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.