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=-