishing labs, as a high speed photo publishing system. The software package is called Xerox FreeFlow Photo Automation Tool with the Picture Me Profitable Kit and offers 50 templates, color management, as well as job ticketing.

The IRS has discovered that a firm in Rochester, NY has apparently bilked Xerox for more than $8 million. Clark Auto Electric, which was contracted by Xerox to service the forklifts in its warehouses, supposedly charged Xerox for service never performed and parts never installed.

Xerox reported more details on its financials:
- 4th quarter revenue declined 14%
- 70% of revenue and 80% of cash flow is generated from annuities
- Annuity revenue during past year was $12.9 billion
- Cash balance at end of 2008 was $1.2 billion
- Company has $2 billion credit facility
- Total revenue for 2008 of $17.6 billion
- Full year income of $230 million
- 5% of revenue invested in R&D
- 3400 employees let go
- 2008 bonuses scaled back
- Some will receive no salary increases
- Training and travel expenses reduced
- Color is 41% of revenue
- Color pages made under service contract grew 24%
- Color pages account for 18% of total pages under contract
- 7,500 sales reps total

Xerox announced it will offer coin-op and usage tracking systems from Showcase Technology. Called the EzTrans, it distinguishes between black & white and color, and bills at the appropriate rate.

Xerox announced it has sold one of its $640,000 iGen4 production color systems to Shutterbug Photo Mall of Bowling Green, Kentucky, who will offer web-to-print products over the Internet.

Kyocera Mita won for the second time, the Evergreen Award from the U.S. Government (GSA) for its use of silicon amorphous silicon drum technology used in its laser printers.

Kyocera, which stands for Kyoto Ceramic, is apparently sitting on $9 billion in cash that it has made over the years selling ceramic products to the computer industry.

International Laser Group (ILG), a large maker of compatible laser cartridges, announced it hired Rob Gilbert to run its Managed Print Services division. Mr. Gilbert came from competitor, Compass Sales Solutions, where he was Director of Sales. He also spent time at IKON.

Toshiba’s copier division president, Mark Matthews, sent out a press release denying that Toshiba Corp. is considering selling its copier division to Canon.

Toshiba announced it is opening up a tech support call center in Lebanon.

In a cost cutting move, Ricoh apparently announced the following changes for its employees:
- suspend the employer match to the 401K plan for FY2009
- no merit increases planned for FY2009
- bonus control program which caps payment at 75% of the annual potential for bonus payout
- hope these actions will save the company $20 million in FY2009
- universal standard workweek moves from 37.5 hours to 40 hours, without an increase in pay

Ricoh’s CEO, Shiro Kondo, in an interview with Reuter’s said:
- Total purchase price of IKON was $1.6 billion
- In January, 90% of IKON’s sales were Ricoh devices
- Previous to the acquisition, only 30% of IKON’s sales were Ricoh
- Hopes to boost total worldwide revenue to 2.5 trillion yen (despite bad economy) by 2011
- Expects operating profit to drop a staggering 45%
- Expects its sales to drop 3%

Ricoh, at a Japanese trade show, showed an erasable copy paper. It had an employee in a booth taking prints from a special Ricoh laser printer, and then applying a traditional clothes iron to remove the image.

IKON/Ricoh announced it won a bid for a large university in Indiana. Ivy Tech Community College awarded the contract with these details:
- 5 year term
- Supposedly will save college a total of $2 million
- 300 copiers in 14 locations
- Will reduce the number of devices by 90%
- Reduced number of copier brands from 10 to two
- Reduced number of suppliers from 14 to one

Ricoh held its convention for its Savin dealers recently. Details:
- Held at Orlando World Center Marriott in Florida
- All three Ricoh brands, Lanier/Savin/Ricoh, now report to same management structure, comprised of 4 regional vice presidents with goal of more efficiency and less conflicted distribution.
- Kiyo Shimizu stated that there is no good business reason to eliminate the Savin brand
- Savin represents 31% of all color units from Ricoh dealers and 26% of total revenue

IKON/Ricoh still involved in a large lawsuit in California. An appeals court reversed a lower court’s decision to dismiss an antitrust suit against IKON. A three judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said that the case against IKON, brought by two dealers in the San Francisco area, has merit. The two dealers are Pinnacle Document Systems and Newcal Industries who began the lawsuit over IKON customers who supposedly had their IKON leases extended illegally.

In Ricoh’s most recent Quarterly report:
- company lost $75 million on sales of $1.4 billion (this includes two month of IKON sales)
- With IKON, Ricoh revenue was up 25% year over year, but without IKON, revenue would have been down over 15%
- For past 9 months, Ricoh posted loss of $125 million


Ricoh announced that by 7/2009, it will force its dealers to order product only on-line, instead of fax.

Ricoh announced a new Toner Container Return Program. Ricoh customers are allowed to purchase a special box and postage to put their empty Ricoh toner cartridges into, for return to manufacturer.

The owner of a Sharp copier dealership in Chicago area is named to the board of directors of Select Dealer Group. Chip Micelli, of Des Plaines Office Equipment, joins 39 other dealer owners in this group, focused on the future success of the independent dealer community. Mr. Micelli is considered an expert on managed print services.

The following was revealed in a survey on in-plant central reproduction departments (CRDs):
- While in 2004, only 62.9% used digital production color devices, now 85.9% use them
- While in 2004, only 71.1% used digital production b/w devices, now 85.1% use them
- 70.6% off all color pages are coming from digital devices versus offset, and predict it will grow by 2010 to over 75%
- Only 47% use print management information systems (MIS)
- Only 53.2% use variable data software
- Only 47.6% use mail preparation software
- Only 37.2% use web-to-print software
- Only 61.4% use workflow management software

In a blow to struggling printer maker, Lexmark, its creditworthiness was degraded. Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services lowered its rating on Lexmark to one notch above junk status, or BBB-. Lexmark stock has lost about half of its value since peaking at $37.55 last summer.

Abhishek Corp., announced it will offer paper for copier/printers made from wheat straw, called Spectra and MyChoice.

Oce’ announced it will resell software from NewForma. Their “Project Center Software” provides improved workflow for the architectural and engineering markets.

Canon is suing former employees for allegedly revealing company trade secrets and other proprietary information to IKON/Ricoh. Bill Crow and 10 others were named in the complaint filed by Canon in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona.

Canon has $8.5 billion in cash, a substantial amount of which was made by selling printers and toner cartridges to Hewlett Packard.

Hewlett Packard, with its EDS division, announced it had won a 10 year, $1 billion contract to retool Aviva Corp.’s data centers.

DocuAudit announced it will pay a license fee so that it an use FMAudit’s database of printer information. The database provides model number, specifications and toner cartridge information, and allows the creation of TCO (total cost of ownership) proposals.

Latest research on office equipment industry predicts:
- b/w copier placements in the U.S. will decline from 1.1 million units in 2007 to 900,000 in 2008
- b/w copier placements will decline another 20% in 2009
- by 2012, b/w copier placements will be around 500,000 units
- Color copier placements will rise from 250,000 in 2007 to 292,000 in 2012.
- Total placements will decline from 1.35 million in 2007 to 1 million in 2012 (30% decline)

MFP Vacation

See you all when I get back!

Toshiba Selling It's MFP Business??? NOT

Rumors have been rampant throughout the industry that Toshiba was poised to sell its MFP business. In a recent development a letter was sent to all Toshiba Dealers from Mark Mathews, President and COO, Toshiba America Business Solutions.

Basically the letter was sent to squash the rumors of an impending sale, "Toshiba Corp. is not currently, nor has it previously been in discussions with any
manufacturer regarding the potential purchase of its MFP business, TABS or Toshiba Business Solutions (TBS), nor does it have any future plans in this area".

Well that's a good sign and it should put the rumors to rest. I for one, feel that the consolidation of the industry is not over. Who will be the players in the next six months?? With all of the manufacturers turning in poor numbers, the writing is on the wall for a few of the secondary or third tier manufacturers.

Personally, I can't see how some of these players can survive if the global economy sinks further.

My predictions:

KonciaMinolta buys up OCE (good fit for them, they get wide format and Print Production along with the Imagistics Dealers.)

Panasonic will finally through in the towel and concentrate on it's consumer business.

Canon......will do something, they've been quite far too long. Do they cut an agreement with HP or do they make a play for whoever a secondary or third tier manufacturer. Rumors abound that Canon will cut an OEM deal with Kyocera for Segment 6
devices.

Keep in mind that a RUMOR is hearsay, chitchat and blather, take it for what its worth. My Mom always told me "believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you read."

It seems interesting though how most of the rumors in the last few years have come to fruition.

-=Good Selling=-

Art Post

TWIC "This Week in Canon"

- Canon announced that on some of its MFP models, end users can add a standard 101 key keyboard, for easier data entry.

- Canon announced it is extending its partnership with the New York Yankees baseball team. It will include signage on the left field wall. Wonder how much they paid for the advertising, they should have put the advertising on the rightfield wall with all of the lefthanded sluggers.

- Canon launched a new b/w laser MFP, the imageRUNNER 5050N offering:
- 50ppm top speed
- Base MSRP of $14,000
- Built-in print controller includes PCL print driver, 40GB hard drive and 1GB RAM
- Optional PostScript print driver for $900
- Supports MEAP, allowing for embedded software applications
- $1000 for Web Access, allowing surfing of Internet on control panel
- $325 for hard drive data erase kit
- $1100 Universal Send option required for scanning
- $900 for searchable PDF scanning
- $900 for PDF scan encryption
- $1000 for fax board
- Optional $7950 EFI Fiery print controller
- Two 550 sheet paper drawers, two 1500 sheet letter drawers and 50 sheet bypass standard
- 100 sheet document feeder with top scan speed of 65opm
- $3000 for side mount 3500 sheet paper deck
- $3000 for multiposition stapling finisher, staples 50 sheets
- $5300 for booklet making finisher
- $850 for hole punch kit
- $2200 for cover insertion unit
- $8000 for cover inserter/paper fold unit
- Uses ceramic amorphous silicon drum with life of 3 million pages ($1630 to replace if scratched)
- 48,000 page yield for black toner

- Canon announced it won the “Center of Excellence” award from Purdue University for its technical support to dealers.

This information was obtained from industry publications

-=Good Selling=-

MFP Weekend Industry Notes from 3/1/09

The following is a quick review of copier/MFP industry news from various trade publications.

- Hewlett Packard announced it plans on raising money by selling bonds, possibly up to $500 million or more.

- Ricoh announced it is now offering a version of the Aficio PRO C900 that can copy and scan. The print only model is the C900 and the MFP version is the C900s. The base MSRP for the C900s is $136,500.00. The company apparently is also planning a slower, less expensive version to bring to market later this year. All these engines apparently use old pulverized toner technology. (some sources also say that even fusing oil is used in the engine)

- Arthur Rose, who received a $3500 bribe from a Ricoh rep to award a copier bid, was sentenced to state prison in New York. The copier bid in question was for a public school district, where Mr. Rose was an official.

- Ricoh is preparing to launch new b/w laser MFPs. Details:
- will replace the existing Aficio MP6000, MP7000 & MP8000 models
- new models are MP6001, MP7501, MP8001 & MP9001
- 60, 75, 80 & 90ppm top speed b/w respectively
- All based on the “Martini’ departmental design (not production print models)
- The existing MP9000, based on the “Katana” engine, is a production print model, and will sell for more than the MP9001, even though it has a lesser model number
- All include a high-speed document feeder that can scan both sides of original at the same time, and can also scan in color, even though the unit only prints in b/w
- Top scan speed of 80opm in b/w and 55opm in color when scanning one side
- When using two-sided mode, speed slows down to 65ipm in b/w and 45ipm in color
- Expected base MSRPs of $28K, $35K and $40K

- Xerox now offering an optional embedded software application, DocuShare Express, for simple scan and store features using the control panel of some of its Fuji-made MFPs.

- Xerox announced it will sell 200 acres it owns next to its facilities in Rochester, NY, to raise cash. It currently owns $1.4 billion is such assets worldwide.

- In an article that appear in The Wall Street Journal, Xerox’s Steve Cronin, stated that the company is focused on growing its managed print services businesses. He claims that revenue from MPS will jump to $15.7 million this year. Currently, the company has 1.5 million devices that are managed, and more than half are other brands besides Xerox.

- John Kelly, head of the North America services unit of Xerox, is seeking to buy makers of software that helps tailor advertising to consumers, also known as enterprise marketing. Even while sales and revenues are down, the company has $1.2 billion in cash at end of 2008.

- Xerox launched two new color laser desktop products. Details:
- actually made by Fuji of Japan
- both are A4 (letter and legal only)
- Phaser 6280 for $449 MSRP, has 26ppm color and 31ppm b/w
- 4 tandem OPC drum design
- Up to 950 sheet paper supply
- 600x600dpi
- 4 bits per pixels
- PostScript & PCL print drivers
- 400MHz processor
- Optional 40GB hard drive
- Uses polymerized toner
- Advertised as offering a cost per page of $0.027 for b/w and $0.139 for color based on 5% coverage of each toner
- Phaser 6128mfp has base MSRP of $599
- 12ppm color speed, 16ppm b/w speed
- 35 sheet document feeder
- 384MB RAM
- PCL print driver only
- Print/copy/scan/fax
- 600x600dpi
- 4 bits per pixel

- Mark Hurd, CEO of Hewlett Packard, apparently plans on cutting the base pay of all HP employees. This includes Mr. Hurd, who reportedly is taking a reduction of 20%. The cuts will range from 5% for office stafff to 20% maximum for upper level executives.

- IKON announced it won a bid for 32 copiers for the City of Gadsden, Alabama. The contract is 48 month lease, for $4898.63 per month.

- EFI launched the new version 8.0 of its MicroPress print server:
- natively processes PostScript, PDF and XPS formats
- supports 64 bit functionality
- can manage up to 12 digital print engines
- supports bleed edge tabs, tabs with images, tabs background color and 2 lines on tab
- insert and replace scanned images in an existing document
- new page tree interface to quickly change paper type
- auto rotate and auto centering of pages
- OCR mode now allows reading of scanned tabs
- Support for Pantone GOE spot colors

- Nuance Corp., maker of OmniPage OCR & ScanSoft software, announced it has purchased Zi Corp., which owns mobile search technology.

- Printronix Inc., announced it will move its printer manufacturing from Irvine, CA to Nogales, Mexico to but costs.

- Sharp announced it will use Compass Sales Solutions as its managed print services solution to market through its branches and dealers.

- Sharp provided more details in its plan for “open distribution” of its Frontier series of A4 color laser MFPs. While the “MX” versions will be sold by Sharp factory direct branches and Sharp authorized dealers, the “DX” branded version will be sold by office equipment distributors. This means that non-Sharp authorized copier dealers will be able to sell the “DX” versions and compete against Sharp dealers that sell the “MX” versions. The cartridges will be keyed differently, preventing a “DX” toner cartridge from being used in a “MX” model.

- Sharp also announced that it will NOT offer print-only versions of the Frontier series color laser MFPs. This is a change in stance, as the company most likely will continue to relabel desktop color page printers from Okidata instead of making its own.

- The next addition to the A4 “Frontier” series from Sharp will be a 40ppm b/w device, but it will still have a large color LCD display like the color laser models.

- Sharp announced that Sagem of France will relabel some of its mid-range b/w laser MFPs for the French market. For example, the Sharp MX-M350 will be called the Sagem MF9735. Sagem announced it will also sell Xerox’ branded desktop fax machines. Sagem, a phone service and equipment provider, is now owned by U.S. investors.

- Microsoft filed a patent infringement suit against TomTom, over its GPS devices. It claims that three of its patents have been used without its permission.

- A school district in Michigan decides to buy a brand new laser printer for every teacher in the district. Lapeer Community Schools board members voted to buy 380 printers, even though they are faced with a $3.5 million revenue shortfall. “This will make things more efficient” said board member, Peggy Bush. Unknown who will pay for all the cartridges that the printers will use.

- Lexmark is offering a free download tool to add to Microsoft Internet Explorer, called “Lexmark Toolbar”. It works with any printer, and allows end user to:
- Print only in b/w
- Choose to print only text on a page
- Schedule to regularly print a specific Web page at a specific time and day of the week
- Print only certain portions of the web page

- Lexmark announced that it has renewed its relationship with Dell Computer, meaning that Dell will continue to relabel inkjet and laser engines from Lexmark.

- Travis Ayers, Richard Johnson & Mark King were sentenced to jail time for making fake dollar bills with a color copier in Greensville, NC.

TWIT "This Week In Toshiba"

- In order to prop up its capital base, Toshiba announced that it plans on raising $300 billion dollars by selling more stock. This undoubtedly will reduce the value of its current stock, and upset its current shareholders. Its capital adequacy ratio, which measures its financial health, dwindled from 17.2% to 11.9%. This low rating causes financial institutions to raise the interest rates it charges for loans to these companies.

- Toshiba, at the Yokohama Flat Panel Display International show in Japan, showed a prototype of HDTV wallpaper, where television images were displayed on an entire wall. The wall was covered with OLED (organic light emitting diode) technology. Toshiba said the technology could also be used just for lighting, negating the need for overhead fluorescent fixtures to provide lighting at work. Unknown when Toshiba will actually start selling these products.

- Toshiba announced two new color MFPs, the eSTUDIO 5530C and 7030C. Details:
- These units are actually made by Ricoh (are relabeled Aficio color MFPs)(this is odd as Toshiba just introduced three new color MFPs in the same speed range that they actually make), but more surprising is why Ricoh would let this happen when Ricoh products are over distribted as it is. Could be there was an OEM agreement in place for "x" amount of years and "x" amount of boxes.

- Replace the existing Toshiba eSTUDIO 4500C & 5500C models (which were also made by Ricoh)
- 5530C offers 55ppm color and 60ppm b/w
- 7030C offers 70ppm color and 75ppm b/w
- Configuration and pricing info same as what Ricoh offers

- Toshiba announced it won a bid to build two different nuclear reactors in the state of Texas. Expected completion in the year 2016.

- Toshiba settled a class action lawsuit that was brought by 265,000 end users who purchased a Toshiba HDTV set. The suit charged that the DLP bulbs failed prematurely, forcing customers to spend hundreds of dollars to repair.

This information was gathered from various trade publications

Sharp Adds Three New A3 color laser MFPs

Sharp debuted new A3 color laser MFPs to replace the MX-3500N, MX-3501N & MX-4501N.

New models are the MX-4100N, MX-4101N & MX-5001N offer OSA, or the ability to use optional embedded software applications (must buy two $349 modules to get this to work)

Here's some specs for ya:


- 41ppm, 41ppm and 50ppm top speeds respectively
- Base MSRPs of $15,995, $16,495 & $19,095
- Use Sharp micro-fine pulverized toner
- Black toner yield of 36,000 pages
- Color toner yields of only 15,000 pages
- Black developer yield of 150,000 pages
- Color developers yield of 100,000 pages
- Black drum yield of 150,000 pages
- Color drums yield 100,000 pages
- 150K/month maximum duty cycle
- 120 second warmup time
- Have textured plastic outside body with chrome accents (like the Sharp Frontier series)
- 8.5” color LCD display
- Retractable keyboard for data entry
- Optional 4,000 sheet multi-position stapling finisher for $2895 (requires $425 bridge unit)
- Optional booklet making finisher for $2895
- Optional internal stapling finisher for $1795
- $698 for hole punch unit
- Must buy a $120 exit tray to print on 12”x18”
- Handles up to 110lb. index
- Comes standard with two 500 sheet paper drawers and 100 sheet bypass
- Auto duplex standard
- $845 for another 500 sheet drawer and storage
- $1075 for two more 500 sheet drawers
- $1495 for side mount paper deck that holds up to 3500 sheet of letter size paper
- On the MX-4101N & MX-5001N, come standard with document feeder holds up to 150 originals that scans both sides of the original at the same time. Top scan speed of 70opm in single sided mode
- On the MX-4001N, document feeder holds up to 100 sheets, with top speed of 50opm scan speed
- Built-in print controller features 800MHz, 80GB hard drive and 1GB RAM
- USB port on front for printing and scanning from USB thumb drive
- PCL print driver standard.
- $745 for PostScript print driver
- $1125 for XPS print driver
- $549 for data security kit
- $1230 for compressed PDF scanning
- $1295 for optional fax board

Draw Backs: Paper drawers only capable to to 110lb and looks like the by-pass will take 140lb, however the by-pass will only hold 100 sheets of 28lb bond. Thus you may only get 30 or so sheets of sheets of 140lb to stack in the by-pass. Also specs for booklet finisher are vague on the brochure, there is no statement of max paper weight and if the booklet finisher can wrap a thick cover. Another item on the booklet maker is with an 11-15 page booklet it will only produce a max of 10 booklets at a time

Plus: Wow, I love the retractable keyboard! Nice feature....also comes standard with a 150sheet document feeder (another plus). Scan speed of upto 70 image per minute is also impressive.

-=Good Selling=-