MFP's "Charging for Scans Part Duex"

I tell ya, if it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have any luck at all.

On Friday I signed a nice deal for a wide format system. I called today for additional credit information only to find out the owner had passed away over the weekend, he was only 48 years old. Keep in mind that having your health and family is worth more than all the deals and all the money in world.

I was at Staples today to purchase some supplies, while I was there I checked out the latest prices on paper. Decent Hammermill paper is now about $40 per case plus tax. That puts the cost of paper at .008 per page. Probably the highest it's ever been.

In my blog yesterday, I made reference to a report that states the average office document is copied 19 times. So, how many sheets of paper is the average office document? Well, after a few searches on Google, I came up with nada. I'll take from experience and take a calculated guess that the average document would be about 20 pages. We'll be conservative and take another number that there are 50 of these documents produced every month. That gives us 19,000 sheets of paper per month (sure hope my math is correct) at a cost of .008 which equals a cost of $152 per month just for paper. Then add the click charge for maintenance and supplies (.012 average) and we have another $228 for the consumables and maintenance. In all based on this one scenario the monthly cost is $380.

So, if we were charging .01 or a penny a page for scans, and then these documents were transmitted electronically by either email, LAN fax or uploaded to an FTP site, the dealer would still generate a revenue of $190, and the client would still have a savings of almost $200 per month. There is value to the customer also, because that's 19,000 sheets of paper that's not loaded into the copier every month, the time that it takes, the lifting and moving the paper from one department to another, plus the time that it take to order the paper. Now figure in the eco advantages and if Scanning Maintenance Agreements were presented the right way, we could get .01 per scan.

There are a few dealers and direct branches that are charging .0015 per scan, based on 19,000 pages that puts the monthly bill at $28.50, you the heck wants to generate and invoice for $28.50, by the time the invoice is created, printed and mailed, it's basically a losing proposition for the dealer!

Thoughts? Agree or Disagree? Would love to her from others.

-=Good Selling=-

MFP "Charging for Scans"

Charging for Scans is an ongoing discussion on the Print4Pay Hotel for KonicaMinolta members. I believe the industry as a whole needs to start charging for scans especially with page volumes migrated downward. Ask yourself why are we giving it away for FREE!

It seems most dealers do not have a scan charge policy and those that do only implement it after they've realized that the scan volume is higher than the copy and print volume. Replacing parts in the document feeder is not costly, however the labor is, especially if you are out there once a month for document feeder issues and or replacing preventative maintenance parts for the document feeder. Check your page volumes, are they up or down?

So, what should be the cost for scanning or the "click charges", should it be based on a cps (cost per scan) with a minimum and overage every month, or should there be a annual cost with overages? I see it in the street everyday, more customers are wanting to scan to reduce their printed or copied page volumes. They are emailing, and LAN faxing more scanned documents. Problem is most of us are not capturing the revenue stream.

Would it be outrageous to charge a customer .015 per scan for a minimum of 1,000 scans per month ($15.00) with the overage at .008. Most of us have had the mindset that scanning should be less expensive the cost per page charge, and why is that? Just because someone said so. Scanning contracts could and should include parts, labor, training, reconnecting scan2email and scan2folder issues. Heck, we're getting those calls now under the cost per page contracts and doing them anyway.

I think the main issue is that most dealers and or Direct Branches have no clue how many scans are being made, and the ones who do are afraid that charging for every scan may chase business away. Ask yourself, where can you get a 50ppm color scanner with scan2email, scan2folder, 100 page document feeder and the capability of scanning 11x17. A quick search on the Internet produced no scanners with these capabilities!

We are solving a business problem for our customers, the problem is the cost of printing a page. The average document gets copied 19 times! *That's the problem, being copied 19 times! *source: Coopers & Lybrand

So, why can't we charge .01 or .015 per page to have the document scanned? Some will say well they can just get a desktop scanned and scan all they want, true they can however, most of these devices are TWAIN devices, most are not as fast as MFP's, and most can't be integrated for scan2email, scan2folder and third party software scanning solutions, also how many of these devices would they need? At 5,000 scans a month a customer would spend $50 - $75 per month, I'm sure the savings far out weighs copying the document 19 times and then migrating the document where they need to go.

Charging for Scans needs to happen in our industry now, or we run the risk of putting our selves out of business as paper becomes a less accepted means of communication.

-=Good Selling=-

Production Color Systems "Independent Test"

Ryerson University conducted a test of several production color systems. Systems tested included:

- Canon imagePRESS C7000VP w/Fiery for $250,400 MSRP
- Hewlett Packard Indigo 7000 w/SmartStream controller for $679,000 MSRP
- Kodak NexPress S3000 w/NexPress controller for $542,000 MSRP
- Oce’ CS665 Pro (relabeled Konica Minolta) w/Fiery for $75,000 MSRP
- Presstek 52Di digital offset press w/RIP for $549,000 MSRP
- Screen Truepress 344 color inkjet w/RIP for $350,000 MSRP
- Toshiba eSTUDIO 6530C w/embedded Fiery for $32,999 MSRP
- Xeikon 3300 w/X800 controller for $730,000 MSRP
- Xeikon 8000 w/X800 controller for $990,000 MSRP
- Xerox iGen 4 w/FreeFlow controller for $640,000 MSRP
- vendors were charged $5000 to conduct test
- Toshiba unit was unable to run gloss coated paper in the test
- Test covered the following topics:
- Delta E color match
- Pantone color match
- blackest black
- varation in color across page
- optical resolution
- fold and crease resistance
- toner rub test
- deinking
- fade resistance
- variation over 1000 sheet run
- variation from day 1 to day 2
- duplex registration
- The HP Indigo was the best overall performer
- To order a copy for $99.00 plus shipping, visit www.ipa.org/digitalprint

-=Good Selling=-

TWIT "This Week in Toshiba"

Toshiba announced a number of new A3 b/w MFPs:

- eSTUDIO 205L, 255, 305 series:
- 20ppm, 25ppm & 30ppm
- Base MSRPs of $5095, $6650 & $8,050
- Maximum monthly duty cycles of 80K, 100K & 120K
- Base MSRPs fo $8625 & $10,799
- 8.5” full color touch screen LCD control panel
- Optional fax board
- 600x600dpi (advertised as offering 2400dpi with interpolation)
- 20 second warmup time
- 4.7 second first copy out time
- 30,000 page toner yield based on 5% coverage
- USB direct scan and print
- Auto duplex
- Scans in color and b/w
- Two 550 sheet paper drawers standard hold up to 28lb. bond only
- 100 sheet stack bypass standard (up to 110lb. index)
- 3,200 sheet maximum paper capacity with options
- Optional document feeder that handles 100 originals and scans up to 57ipm
- Optional Smart Card reader
- Print/scan controller standard
- 1GB RAM & 60GB hard drive
- 10/100BaseT & USB ports
- PCL, XPS & PostScript print drivers standard
- eBRIDGE technology allowing embedded applications into control panel
- Optional embedded software allows for scan to MS Word, MS Excel and searchable PDF
- Optional finishers offer hole-punch, stapling and booklet making
- eSTUDIO 355, 455 series:
- 35ppm $ 45ppm
- Maximum monthly duty cycles of 125K & 150K
- Base MSRPs fo $8625 & $10,799
- 8.5” full color touch screen LCD control panel
- Optional fax board
- 600x600dpi (advertised as offering 2400dpi with interpolation)
- 20 second warmup time
- 3.7 second first copy out time
- 30,000 page toner yield based on 5% coverage
- USB direct scan and print
- Auto duplex
- Scans in color and b/w
- Two 550 sheet paper drawers standard hold up to 28lb. bond only
- 100 sheet stack bypass standard (up to 110lb. index)
- 3,200 sheet maximum paper capacity with options
- Optional document feeder that handles 100 originals and scans up to 57ipm
- Optional Smart Card reader
- Print/scan controller standard
- 1GB RAM & 60GB hard drive
- PCL, XPS & PostScript print drivers standard
- eBRIDGE technology allowing embedded applications into control panel
- Optional embedded software allows for scan to MS Word, MS Excel and searchable PDF
- Optional finishers offer hole-punch, stapling and booklet making

- eSTUDIO 555, 655, 755 & 855 models featuring:
- 55ppm, 65ppm, 75ppm & 85ppm
- Base MSRPs of $19,995, $24,495, $29,495 & 36,995
- Maximum monthly duty cycles of 460K, 515K, 540K & 600K
- 62,400 pages toner yield based on 5% coverage
- 8.5” full color touch screen LCD control panel
- Optional fax board
- 600x600dpi (advertised as offering 2400dpi with interpolation)
- 130 second warmup time
- 3.5 second first copy out time
- 30,000 page toner yield based on 5% coverage
- USB direct scan and print
- Auto duplex
- Two 500 ledger-size sheet & two 1250 letter-size paper drawers standard
- all paper sources hold up to 110lb. index
- 100 sheet stack bypass standard
- Optional side mount 4000 sheet paper deck
- Document feeder that handles 100 originals and scans up to 80ipm
- Optional Smart Card reader
- Print/scan controller standard
- 1GB RAM & 60GB hard drive
- PCL, XPS & PostScript print drivers standard
- eBRIDGE technology allowing embedded applications into control panel
- Optional embedded software allows for scan to MS Word, MS Excel and searchable PDF
- Optional finishers offer hole-punch, stapling and booklet making

Toshiba may benefit from a proposed $18.5 billion loan from the Energy Department of the U.S. federal government to build new nuclear reactors in the U.S. These proposals may not beat the lobbying effort against them by environmentalists.

Toshiba has joined with NEC and IBM to develop next generation computer chips for cell phones. The 28 nanometer chips, will use less power, and may ship in late 2010.

Even after the most movie studios have adopted the Blu-Ray HDTV DVD technology from Sony, Toshiba is still trying to market their HD DVD players, even though it is very difficult to find a movie to rent that uses this format. Toshiba president Akiyo Ozaka told the press in Las Vegas that their technology “has not lost”.

Toshiba will postpone its $310 million takeover of Fujitsu’s hard drive business.

-=Good Selling=-

MFP Weekend Industry Notes from 6/21/09

Special thanx to the Print4Pay Hotel member for this!

Okidata, maker of LED color printers and MFPs, announced that its managed print services program is called “Total Managed Print”.

Lyra Research Senior Analyst Cortney Kasuba will present “The Evolution of Managed Print Services: A Look Ahead” a the 2009 Managed Print Summit on 8/18/09 at Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas.

Mark Robinett, owner of Robinett Copiers & Printers, a Konica Minolta dealer in Springfield, Missouri, has sold his business. After 28 years, he will move on to another career. The sale was caused by foreclosure proceedings ordered by Great Southern Bank, and assets were sold to Pearson-Kelly Office Products, a competitor.

Oce’ announced it will relabel more Konica Minolta devices. It will call the Konica Minolta bizhub C552 & C652 as the Oce VarioLink 5522c and 6522c.

Oce’ wins bid to provide production color system. Jeppesen Corp. has added an Oce’ ColorStream 10050 system. Details:
- company produces aviation charts for major airlines and private pilots
- 80% of work is b/w
- 20% is a mix of spot and process color
- Originally shop was offset presses only.
- First digital product was a continuous roll feed b/w production system from IBM (relabeled Hitachi)
- Then added a Hewlett Packard Indigo production color system
- 40% of total shop volume is now digital
- The 10050 system offers 5 colors of toner
- Brown used for contour mapping lines
- Magenta used to highlight important changes
- Cyan used for water
- CMYK used for images of landing approach pictures
- Uses primarily 40gsm paper

A company in Germany, and one in Switzerland claim that they have combined to create a new printing process. MDC Max Daetwyler, the Swiss firm and Interprint GmbH the German firm, sent out a press release claiming the invention of LaserSonic. They plan on showing the technology at the Interprint trade show in 2010, and claims it uses ink. They also claim it will print on paper, plastic or cardboard.

Sharp wins latest court battle against Samsumg. The court found that Samsung infringed on 4 patents Sharp owns regarding color LCD manufacturing.

Managed Print Services related statistics from DocuVision International:
- HP has placed over 100 million laser printers in the U.S.
- Copier makers have placed over 8 million copiers and MFPs
- Only 10% of office document hard costs can be attributed to document device and supply/service costs
- Other 90% is IT infrastructure, IT support, procurement, vendor administration, scanning labor,
storage labor, retrieval labor and distribution labor

Samsung sponsored survey reveals info on printer data security:
- Just under 50% of employees are exposed to sensitive data via prints left on exit tray
- 14% admitted seeing salary details
- 22% had seen performance reviews
- 34% had seen confidential correspondence
- 80% did not know that secure jobs could have been inadvertently stored on hard drive of printer of MFP
- 75% did not know that some printers could be hacked

Gartner stated its research showed the following about sales/shipments of printer/copier/MFP units in first quarter of 2009
- Decline of 18% worldwide to 26.4 million units
- Value of units declined 21% to $12.8 billion
- print only devices declined by 28% to 9.9 million units
- color laser MFPs sold 632,000 units
- color laser printers sales declined 15% to 1.4 million units
- b/w laser printer market grew 23% to 6.4 million units
- 14.6% decline in U.S.
- 22.6% decline in Canada
- End user spending in U.S. declined 21%
- Canon lost its marketshare leadership to HP
- inkjet printers declined by 15% in 2008 to 17.8 million units

InfoTrends released study of those who buy color inkjet wide format output, and if they felt it was effective at delivering message:
- 0.3% felt if was not effective
- 14.2% somewhat effective
- 30.1% undecided
- 17.5% extremely effective
- 37.9% somewhat effective

Police and Secret Service officials are on the lookout for someone in Arkansas who is making fake dollar bills on a color copier. Fake $20 and $100 bills have been discovered at local Burger King and Walmart.

FedEx reported first quarter financials for its FedEx Office division, formerly known as Kinko’s copy/print shops:
- 13% decline in revenue
- Decline in print and copy volume
- $810 goodwill impairment charge

After bad press from JP Morgan, Ricoh’s stock sank 5% to 1206 yen.

Riso launched a new high speed color inkjet MFP series:
- Replaces existing ComColor HC5500
- Still made by Olympus of Japan
- main print engine is 46” x 27” x 40”
- advertised as offering 2 cents per page color cost
- ink cartridge yield of 60,000 pages based on 5% fill per page
- ComColor 9050 features:
- top speed of 150ppm
- 300x300dpi (interpolated to 300x600dpi)
- 8.5” full color touch screen LCD control panel
- image area of 12 3/8” x 21 9/16” maximum
- max paper size of 13 3/8” x 21 5/8”
- handles up to 210gsm
- 8 gradations of ink coverage (3 bit?)
- auto duplex
- optional scanner for copying/scanning offers 40opm and 600dpi
- holds up to 100 originals
- 2 minute, 45 second warmup time
- 8 second warmup time
- uses Windows GDI (end user’s computer does the processing)
- Optional IS900C PostScript controller
- Intel Core 2 Duo 1.86GHz processor
- 320GB hard drive
- 2GB RAM
- forms storage
- supports PPML variable data format
- can cluster up to 4 units
- auto stacking tray
- max duty cycle of 500,000 pages per month
- 3 paper drawers standard
- Optional finishing includes hole-punch, stapling, cover inserter and booklet making
- Optional envelope feeding kit
- ComColor 7010/7050 series:
- same as 9050 except only up to 120ppm
- 7010 has stack tray only, but 7050 also has three paper drawers
- 7050 can collate with finisher
- ComColor 3010/3050 series:
- same as 7010 except only up to 90ppm
- image area only 8 ¼” x 21 7/16”
- trays hold letter/legal size only
- 3050 comes with three paper drawers
- 3050 can collate

Memjet, the supposed high speed color inkjet technology of the future, launched a new website to prime the public for launch of its first product. Details:
- Based on 2500 patents from Kia Silverbrook of Australia
- Work started in 1994, but product has yet to ship
- Company claims that it has partners lined up to product color printers and floor-standing MFPs to compete with traditional color laser devices.
- Each printhead has 70,400 nozzles
- Each nozzle is 31.7 microns and uses only 170 nanojoules of electricity to heat ink
- Nozzle made with silicon nitride
- 1600x800dpi in top speed, 1600x1600dpi in half speed
- 900 million drops of ink per second
- Ink droplets are 1.4 picoliters in size
- Printhead is as wide as sheet of paper
- Unlike HP Edgeline, does not use drum to wrap paper around, or a fixing agent
- Uses water based inks for fast drying
- First product set to launch in late 2009 is an A4 size, 60ppm color printer with speed the same
regardless of ink coverage
- Also in the pipeline are a 60ppm and a 120ppm color MFPs


IKON, a division of Ricoh, announced it has launched the DocSend Server. Details:
- is made by EFI, and is also known as the SendMe technology
- hosted on centralized Windows server
- communicates with applications running on Ricoh MFP control panel
- scanned files converted into MS Word, MS Excel of PDF
- built-in OCR
- pricing not announced

Syratec Corp. of Cicero, NY, claims to have developed a new type of surge protector for copiers. The Innovolt Power Manager supposedly offers:
- LCD display
- Microprocessor diagnostics
- Fax modem protection
- Network RJ45 protection
- Quick check diagnostic summary
- Copier technician can download data from the device to a computer to diagnose power problems
- $100,000 machine replacement guarantee
- Pricing not announced

Hewlett Packard celebrated the 25th anniversary of its first laser printer. History includes:
- First unit actually made by Canon, who makes all HP laser printers sold today
- In 1984, the first model was the A4 size LaserJet 500, for $3495, offering 8ppm, with 128KM RAM and 8MHz processor
- In 1986, launched the LaserJet 500 Plus with two paper trays.
- In 1987, launched the LaserJet II, for $2495
- In 1988, launched the LaserJet IID, offering auto duplex
- In 1990, launched the LaserJet IIP, for $999
- In 1991, launched the JetDirect card, allowing LaserJet to connect to a network instead of a single PC
- In 1994, launched the LaserJet 4V, offering 11”x17” output
- In 1994, launched the Color LaserJet, actually made by Konica (now Konica Minolta)
- Claims to have sold 132 million laser printers since 1984.



-=Good Selling=-

TWIX "This Week In Xerox"

From various sources on the web and media!

More details on Xerox winning the Procter & Gamble account with managed print services:
- Will supposedly reduce company’s operational costs by 20-25%
- 5 year contract
- 138,000 employees
- Offices in 80 countries
- Web portal for ordering printers, supplies and service
- Will reduce printer power requirements by 30%

Xerox announced a new EFI Fiery print server for its iGen4 production color laser system. Details:
- Utilizes the in-line spectrophotometer built into the print engine
- External controller design
- Called the EFI Fiery EX Print Server
- Supports high speed variable data output

Xerox announced it won a FM bid for Northern Rock Financial of Finland. Size and length of contract not announced.

In an effort to raise cash, Xerox announced it will sell its 29 story, 850,000 square foot building, and will lease it from the new owner. Also it will sell an adjacent auditorium, and two other buildings. All are in the Rochester, NY area.

Xerox launched the “Gallup”, which is an iGen4 production color system attached to an Epic CT1-635 coater and a KAMA diecutter/foil stamper, to produce high speed, full color, small packages for cosmetic industry.

In another FM contract Xerox won, it claims that it saved Baptist St. Anthony’s Medical Center of Amarillo, TX a total of $300,000 per year.

-=Good Selling=-

Xerox ColorQube Losing Steam!

Resistance is Futile! At least that's what Xerox wants you to beleive with the ColorQube!

In an ongoing poll conducted here on the mfpsolutions blog 71% of our readers reported that the Xerox ColorQube is a "lot of hype" and "we'll have to see how this pans out". In earlier polls right after the press release polls reflected that 41% thought that the Xerox ColorQube "Will turn the Copier Market Upside Down", after six weeks, that numbers dropped to 29%. My oh my,what a difference a few months make.

Meanwhile a Print4Pay Hotel member recently stated this about the ColorQube:

"My official sample print packet arrived from Xerox this weekend. While the prints are OK.....that's all they are is just OK. Actually they are poor compared to how just about every other manufacturer's laser devices print samples look. They are waxy feeling and they are obviously a much lower DPI than the ultra-fine toner of today's laser devices. If you look at any graphics, particularly lighter colors you can see the dots. Shades of grey green and yellow look the worst. The Ricoh machines destroy this machine on photos and graphics. The only print samples that were comparable to our Ricoh machines are text documents with very small amounts of color.

I wouldn't be too afraid of this product. Everyone should go to the Xerox website and have a set of print samples sent to their house. That's all you need to sell against this product."

At least it didn't come from me, lol.

-=Good Selling=-

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President Barack Obama

I'm usually one to post videos, yeah right......however this video of Barack saving the world and the USA is quite funny. Enjoy, and special than to JIBJAB!

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

-=Good Selling=-

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Gas Station

I'm in sales, live, sleep and breath it. Yesterday I pulled into my favorite Exxon mobile mart in Red Bank, NJ. I needed a pitstop to get some water, hit the head and fill a tire with air.

So, while I was out there filling the tire when I was approached by a young man dressed nicely with a tie. He said excuse me and asked if I ever heard of this product, and promptly showed me a spray can and explained that this is the greatest thing ever for getting rid of minor surface scratches from a car. He sprayed it on a small surface scratch that I had, and then proceeded to swirl the rag and wait a few seconds and then swirled the rag again and presto, chango the surface scratch was gone! I thought, that's pretty neat and asked him what was in the can, I won't get into that and in the next second he walked over the my cars head lights and did the same thing, and then did the rag swirl thing....presto, chango and the haze was gone from the head light. I thought this was cool...I had always been looking for something like that for the lights. He then moved to the rim and did a spot there and walla, he was ready for the close. How many cars do you have? Uh...one, I replied. He then stated that this product was used by Nascar (ok, now I thought that's BS), however he gave me the price for three cans and you what, I bought all three for $35. I handed him forty and he went top get change and on the way back he was waving a yellow cloth and stated that I could have this yellow rag for $5, I stated no thanxs, took my five and was happy I got a product, however I was happier that I had helped a young kid out that was just starting a sales career!

I gotta go, so I'll keep this short, what happened to the days of calling someone for an appointment and bringing a copier out for a demo? You're in the office, showing the new system, you've got mr. or ms. right there and presto chango, you make a sale. No quotes, no proposals, just plain old fashioned salesmanship. The problem with our industry today and most of us sales people on the street are not allowed to ship a unit out for a demo (it is frowned upon). If you're like me you don't even bother asking for one from the customer anymore. Who's to blame, is it the owners, sales managers or just an art that we lost. I will tell you one thing if I still had the chanc to do demo's, I would have at least two units going out every week and ya know what, I'd probably move more boxes at better margins. Too often we had a quote for a box or a box solution and the only thing the customer has is a piece of paper. Paper's paper right?, and that's how they go about buying systems, we've commoditized our own business by worrying about the cost to ship a machine and do a demo on site for the customers.

-=Good Selling=-

Memjet "Who's Afraid of Memjet?"

I've been watching Memjet for awhile now, I was alerted the other day by a Print4Pay Hotel member that they've launched a new web site (memjet)

When you arrive at the main page, you'll see three different types of systems and it's agreed that all three look like mfp's (multi functional products), however each picture appears to be an artists rendering. So, I'm thinking do they really have mfp's at this point in time?



While on the site you can also take a trip the Memjet Comparison Video page, from this page you can see how your favorite printer or mfp stacks up to the speed of the memjet printer. I'll say the speed is impressive, however if you listen closely it seems that the Memjet seems to be quite noisy, plus the fact that they are only showing a printer making prints and no mfp. There have been some naysayers that have stated "In the video, there's no power cord or data cord, can this really be true?", when looking at the videos there are no data or power cords for the competitive models either. I'll leave this up to the masses to figure out. What's truly amazing is the speed!

You may ask, who is Memjet or what is a Memjet? Silverbrook Research started in 1994, near Sydney, Australia. The inventor is Kia Silverbrook and Silverbrook holds over 2,500 patents. Currently Silverbrook employees over 500 scientists, engineers and support staff that are working on Memjet on other technologies.

I've heard from the street, that they were looking to sell the technology at first and then when there were no takers, they decided to develop the systems themselves, again this is what I heard on the street and may or may not be true. Here's what I do know, at this point in time they are looking for Partners such as OEM Brand Partners, Product Distribution and Channel Partners, Electronic Manufacturing Partners, Printing Suppliers and Developers, Ink Developers and Manufacturers, Paper Developers and Manufacturers, Supplies Distribution and Channel (Refill) Partners. I also took a trip to their job opportunities page and was hoping to see if they were doing any type of sales hiring. There were no sales jobs posted and if there was I would have jumped on it like a Koala Bear on eucalyptus leaves.

To learn more about these partnerships you can take a trip here to Memjet's Value Chain. Reaching back thru the many years of memory, it kinda reminds me of Chester Carlson, his invention took almost ten years to peddle and then another 11years for that product to finally become commercially available as a "Xerox" Copy machine. Do, I think Memjet will take almost 21 years to hit the market, where you can buy one at Staples, Office Max or you local Memjet Dealer? Heck, it's been 15 years in the making right now and it seems closer than ever to become a part of the mainstream for office machines.

Can anyone say Disruptive Technology? I for one think that this technology is bigger than HP Edgeline, and Xerox ColorQube combined. We'll have to wait a little longer to see how this develops.

-=Good Selling=-

Fiery Print Server "When Do I need One?"

Wondering when to offer an EFI option for an external Fiery print server?

- EFI Impose should be proposed if:
- Customer wants to define full bleed area and crop marks for trimming
- Want to arrange prints so when stacked up, they can be cut correctly (i.e. business cards, postcards, etc.)
- May wish to rearrangement of pages in a booklet
- Ability to multiply images an align them on a large sheet (business cards)
- Templates available so do not have to create workflow each time
- EFI Compose should be proposed if:
- Want to put tabs into documents
- Able to print documents that use different types of paper throughout the documents
- Can produce single document using pages from multiple documents
- Control where in document auto duplex is used, and precise control over finishing options
- Wish to make last minute changes to document without going to back to original
application that created it
- Need to create chapters or sections in documents
- Customer wants to see multiple preview views of document
- EFI Color Profiler Suite should be proposed if:
- End user wants their computer screen and printer’s output to be very close in color
- Can create profile for their specific production color system, rather then used canned
profile that came “in the box”
- Wants output of two different production color systems to resemble one another
- Would like to check to see if a color proof in accordance with industry standards
- EFI Graphic Arts Premium Package should be proposed if:
- End user wants to review exact color proof before printing
- Need to simulate the effect of the color of the paper to the color of the output
- Create custom halftone screens to simulate offset press output
- Want to change files to other types, like CT/LW, PDF2GO, ExportPS, DCS 2.0, EPS,
PDF/X TIFF, TIFF/IR, JPG, etc.
- Wish to check document for errors, i.e. preflighting
- Get control of trapping, where color overlays another color
- Can add color bars to edge of full bleed document to check registration and color management

-=Good Selling=-

MFP Weekend Industry Notes 6/14/09

Special thanx to the P4P member that supplied me with this.

Densigraphix, a Buffalo, NY company that makes generic toner cartridges, announced it has joined the Business Technology Association (BTA), which most copier dealers in the U.S. belong to.

BTA (Business Technology Association) announced the results of a survey of copier dealers in the U.S.:
- Superior Performance as a Primary Product Line Provider = Toshiba
- Corporate Support = Toshiba
- Inventory = Toshiba
- Distribution = Kyocera
- Product Line = Kyocera
- Outstanding Performance As a Secondary Product Line = Muratec
- Availability of Sales Training = Kyocera

BTA is hosting an educational event for copier dealers on September 24th & 25th:
- At the Ritz Carlton Hotel in White Plains, NY
- Presenters are Frank Cannata, John Hey, Kate Kingston, Mitch Morgan, & Mike Woodard.
- Event concludes with attendance at Yankee Stadium with Yankees and Boston Redsox
.
Kyocera announced it has hired Print Management Solutions of Ormond Beach, FL to provide training to its dealers on the Kyocera FASTrack managed print services program.

Kyocera launches a new color laser desktop A4 MFP, the FS-C1020mfp offering:
- 21ppm top speed color or b/w
- 35 sheet document feeder
- 250 sheet paper drawer
- 256MB RAM
- Copy/print/scan/fax
- 400MHz processor
- 600x600dpi
- PCL & PostScript print drivers
- Optional 500 sheet second paper drawer
- Base MSRP of $1220 (Check out the review here)

Buyers Labs Inc.(BLI) gave out a “Outstanding Document Management Solution” award to docSTAR.

BLI gave out its spring 2009, “Pick” awards for MFPs. Winners included:
- Sharp MX-2600N
- Sharp MX-3100N
- Xerox WorkCentre 7425, 7428 & 7435
- Canon imageRUNNER 5050N
- Konica Minolta bizhub 601 & 751
- Sharp MX-4101N & MX-5001N
- Toshiba eSTUDIO 6530CT

Katun of Minneapolis, MN announced it now offers lower cost, generic color toners for the Canon imageRUNNER C3200, C2880 and C3380 color laser MFPs.

Canon announced it would restart the construction of a digital camera factory in Nagasaki, Japan. It will open in 2010 and employ 1,000 workers.

Samsung announced it is offering a zero percent lease promo for its printers and MFPs. Leasing provided by DeLage Landen (DLL).

IDC announced that in the first quarter of 2009, the new Sharp Frontier series of color laser A4 MFPs were the most popular product in the 31ppm to 44ppm category of color MFPs. Unknown if this means more company were downgrading from A3 (ledger size) to A4 (letter/legal size), or if they were replacing desktop color laser printers and bringing more sales into the MFP market.

Sharp announced it was headed for its first ever operating loss and would cut 1,500 jobs to save money.

Ricoh announced a new promo to increase sales of its new Ricoh PRO C900 production color system:
- End user gets 300,000 clicks/pages for free (color or b/w)
- Offers ends 7/31/09
- Customer must sign up for a minimum of a 2 year service/supply contract

Ricoh sent out a press release announced that its IKON San Diego branch sold a PRO C900 production color system to a print shop named; “Print & Letter Company”. (is this device such a poor seller that they have to send out a press release every time they sell one to boost interest?)

Ricoh launched Print Copy Scan (PCS) Director 6, featuring:
- Print management software package
- Includes PCS Assessor, which is a sales tool that allows a full version to run at customer site for 60 days, providing ability to analyze volumes and survey equipment. Rep can use to create MPS proposals.
- Consists of three core modules; Analysis, Rules and Recovery
- makes graphical reports
- users can belong to multiple groups
- can create highly configurable rules to customize how print jobs behave
- can base cost on total pages, color pages and total b/w pages
- restrict MFP access and features per user or groups of user
- tracks all printing including local, networked and direct to IP jobs
- embedded using Ricoh’s Java SDK platform
- PCS Suite pricing details:
- 5 seat pack = $1026
- 10 seat pack = $1944
- 25 seat pack = $4725
- 50 seat pack = $7900
- Up to 20,000 seat pack = $216,000
- PCS Analysis only pricing details:
- 5 seat pack = $257
- 10 seat pack = $486
- 25 seat pack = $1183
- Up to 20,000 seat pack = $54,000
- PCS Director embedded module:
- 1 MFP = $898
- 5 MFPs = $2248
- 25 MFPs = $4948
- Up to 250 MFPs = $21,950
- Professional Services – ½ day = $875
- HID card reader kit = $299
- CASI card reader kit = $299
- NexWatch card reader kit = $299

Dell Computer announced it has so far sold $3 million worth of PCs, printers and accessories using Twitter.

Interesting statistics from Nuance, makers of the popular OmniPage OCR scanning software:
- Average office worker types at 34 words per minute
- Only 58% accurate when typing on computer
- Factoring out the errors, actual average speed is 15 minutes to type one page of text
- OmniPage is up to 99% accurate for OCR

Okidata’s CEO, Stewart Krentzman, was interviewed recently, and made these comments:
- In 2008, business grew by just less than 2%
- Still selling close to 10,000 printers per month
- By 2012, 70% of businesses with 250 employees or more are going to be in a
managed print services environment

Wind River Systems Inc., maker of technology for print controllers and MFPs, announced it has been acquired by Intel for $884 million.

How expensive is ink for a color inkjet printer?
- ink averages $60.88 per ounce
- Chanel #5 perfume is $44.11 per ounce
- Don Perignon Champaign $4.53 per ounce
- Milk is $0.03 per ounce

Hewlett Packard and IDC announced survey of office workers and usage of copy machines:
- Average salary of knowledge workers = $60,000/year or $28.25 per hour
- Average salary of administrative assistants = $36,822 or $16.21 per hour
- Estimated annual labor cost of one 8 minute trip per day to a copy machine = $961.30 per year for knowledge workers, and $540.20 per year for admin worker

Fuji, maker of most Xerox products, had its president, Tadahito, make comments during an interview about is business in Asia, where it markets the products under its own name:
- 22% of its revenue was from facilities management
- Has been making Xerox products for 47 years
- Is in charge of East Asia, Pacific and Australia (Xerox has rest of world)
- Operating profit margin dropped 42.7% over past year
- Will reduce total employees by 7%

Bowe Bell & Howell announced new high speed scanners, the Ngenuity series:
- can scan originals from rice paper to plastic cards to stuffed envelopes
- top speed of 150opm at 200dpi for b/w or color
- uses SharpShooter Trilinear CCD camera
- white LED illumination
- Up to 600dpi at slower speeds
- Steel paper path
- Rubber rollers last up to 600,000 scans
- MSRPs range from $18,000 to $35,000.

-=Good Selling=-

Xerox ColorQube "Poll Results"

To say the least, the Qube is hot, depending how you look at it. A little over a week ago we posted a poll on the blog, we asked "What do you think about "Xerox unveils breakthrough color technology?"

In almost three weeks we've had 278 votes, this poll is hot and may top our all time poll in a few weeks. Here's the latest update for you.


Xerox "unveils breakthrough color technology"

Wow, this will turn the color market up side down! 82 votes 29%
A lot of hype about nothing, not a big deal! 126 votes 45%
I'm gonna have to see how this pans out! 70 votes 25%

278 votes total

Since our last poll there were an additional 107 votes, 19 votes for "Wow, this will turn the color market upside down, 63 votes for "A lot of hype about nothing, not a big deal!, and 25 votes for "I'm goona have to see how this pans out!. Interesting that in a week and a half, over 60% voted "A lot of hype about nothing and a big deal"

-=Good Selling=-

This Week in Xerox "TWIX"

Xerox announced it will implement and support Solimar Solutions. Details:- Solimar Rubika is a modular document workflow solution - Solimar Print Director print job management software- SOLsearcher Enterprise for indexing, storing, searching and retrieving documents.

Xerox launched a trade-in program to boost sales of its desktop printers and MFPs.

Examples:

- Xerox Phaser 6360 = $300 to $600 rebate

- Xerox Phaser 7760 = $800 to $1200 rebate

- Xerox Phaser 8560 = $300 to $600 rebate-

Free shipping and recycling for the trade-in product.

Fuji (maker of most Xerox products) president, Tadahito Yamamoto, gave comments on economy:- “still uncertain”- “I think it will take another two to three years”- Expects sales to fall 7.2% this year- Hopes to double its revenues by 2014

-=Good Selling=-

Polek & Polek Celebrates 35 Years in Imaging Supplies Business

June 1, 2009

Fairfield, N.J. – Polek & Polek is celebrating its 35th anniversary in the imaging supplies business this year. Established in 1974, Polek & Polek has grown from a small home office to one of the leading distributors of parts and supplies for copiers, faxes and printers worldwide.

Founder John Polek’s core beliefs when he started Polek & Polek are still its foundation today – providing the highest quality products; developing and maintaining long-term employee, vendor, and customer relationships; and absolute, 100 percent unconditionally guaranteed customer satisfaction. Polek & Polek has always been committed to helping office equipment dealers improve their profits.

"This is what our customers experienced with Polek & Polek back in 1974," said Chris Polek, CEO. "In 2009 and beyond, our customers can count on the same experience. Every Polek & Polek employee is committed to these values, and these beliefs are the core to Polek & Polek’s success. As I look toward our future in the next 35 years, I know that these beliefs will not change."
Our commitment to saving dealers money has become even more evident to the dealer community as they struggle with the current economic conditions. Polek provides a profit relief valve that helps dealers maintain their profitability, even if revenue declines. Dealers who are still loyal to OEM find they need to make profits at the end of the day for their company. Using an exclusive OEM strategy does not maximize that profit opportunity. Polek & Polek has been through all of the downturns since 1974, and they have navigated them successfully to support the industry.

With 2009 being an anniversary year, Polek admits that he’s reflecting on Polek & Polek’s past more than usual. “It is interesting that when Polek & Polek was born, the U.S. Economy was facing its most difficult times since the Great Depression,” Polek said. “Now we fast forward 35 years later where Polek & Polek has significantly more experience, knowledge, and resources to help our customers survive and thrive through these unprecedented economic times.”

"I believe the future for our industry is a very bright one, and the recovery of corporate technology spending will help the growth of our industry move even faster," Polek said. "I would like to thank all Polek & Polek customers, vendors, and employees for their support. Whether it be the past, present, or future, our success would be impossible without them!"

Polek & Polek is a distributor of parts and supplies for copiers, faxes, and printers for brands including Canon*, Copystar*, Kyocera*, Konica Minolta*, Panasonic*, Sharp*, Ricoh*, Savin*, Toshiba*, HP*, Lexmark*, Panafax*, Brother*, Xerox*, Lanier*, Muratec*, Okidata*, Riso*, Samsung*, and Imagistics*.

Contact Polek & Polek at (800) 526-1360, e-mail sales@polek.com or visit http://www.polek.com.

-=Good Selling=-

HP "This Week in HP"

Hewlett Packard stated that its quarterly profit dropped 17%. It earned $1.72 billion. Sales fell 3%.

Hewlett Packard continues to crack down on companies making fake supplies for its printers:- Estimates that the company lost more than $1 billion in revenue to illegal counterfeits
- Nearly 60% of the company’s profits come from print cartridges
- Cartridge sales have tumbled 21% this year down to $11.9 billion
- HP’s stock is down 5%
- Entire industry estimates that it loses $3 billion in revenue to illegal cartridges
- Average cost of ink for printers is $8000 per gallon
- International Chamber of Commerce estimates counterfeiting cost businesses $600 billion in 2007 or 6% of global trade
- 10% of tech products sold globally are counterfeit according to study by KPMG
- Worldwide ink market grew from $11 billion 10 years ago to $45 billion last year
- Profit margins on printer ink ran as high as 60%
- IDC predicts that number of printed pages will decline for the first time this year to 1.47 trillion pages from 1.5 trillion in 2008
- HP tracked one source of illegal cartridges to Foshan City, China and raided 14 warehouses, seizing $88 million in equipment, supplies and packaging materials.

Hewlett Packard announced a new version of Open Extensibility Platform (OXP) for embedding applications in MFPs. Details:- Is layered on top HP’s Java platform called “Chai” which much be loaded on the MFP
- One touch button can be added to the HP MFP’s touch screen LCD and metadata entered at the control panel that can be linked to the scanned image
- Includes “Device Solution Installer”
- Works with HP’s new Web Jetadmin Enterprise Edition, a server based device management utility
- Device discovery
- Usage tracking
- Configuration
- Supplies monitoring
- Overall fleet management
- Unlike previous version, it will not be free download
- Pricing not announced
- Non HP device support module
- Hookup to third party developers until late 2009 or 2010

Hewlett Packard gave out details on its environmental initiatives for its printer division:- Company predicts that the number of letter size pages printed in 2010 will be 53 trillion
- 90% of those pages will be from offset printing presses
- HP plans on using 100 million pounds of recycled plastic to make printers by 2011
- Will reduce the average weight of printer packaging by 35%
- Goal is to use recycled materials for 35% of the packaging
- Reduce plastic in packaging by 50%

Hewlett Packard is reconsidering its Web Jetadmin Plug-in strategy:- Initially, HP did not charge vendors for support for Web Jetadmin, vendors had to pay ASCI, an independent Mexican company, for certification testing. ASCI charged at that time, $4000 to $10,000 per MFP model, and most MFP makers signed up
- With version 10 of HP Jetadmin, the previous vendor plug-ins did not work, so vendors were told to pay ASCI to develop and certify new plug-ins. This time, ASCI charged $150,000 per MFP, and HP decided to charge a royalty fee on top of this. Consequently, MFP vendors backed away
- Now with current version, HP plans on reducing the fee dramatically, hoping to get vendors to sign up, and will certified this time by Lionbridge Technologies, Inc., headquartered in Massachusetts.
- Developer certification pricing by Lionbridge not yet announced.

Special thanx to another P4P'er for this!

-=Good Selling=-

MFP Weekend Industry Notes 6/08/09

Special thanx to the Print4Pay Hotel member that sent this to me!

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

EFI announced it will conduct its next “Connect” educational trade show at the Wynn Las Vegas on 8/2-5/09.

Corporate United, a national group purchasing organization of Fortune 1000 and Global 2000 companies, announced that for the third time, it has awarded Konica Minolta its “Supplier of the Year” award.

New use for copy paper. Nakabayashi Corp. of Tokyo, announced a new floor-standing machine that converts discarded copy paper into toilet paper rolls. It is able to produce two rolls per hour from around 1800 sheets. The machine weighs 600 kilograms, and will sell for $95,000 apiece.

Okidata now shipping two versions of the same new desktop color LED printer, the MC560n and CX2033:
- Both are 20ppm color and 32ppm b/w
- MC560n has MSRP of $999, but uses more expensive supplies
- CX2033 has MSRP of $2500, but uses less expensive cost per page supplies

IDC reports data from printer/MFP shipments worldwide:
- Shipments fell 17.6% in 2008
- 26.4 million units shipped in first quarter of 2009
- MFP shipments fell 10% in 2008
- Color laser MFP shipments rose 6% to 632,000 units in 2008
- Print-only devices dropped 28% in first quarter of 2009 and 21% in first quarter of 2009
- HP had a reduction of 24%, but still has a 41% marketshare

EFI announced it received three “BEST” awards from BERTL:
- EFI Fiery XF won for color management for wide format color inkjet printers
- EFI Fiery Central
- EFI SendMe

Ricoh made a $50 million cash offer to buy Carl Lamm Holding AD, its largest dealer in Sweden with 26 locations. Ricoh also recently required ATA International, it dealer in Poland.

Ricoh has discontinued work on Refined Printing Command Stream (RPCS) technology:
- like Desktop Binder, RPCS was Ricoh’s attempt to create its own product to differentiate its products from the competition, however, it has decided not spend any more research & development funds on either project
- RPCS was advertised a new, innovate print driver, supposedly a better option than PCL or PostScript
- Actually was host-based, meaning that it made the end user’s PC do the job processing, rather than using the print controller in the MFP (like Microsoft Windows Graphic Device Interface or GDI)
- Probably goal for Ricoh with RCPS was to lower cost of manufacturing of its MFPs, as they would not need powerful print controllers, as processing is done on customer’s PC’s instead
- Canon is now only traditional MFP vendor still trying to market a host-based driver,
called Ultra Fast Rendering (UFR)


Ricoh launched the ELP-NX, which is a Card Authentication Package (CAP), allowing access to their MFPs with usage of customer’s current investment in employee Proximity badges:
- CAP offers:
- Is not CAC (CAP is for SMB and enterprise installs, not for government)
- card access for up to 500 users
- authentication for applications needing card access
- sold in 1 to 1000 device packs (MSRP from $240 to $96,000)
- 5 year support agreement included
- requires Ricoh Java VM card
- PC used requires minimum of 1GB RAM
- Ricoh dealers and branches to receive 4 day instructor led training class
- CAP Enterprise Server (CAP-ES) for MSRP of $1440
- Card access management for up to 50,000 users
- Server based application
- Single point of administration (must have CAP for each MFP)
- Must be loaded onto end user’s PC with minimum of:
- 2.4GHz processor
- 1 GB RAM
- MS Windows Server
- Enhanced Lock Print (ELP-EX)
- authenticates to the ELP queue – secures print only
- operates by itself
- supports current and previous Ricoh MFP models
- user chooses which print jobs are locked print
- does not integrate with other applications
- Enhanced Locked Print Next-Gen (ELP-NX)
- Works with CAP
- authenticates to MFP with CAP
- operates with CAP under SDK/J
- supports recent Ricoh MFPs only
- All print jobs held at MFP
- Sold in 1 to 1000 device packages (MSRP from $120 to $48,000)
- Integrates with GlobalScan NX
- Authenticates with CAP
- Password no longer required for CAP
- Auto populate user’s email address or MyDocuments folder
- Ricoh resells three different card readers:
- Each are $299.00
- HID (125KHz)
- CASI-Rusco
- NexWatch
- includes 5 year support
- Current Ricoh models that are supported:
- Ricoh MP4000/5000 aka Lanier LD040/050 aka Savin 9040/9050
- Ricoh MP2550/3350 aka Lanier LD425/433 aka Savin 9025/9033
- Ricoh MPC6000/75000 aka Lanier LD260C/275C aka Savin C6055/C7570
- Ricoh MPC2050/C2550 aka Lanier LD520C/525C aka Savin C9020/C9025
- Ricoh MPC4000/C5000 aka Lanier LD540C/550C aka Savin C4040/C5050
- Ricoh MFC2800/C3300 aka Lanier LD528C/533C aka Savin C2828/C3333

The person in charge of Ricoh in the U.S., Kirk Yoshida, is being recalled to Japan. He will be replaced by Kazuo Togashi, where he recently ran Ricoh Europe.

Ricoh plans on launching in June the new Personal Paperless Document Manager for its MFPs:
- Will replace the Ricoh Desktop Binder simply scan management software
- PPDM is actually created by Nuance Communication (makers of PaperPort, OmniPage, etc.)
- PPDM sells for $299 per seat
- Is same as Xerox’s Scan to PC Desktop Professional which is also made by Nuance,
and charges $1049 for 5 seats
- Is an embedded application, and uses Ricoh’s Embedded Software Architecture (ESA) where
Ricoh first installs Java virtual machine firmware onto MFP
- PPDM applet is inside copier, but following is included to load onto end user PC:
- PaperPort Professional 11 for image management
- OmniPage Professional 16 for OCR (conversion of images to Word, Excel, etc.)
- PDF Converter 5 Professional
- When activated, copier’s LCD screen show three columns, and end user must make a selection from each:
- First column is destination, such as; desktop, desktop folder, etc.
- Second column is workflow, such as; convert to excel, convert to word, PDF, etc.
- Third column is profile, such as; b/w, color, grayscale, etc.

Ricoh now shipping the Pro C550EX and C700EX. These are based existing workgroup color MFP, the C6000, but offer accessories to make these able to be sold into the production print space.
- Base MSRPs of $58,840 & $67,240
- C550EX offers 55ppm full color and 60ppm b/w
- C700EX offers 70ppm full color and 75ppm b/w
- uses polymerized toner (Ricoh PxP)
- uses 4 tandem OPC drum design
- has two 160GB hard drives
- Uses engines from the MP C6000 and C7500 mid-range color MFPs
the Konica Minolta bizhub C552 & C652
- Offers the EFI Fiery E8100 print controller
- Supports up to only 80lb. cover in the paper drawers
- will auto duplex up to 90lb index only
- 110lb. cover stock must be placed in the bypass of the RT4000 large capacity deck for $4780.00
- Standard paper capacity is 5,300 sheets
- Finishing options include stapling, hole-punch, GBC punch, booklet maker and three ring binding
- SR4010 fifty sheet stapling finisher for $3150.00
- SR4020 fifty sheet staple and 20 sheet booklet maker for $5460.00
- SR5000 one hundred sheet stapling finisher for $5830.00
- Tab sheet holder for $47.00
- Hole punch kit for $920.00
- Cover insertion unit for $1160.00
- Z-folding unit for $7350.00
- 100 sheet document feeder comes standard
- Will be marketed with color click pricing as low as $0.0495, single click 11”x17”,
and b/w clicks as low as $0.0132.
- Designed to compete against the Konica Minolta PRO C5501 & C6501 systems
- 600x600dpi, but does not offer true 8 bits per pixel imaging

Nukote, which makes generic toner and ink cartridges, announced it would file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Steven Bernstein, former operator of Copies Inc., an office equipment vendor in Buffalo, NY, was convicted on embezzlement. Apparently, he illegally used more than $27,000 in his employees 401K money to try to keep his company afloat.


Fuji (maker of most Xerox products) president, Tadahito Yamamoto, gave comments on economy:
- “still uncertain”
- “I think it will take another two to three years”
- Expects sales to fall 7.2% this year
- Hopes to double its revenues by 2014

The new event for managed print services is the Recharger MPS, held on 8/18/09. Details at www.rechargermag.com

-=Good Selling=-

Copier Sales Proposals "Pricing on the Street"

Just wanted to give you all a heads up. I've uploaded new "Pricing on the Street" with aggressive cpc pricing. Street Pricing from Ricoh, Canon, and KonicaMinolta.

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 80,000 page views a month, 2,500 views a day and over 210,000 hits a month. Our message boards have over 60,000 threads related to copiers/MFP's, Solutions and Solutions Sales, we are the Global Resource on the Web for Copier Sales Professionals, Copier Sales Managers, and Dealer Owners and Principals!

These quotes were recently uploaded:

KonicaMinolta Bizhub 1050e
Canon iR7095
Ricoh Pro 1106EX


You must be a member to view the pricing or the bids! Start by following the link below.

http://www.p4photel.org/

Rules Based Printing Software "Does Anyone Get It?"

A few years ago we heard time after time that the vendor that "owns" the network would own the clicks to MFP's and printers. That may be fine if your dealership controls the network in a SMB account, and from talking to many in the industry it seems that most dealers are still concentrating on hardware and third party software solutions.

Thus, a question was posed to me the other day in reference to MPS (Managed Print Services). I was asked, "What do you think about MPS, and will it migrate down to smaller accounts?"

Well, he goes... I stated that MPS has it's place where there are large printer fleets such as hospitals, large corporate offices, large local, state and government agencies. I do not see MPS migrating to smaller accounts, especially where there are MFP (Multifunctional Product) or MFD (Multifunctional Device) and where there is a strong dealer or direct presence, I also stated that any MFP/MFD salesperson worth their weight can sell heck out of the low cost alternative with MFP's over a Managed Print Service for printers (I think small personal printers in the office is a waste of environmental resources) and should be able to develop a "blueprint" of strategic MFP/MFD placements where there is no loss in productivity!

Now, back to something that's I've been itching to write about. You want to know what "the next big thing is?"......It's Rules Based Printing, basically it is software that resides on the server where admin can set rules for printing to printers, and Multifunctional Devices. You can set thousands of rules (if needed) to direct and redirect printing in the office. Such rules could include Always Duplex, Always Send to the Lowest Cost Output Device, Permission to Print that Document, Permission to Print in Color or Not in Color, Limit User Access, plus many more.

Thus, if you're looking to capture additional pages from existing customers and or new clients, you need to look long and hard at "Rules Based Printing" software. The first one that comes to mind is Print Audit with it's Flagship PA6, however there are other players in the marketplace. If you elect to introduce this software to your accounts, you also need to reward the reps that capture the additional clicks. You could reward them with maybe the first three months of revenue of the additional clicks or pay them on the ongoing revenue stream for the additional click/pages that were captured.

The Dealer or the Branch that installs a "Rules Based Print Software Solution" will be able to redirect prints to their products and thus own and capture additional pages that were not going to their MFP/MFD devices.

-=Good Selling=-

"TWIX" This Week in Xerox!

- Xerox gave out more details on its last quarter’s financials:
- Revenue down 18%
- Production equipment revenue down 26%
- Production post sale revenue down 15%
- Color equipment revenue down 25%
- Color post sale revenue down 10%
- Developing market revenue down 53%
- Office segment equipment revenue down 31%
- Office segment post sale revenue down 12%
- 85% growth in MIF of segment 1 b/w MFPs
- Plans to cut transportation costs by $100 million
- Will reduce costs by $100 million by instituting hiring freeze, no salary increases and
suspension of 401K match
- Will also reduce travel and trade show costs by $100 million

- Xerox announced the sale of a 700 Digital Color Press and a 4112 high speed b/w system to PMT Digital print shop.

-=Good Selling=-

TWIC Notes "This Week in Canon"

- Canon’s CEO says he sees signs of business bottoming out. Mr. Fujio Mitarai said; “performance has been considerably better than originally anticipated in March and April.”

- Canon announced is finishing construction on a 700,000 square foot building in Virginia. The building will be used to refurbish imageRUNNER 5000 and 3300 b/w digital copiers.

- What is it like to work for Canon in Japan? In an article in Gizmodo magazine, Canon plant manager, Hisashi Samaki is the author of a book proposing some of the same measures he instituted at his own company. He has removed all the chairs, as that he believes that forcing employees to stand not only saves money, but increases productivity and enhances employee relationships. In the hallways, if an employee walks slower than 5 meters every 3.6 seconds, an alarm and flashing lights are set off, reminding the poor worker that he is operating inefficiently. He also installed a sign on the floor that reads; “Let’s rush: If we don’t, the company and world will perish.” Mr. Sakamai, however, has a nice relaxing chair.

-=Good Selling=-

MFP Weekend Indsutry Notes

Special thanx to the Print4Pay Hotel member that supplied us with this!

- EFI announced that it won a “Hot Pick” award during a major print for pay tradeshow. PacPrint takes place every year in Australia or New Zealand. The award was given by Print 21, a magazine dedicated to the industry, and based on the new EFI Fiery Command WorkStation version 5.0.

- When deciding between an embedded EFI Fiery, and an external EFI Fiery, the advantages of the external usually include:
- tab insertion
- quick document merging
- supports PPML for high speed variable data printing
- Optional Graphic Arts Packages, for high end color control

- In another cost cutting move, Hewlett Packard announced it is closing factories in Scotland and Germany, and moving work to existing factory in Czech Republic. This will result in loss of 5,700 jobs in Europe.

- In an effort to compete against cheap generic substitute cartridges, Hewlett Packard’s Giovanni Sabio announced the results of a study comparing its HP toner cartridges versus compatibles. Mr. Sabio claims the study by Quality Logic Inc. revealed; “Based on research, remanufactured products are actually a lot more expensive in the long-run because of poor quality and other hidden costs, apart from the fact that they are not friendly in the environment. SMB’s who think they can achieve cost savings by choosing remanufactured cartridges are making a mistake by not factoring in the hidden costs from reprints, replacement cartridges, and additional labor costs from having to diagnose and fix printing problems.”

- Canon’s CEO says he sees signs of business bottoming out. Mr. Fujio Mitarai said; “performance has been considerably better than originally anticipated in March and April.”

- Canon announced is finishing construction on a 700,000 square foot building in Virginia. The building will be used to refurbish imageRUNNER 5000 and 3300 b/w digital copiers.

- What is it like to work for Canon in Japan? In an article in Gizmodo magazine, Canon plant manager, Hisashi Samaki is the author of a book proposing some of the same measures he instituted at his own company. He has removed all the chairs, as that he believes that forcing employees to stand not only saves money, but increases productivity and enhances employee relationships. In the hallways, if an employee walks slower than 5 meters every 3.6 seconds, an alarm and flashing lights are set off, reminding the poor worker that he is operating inefficiently. He also installed a sign on the floor that reads; “Let’s rush: If we don’t, the company and world will perish.” Mr. Sakamai, however, has a nice relaxing chair.

- Microsoft is being sued by end users who claim they were misled because their new computers couldn’t run all the new features advertised for Windows Vista.

- Oce’ announced it sold two high speed color production systems. Jeppesen, a division of Boeing Corp., purchased two of the Oce’ ColorStream 10050 rollfed units to produce aircraft manuals. The company expects average monthly volume of 25 million sheets.

- Oce’ announced it won an FM bid from Dickstein Shapiro LLP, a large law firm in New York. The contract is a 3 year, multi-million dollar deal, including locations in Washington C, New York and Los Angeles.

- A student in Maine, who took a computer printer home from school made a shocking discovery. Inside was a boa constrictor snake, which had escaped from its cage at the school.

- Kodak announced that it signed an agreement with Konica Minolta in Australia, allowing the company to be a reseller of the Kodak NexPress production color system.


- Toshiba announced plans to reduce fixed costs by an additional 10%. It will cut costs by $3.5 billion, in hopes it will secure a profit this year.

- Toshiba announced it will increase its flash memory chip making capacity by 30% at its plant in Mie, Japan.

- In a court in Wisconsin, Toshiba sued Imation and others, claiming the companies were infringing on its DVD making patents.

- Toshiba conducting a ground breaking ceremony in Vietnam, for its new electric motor plant, that will take up 861,113 square feet. It hopes the new plant will have $700 million in revenue by 2015.

- Ricoh Australia announced it will resell EFI’s PrintSmith MIS software for printshops.

- A school in Illinois is suing a local copier dealer over a lease. Governor French Academy of Washington County, claims that it entered into a lease, which supplied them with 6 new copiers, and the dealer claimed the lease on the existing copiers would be paid off. Instead, the school continued receiving bills from the first lease company, and found out that they were not paid off as promised.

- A dealer in Pennsylvania expands. The Phillips Group, a large Sharp dealer, recently opened a $500,000 addition to its headquarters, which includes an in-house print shop.

- The Department of Energy, upon investigating the Oak Ridge, Tennessee nuclear lab, found that some employees were using the connected digital copiers to print images from porn sites. It is arranging for the removal of hard drives from 160 copiers.

- IKON, a division of Ricoh, announced it is opening an office in the Rand Tower in Minneapolis, MN.

-=Good Selling=-