Toshiba EXCHANGE "5 Reasons it Will Fail"

If you hadn't heard Toshiba is set to launch their version of a Social Business Network intended for Sales, Administration, Technical and Corporate Professionals. Kinda like a LinkedIn or myspace, but just Toshiba MFP people.

Ricoh has something similar to this with their Aficio League, however it's more of an extra net site with videos, sales information, launch kits, pricing and I could go on and on. However, what the Aficio Leagie pioneered was a message board for sales people. In the beginning it was awesome, lots of members, lots of posting and then it got old.... to keep you up date the board is lucky if they have 5 new posts per month and there are a few thousand members.

Here's a few reasons that I believe the site is doomed from the start:

Ease of Use and Learning Curve! A social site like JIVE, is great for seeing the latest and greatest information, posts, blogs, and videos. But how bout if you want to research a thread from many months ago, or how about if you want to follow a thread from start to finish, it can be daunting to say the least and then you have a learning curve with with the site which can be so frustrating that you'll just never visit it again. Salespeople don't have the time to learn a new social site, they want info fast and will find the fasted way to get it. If I can't find my way around a social site in ten minutes, it's pretty much useless to me and I'll never go back.

The Numbers So, whats Toshiba got... a few thousand people across the nation, maybe a little more. Let's do some quick numbers and take 2,000, first they will be lucky if they get 50% to sign on, I'm thinking they will get 20% so about 400 people. Of that 400 people, how many will be active users, meaning they will have logged on once in the past 30 days. I'm going with 80 and out of that 80 how many will post information on a daily basis or share info, we'll now you're down to about 40 or so. So, that's like 10 salespeople, 10 techs, 10 admin and 10 corporate, that'll work right? While it's a great idea for the site, the numbers just may not work to have a viable board that will encourage users to share knowledge.

Censorship! If you've got a gripe on a product, don't post it on the manufacturers site, they'll see it as a negative and won't allow that to slow sales on that product. To put it in other words, big brother is watching and your threads or posts can be censored. Now, is that a way to share info?

Direct vs Indirect Channel! Members will be reluctant to share knowledge when they know that big brother is reading everything they write and sharing it with their own internal marketing department. Let's say you're a dealer and you came up with this great marketing plan for you Toshiba products, well if you post it, you can bet your last dollar that it'll be shared with Direct Branches ASAP! Most sales people will read the info, use the info and then not tell anyone else.

Who's Driving? If there is no one to drive the site, there will be NO PASSENGERS! What I mean is that you need one or two dynamic people to get behind the wheel and keep a steady flow if information, plus they also need to be cutting edge, someone who's been there, done that and can keep it simple to the guys and gals on the street. The last thing I want to hear is some sales BS from a DSM, Product Manager or a Sales Trainer telling me how to sell! Most of these people are in that position because they couldn't hack it on the street and weren't very good at selling.

The truth to the matter is that when you get right down to it, there aren't that many people in one organization that can drive a social site and make it a viable wealth of knowledge. I'm sure it will start off like a bat outta hell, however after the initial launch has come and gone so to will the members.

Now, if Toshiba is looking for the one dynamic individual that can make it work, then they need to call me. I'm always open for new challenges!

-=Good Selling=-

TWIC "This Week in Canon"

Special thanx to Print4Pay Hotel members from around the world and a few moles!

Canon releases more information on its upcoming new production color systems, called the imageRUNNER ADVANCE C9065 & C9075:
- All models still use the off-white plastic design
- None apparently offer true 8 bits per pixel imaging
- both advertised as light production color systems
- Designed to compete against the Konica Minolta bizhub PRO C5501 & C6501
- Base MSRP for C9065 will be $40,000
- Small engine footprint (appears to be designed on a workgroup engine format)
- Tandem 4 drum OPC design
- uses pulverized toner infused with wax
- Console design with two large letter size drawers and two 11”x17” drawers
- Optional side mount paper decks for a total paper capacity of 9,300 sheets
- Up to 13”x19” paper handling
- maximum paper weight handling of 300gsm
- will support coated stock and tab stocks
- Uses 200v/15 amp circuit
- 60ppm color and 65ppm b/w for C9065
- 70ppm color and 75ppm b/w for C9075
- Document feeder can scan both sides at same time
- scans b/w originals at 100opm top speed (at 200dpi)
- scan color originals at 70opm top speed
- 10.4” touch screen color LCD panel on an armature
- can be customized by end user
- Comes standard with generic PCL controller with optional PostScript
- Optional embedded or external Fiery controllers
- Optional external Creo controller
- actual copy resolution of 600x600dpi and 1200x1200dpi print resolution
- advertised as offering up to 9600dpi with interpolation

Canon bought a stake in an Austrian document management software company named ADOS, and changed its name to Therefore Inc.

According to the Riverhead News Review newspaper of Riverhead, NY, Canon could get up to a $50 million tax break for building a new U.S. headquarters on Long Island.

-=Good Selling=-

Selling Copiers "It Drove Me to an Asylum"

Thought I'd share this with everyone, being in the business I founhd it to be quite entertaining. Hope you all like!



-=Good Selling=-

500th Blog!

Can you believe it? Five Hundred Blogs about selling copiers, the copier industry and all of the other korny stuff that goes with it!

One thing I can tell you is that blogging about the industry has blossomed into fellow blogger relationships. Geez, I sitting here trying to write about this and can't find the words to describe the last two years, and I always have something to say about something.

I'll make my 500th blog a tribute to other industry bloggers like Death of the Copier from Greg Walters, and Jim Lyons Observations, I think Jim has like a 1,000 blogs. Then there's Neal Peterman with It Ain't Your Fathers Office, Ken Stewart with ChangeForge and then Micheal J with Tough Love for Xerox, I'll tell you that Micheal J posts 5 or 6 blogs every day! I'll bet every day is Saturday for him! All of these guys are awesome and they tell it like it is, no PR machines behind them, no favoritism, just good ole passion to write whats on their minds and be informative. I tip my hat to them for thier dedication, desire and dedication to Blogging!

Best of all I've made some new friends and a few enemies along the way, more friends though than enemies. Some have asked why I spend so much time on my blog and the Print4Pay Hotel web site? My answer is "it's better than watching TV, and reading a book", plus I may be able to make some money at it one day. I guess the dream job for me is that I would live in the Florida Keys from October to April and then to the Finger Lakes in New York and I would blog about the industry, keep the Print4Pay Hotel going (hopefully with 5,000 members), I guess that's why I do why I do so I can reach that goal where every day is Saturday!!!!!!

-=Good Selling=-

Samsung New Color MFPs?

Rumor on the street suggests that Samsung may be launching some new color MFP's in the near future. These could include several color printers and MFP's.

Here's a short review on some of their new systems:

The CLP-770ND (color laser printer)—billed as a printing powerhouse—outputs high-resolution colour image quality (3,600 dpi), at up to 32 pages per minute (ppm) in either black and white or colour. It can also handle a variety of paper stocks from extra-thick to transparencies. The extra thick stock is a nice enhancement, this feature alone could displace many A3 devices that operate at the same speed.

This is part of a recent press release from purchasing b2b:

“Samsung's new CLP-770ND will prove to be a strong contender in the A4 31-44 ppm speed range, which grew 44 per cent in the first quarter of 2009,” says Evan Hardie, senior research analyst, hardcopy peripherals with IDC Canada.

Samsung also announced upgrades to its MultiXpress line-up of digital multi-function printers, unveiled in 2008. The original MultiXpress models combined colour printing, copying, scanning and faxing.

This year’s models—the CLX-8385ND and SCX-6545N—have a more powerful CPU, faster colour scan and additional memory capacity. Colour touch screen controls were also added to both models, along with enhanced paper handling and increased toner and drum capacity for a lower total cost of ownership.

The CLP-770ND will be available in July from major reseller partners for a suggested MSRP of $1,599.99. The CLX-8385ND and SCX-6545N will be available in the second half of 2009 for a suggested MSRP of $7,099.99 and $3,999.99 respectively.

Samsung is here to stay, the CLX 8345ND will print 40ppm in color and 40ppm in monochrome for list price of $7,099, compare this to comparable A3 (will print and copy ledger) for $10,000 or more. The cost per page will be a determining factor when comparing to traditional A3 color MFP's

-=Good Selling=-

5 Habits of Highly Ineffective Copier Sales People

Many of us in the business community grew up with Stephen Covey’s excellent book, the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It is both influential and insightful.

Well, I'd like to introduce you to "5 Habits of Ineffective Copier Sales People"

Be the most talkative person in the meeting – You know everything there is to know about copiers, so why ask the customer an questions that he or she can answer to get a better idea of their needs. Just keep spewing information and don't listen to what the customers want or needs are.

Sell What Makes You the Largest Commission– You can make extra money for selling a color unit, plus an additional incentive for contracting the customer "x" amount of pages, what do you care if the customer only needs a monochrome system and a contract for 1,000 pages a month. You've got them to agree for 10,000 pages a month and to lease a system that far out weighs their needs, plus you'll make more money!

End of the Month Deals – My price is my price until the end of the month and then all bets are off. There are no price conscious buyers just cheap customers, why do they need an ROI spreadsheet, is that gonna make them buy sooner? You're right and the customer is wrong, all customers want is the best price!

Interrupt people and talk as much as you can – Don’t be the sales guy or gals who listens. Cut the office manager off at the first chance you get to look good in front of the CEO. Make sure you finish their train of thought with your infinite wisdom in the copier industry. Make sure you bad mouth the competition every chance you get.

Complain About Sales Leads– You're not giving me good leads, all these people want is price, or all they need is a small system, they are not giving me the order when I walk in the door, You should not have to go out and find new customers and find solutions that will solve business problems for them.

There are many more ways to be very ineffective in copier sales, but if you can pull off these 5, you are sure to be a complete failure. Did I leave off anything?

Really, I got this idea from a another blog I read, thought it would be good to put a copier spin on it!

-=Good Selling=-

TWIC "This Week in Canon" 8/25/09

Gathered from media sources from around the world, and a few moles!

More details on the new Canon production b/w models, the imagePRESS 7000 series:

- Apparently has issue with mixplexing, in that it has to clear every sheet in the engine before it can switch to either/or single of double sided printing
- Will supposedly run as slow as 14ppm depending on the job and paper stock used, even though unit is advertised with top speed of 70ppm(This came from another source and I can't verify this, only repeated what was given to me, and it should be treated as educational only and not GOD's word)

In an article in the Japanese newspaper, The Nikkei, had following info on Canon plans:
- Will increase the number of its factory direct branches 40% to 80 total by end of 2010
- Is targeting IT service related revenue of $2.1 billion in 2012
- The new line of copiers it is launching, the imageRUNNER ADVANCE series, has goal of 12,000 per month worldwide

Canon now shipping the new desktop color MFP, the imageCLASS MF8350Cdn offering:
- Base MSRP of $699
- 21ppm top speed
- 4 tandem OPC drum design
- 600x600dpi actual for printing/copying/scanning
- Advertised as offering 2400dpi for printing with interpolation
- 300 sheet paper supply standard (maximum with options is 550 sheets)
- Is A4, or handles letter/legal size only
- Auto duplex standard
- No finishing/stapling option
- Built-in print controller
- USB & 10/100BaseT ports
- 300MHz processor
- 128MB RAM (no upgrade option)
- Host based printing only (no PCL or PostScript print drivers)
- Fax/scan/print/copy standard
- Black toner yield of 3400 pages for $80, color toners have yield of 2900 pages for $75 each,
all based on 5% coverage
- Maximum duty cycle of 40,000 pages

Canon announced that New York state governor, David Paterson, agreed to spend $8 million in road improvements, so that Canon could begin building its new headquarters in Melville, NY. (originally, Canon would have had to make this investment)

Keep in mind that some of what is posted here is "heard on the street" and should be treated as such.

TWIR "This Week in Ricoh" 8/25/09

Gathered from media sources from around the world, and a few moles!

Isn't this a photo-copier brand?! In the early days, RICOH made precision instruments like watches . This RICOH 21J Automatic has rounded edges, making the watch look bigger than fact. The doom cystal also adds to the depth and volume of the watch. There is a raised red flower above 6 o'clock. It looks like a Lotus, a symbol of purity rising among the filth in Buddhism.

Ricoh announced it has renamed its IKON location in Denmark to Ricoh Business Solutions

Ricoh’s IKON office in Grand Rapids, Michigan, announced it won the Muskegon Public Schools bid. The contract is for 45 copiers for a total of $191,000.00.

According to some industry authors, Ricoh’s Senior Vice President of Marketing, Ron Potesky, is leaving the company to pursue other interests.

Ricoh announced it will sponsor the Women’s British Open golf tournament.

The new Ricoh president, Shiro Kondo gave an interview in Japanese magazine, The Nikkei Business Daily:

- Taking steps to reinvent its copier business strategy to turn itself into a provider of business solutions
- Seeks a 10% increase in sales and tripling increase in profit in 2 years
- “We cannot hope to keep growing if we stick to our hardware oriented strategy”
- Now employs 1,000 systems engineers worldwide
- New global marketing headquarters is run by CFO, Zenji Miura
- “If we don’t change, we will follow path of General Motors”
- “Anyone not ready to give their all should leave”
- As of March 2009, only 20,000 of the Canon’s that IKON had in its MIF had been
replaced by Ricoh product
- IKON still has 300,000 Canon machines in its MIF


-=Good Selling=-

TWIX "This Week in Xerox"

Gathered from media sources from around the world, and a few moles!

Xerox’s Worldwide Product Marketing Manager for entry level production color systems, Dale Allen, gave out more details on the new DocuColor 7002 & 8002 models:

- does NOT use EA toner (this is Xerox’s polymerized toner and EA is acronym for Emulsion Aggregate)
- instead is “same formulation as in the previous generation with an additive to lower the gloss” (the previous models, DocuColor 7000AP and 8000AP used pulverized toner with fusing oil)
- “we elected to leverage our investment with this particular platform”
- Claims to have shipped more than 20,000 DocuColor machines worldwide since the 2045/2060 models were introduced in 2000 (does not include the 240/250 series)

Xerox announced it sold another one of its iGen4 production color systems (which have a $640,000 MSRP) to a printshop in San Diego, CA named Specialist Printing & Direct Mail.

Xerox announced that is 5600 series of b/w laser MFPs passed the Common Criteria for Information Technology Security Evaluation, and are now ISO 15408 certified. Dollar amount of settlement unknown.

Xerox announced it had settled out of court in response to a lawsuit filed against Xerox by Acacia Research, who claimed Xerox was infringing on one of the patents that company acquired.

Fuji of Japan, maker of most Xerox branded equipment, announced it has developed a new type of inkjet printhead:
- can deposit ink at a record 50,000 drops per second
- instead of being made of steel like other printheads, is made of silicon
- can withstand temperatures up to 70 degrees Celsius
- nozzle size of only 1 micron

Fuji also announced that the source of the LED printhead in the new Xerox color MFPs, is the Nippon Glass Co. of Japan.

Fuji of Japan, in an effort to avoid its employees getting parking tickets in Tokyo, purchased a fleet of battery powered bicycles for its employees to use to commute to work. Apparently current Japanese law does not classify these as motor vehicles, so riding on sidewalk, and parking on street restrictions do not apply.

MFP Wars "Death of the A3 MFP" Part II

So, what's a dealer to do?

Dealers need to become more like VARs (Valued Added Resellers). Recently there was an article I read in CRN magazine about a company that specialized in networks. Over time, the owner noticed that they were getting calls from customers to add additional network drops for printers, mfp's, and telephone systems. Along with that they would also get trouble shooting calls for the printers and scanners that were on the network. He thought, why not have be the sole source for all of the hardware in the office, the benefit to the customer is that they did not have to have multiple vendors for hardware, so a company could reduce their workload with having one vendor to support all of their products.

So, this company decided to revamp their whole business model, he stated it took about a year, however they became and authorized dealer for printers, mfp's, telephone equipment and mailing equipment. Sales, are up along with new profit centers for consumables.

Here's my point, it's so hard and costly to get new customers. This guy found a way to increase his business by offering more products and services to his existing account base, plus the fact that some new additional business was accumulated by acquiring the new hardware lines. We all have the tech departments for on-site service, we are experts in technology.

Of course this type of business model may not work for everyone, there has to be a well laid out business and marketing plan along with acquiring the right people to staff those departments.

If you're not one for adding new hardware vendors then you need to get the solution thing figured out NOW! Figure out where you want to play in solutions market, do you want to capture more clicks with forms solutions, how about transpromo, or can you make the leap into document management. You could also just specialize in moving clicks from existing customer laser printers to your devices with a print management solution. Whatever it maybe, you need to focus on a few core items and become an expert in those solutions.

-=Good Selling=-

TWIC "This Week in Canon"

Gathered from media sources from around the world, and a few moles!

In an effort to increase slow sales of the Canon imagePRESS C1 color copier, Canon is advertising the unit as a way for hospitals and doctors to print out radiology images. Canon announced that the system is compatible with Virtual Imaging’s Cypher DICOM software. However, the press release stated “prints are not intended for diagnostic purposes”.

Canon announced that its “Green Calculator” program is a success, and will launch more models. The calculators are made from parts and plastic claimed from trade-in copiers.

Canon told its shareholders last week, that it expects it revenue to drop 22% due to slow demand for its copiers.

Competing against production b/w systems from Canon? If you are competing against the imageRUNNER 7000 series (7095, 7105, etc.), make sure to run samples on coated/glossy thick stocks, and ask your customer to demand the same when they get a demo on the Canon.

Canon announced that its factory direct branch in Denver sold an imagePRESS C6000VP to an Alphagraphics printshop ownded by Edward Rothschild as announced by Canon’s Senior Director of Production Print, Dennis Griff.

-=Good Selling=-

TWIX "This Week in Xerox"

Gathered from media sources from around the world, and a few moles!

The VP of Xerox Canada, Mel Thompson, has raised $150,000 by riding his bicycle across the country this summer.

When Xerox acquired Global Imaging, one of the dealers in the Global portfolio was Southern Business Communications. This is an Atlanta, Georgia area dealer that specialized in selling white boards. Xerox has decided to rename the company, Xerox Audio Visual Solutions, and will be run by Dan Boylan.

In 1975, Xerox engineer, George Pake, told Business Week magazine that offices in the year 2000 would have desks that have built-in TV-sized display terminals with keyboards that will call up reams of documents, files, mail and messages, thus eliminating the need for printers and copiers.

Xerox announced it won a facilities management (FM) bid from Methodist Healthcare in San Antonio, Texas to cover 23 different facilities. While the total revenue of the contract was not released, Xerox claims it will save the healthcare facilities “millions per year”.

Xerox again lost a court battle in Wisconsin.

Details:
- Xerox originally was charged by the State of Wisconsin for failing to pay property tax on equipment leased to City of La Crosse and City of Milwaukee, and levied a multimillion fine
- Xerox took their argument to court, and lost the decision.
- Dissatisfied with the decision, Xerox took the case to the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, which on 7/30/09, again ruled against Xerox.

-=Good Selling=-

Managed Print Service for $9.99 per Year?

Yes, the title of the blog is whimsical, but that's the one of the first things that came to mind when I read a press release from Inkgard today.

If you haven't read the press release yet, I'll give you some of the details. Wait, wait......, I did have the chance to call Inkgard today and was not able to get a hold of someone in the marketing department, but I was able to ask one of the customer service reps if this software was both commercial and consumer use, the answer was yes.

Inkgard is software that actually allows the end user to dial their savings from the print driver. Inkgard claims that a setting of 75% savings will allow one cartridge to output as many pages as the equivalent of four uncontrolled cartridges. This really raised and eyebrow from me and if anyone else is skeptical, well join the club. The software is down loadable from thier website on an annual flat rate subscription for unlimited usage starting at $9.99 for single users.

This is an excerpt from the press release "The Inkgard™ solution is created to appeal to a broad base of users – including individuals at home, small businesses, educational, corporate, government and institutional users. The underlying technology increases the ink & toner efficiency of any printer by up to 4 times. Inkgard™ guards from excessive ink and toner waste by removing redundant print drops with intelligent image processing, while maintaining maximum document and/or image quality."

I also took a trip to their web site and tried the gains calculator which is pretty cool, give you amount of pages that you can input along with type of pages that are printed. I then though, well how can they tell you the savings if they don't know what brand or model number of printer you have. Digging deeper there were some additional setting named "change setting", once you click this you're taken to a new page where you can customize your "cost per milliliter or gram of ink. Oh, that's great let me pull out the epson cartridge find how many milliliters and then divide by the cost of the cartridge and then for color I need to do this for all four?? Plus there's a few other settings that I can't seem to figure, well I didn't bother with those anyway. If you run the gains calculator it will give you averages and may not reflect your exact savings for your device.

I then downloaded a free version of the printer driver, now what happens here is that when you select your printer and then select ok to print the page, this is when inkgard opens a program for you to dial in your settings. On my notebook I have about 16 different drivers for laser devices. Everyone I opened would only let me select a max savings of 30% and not the 75% that I expected. I think I forgot about the word "up to" and the up to may refer to savings when using an ink jet printer.

Well, since I'm at home writing this so I couldn't select print output from the inkgard to look at printing quality, the statement on the web reflects that you can maximize quality of the print and still have a savings. I'll give this a whirl over the next few days and let you all know what I came up with. If this works, and I am skeptical at this time, this could be a BIG thing, and could save some companies thousands of dollars.

Here's the link for the press release Inkgard™ Software Reduces Printing Costs Up to 75%

-=Good Selling=-

You Gotta Have Heart "How's Bryan Doing?"

Last November of 2008, I published a blog named MFP Copier Sales "You Gotta Have Heart".

This article was about Bryan Sullivan a baseball player that I had on my Fall Connexion HS Varsity Baseball Team. Please click the link above and it will take you to the original blog and you can read about Bryan and why I was privileged to coach him. Just an FYI Bryan was born with cerebral palsy and suffers from hemiparesis, or slight paralysis or weakness that affects the right side of his body.

Bryan grew up loving the game of baseball and played the game and despite his disability he played the game with his left arm, plus he became a left handed pitcher. Now, Bryan is a Yankee fan and his inspiration came from Jim Abbott and we all know the story of Jim Abbot. But here’s something Bryan didn’t even know until I mentioned it to him. Jim Abbot played his college baseball at the University of Michigan, while at Michigan Jim Abbott won the Sullivan Award well the James E Sullivan Award for the amateur athlete in 1987. Geez, I thought, this is a real Connexion.

So, what’s happened with Bryan since then? Well for one he is going to attend Rutgers Newark College this fall and he was recruited by Coach Rizzi to come on the staff as a pitcher.

Bryan had of the best ERA’s in North Jersey HS baseball in the spring of 2009.

Bryan earned the opening start on April 1st and threw a one hitter and a four hit shutout against Glen Rock

He threw a no hitter against Eastside HS

He was on the mound when Paramus defeated Ridgewood for the NNJIL Division A Title.
Bryan received a call at home from Jim Abbott

Bryan was invited to on the field festivities at Yankee Stadium for “Old Timers Day”

Bryan pitched for Connexion Baseball in the JSBL and had a fine season pitching against incoming, current and former college players

Bryan was invited again to Yankee Stadium in August to receive an from Exceptional Parent Magazine and EP Global Communications.

Geea, all of this from a kid who asked me "Coach, do ya think I can play baseball in College?"

Bryan’s family had invited myself, my wife, my son and his fiancé to the game to see the award ceremony.

So, all in all Bryan has had a season of baseball for the ages. I spoke to Bryan at our last game and wished him well in college and reminded him that he has to out work everyone else to achieve his dreams, as I was driving home I knew that no one would out work Bryan.

-=Good Selling=-

MFP Wars "Death of the A3 MFP"

You've read about them, you've seen them in the field, and you've heard some manufacturers dismiss A4 MFP devices as a flash in the pan. HP started the A4 MFP trend a few years ago by releasing the HP4345 (I hope that model number is correct), Samsung followed with their own A4 MFP design which is also sold by Xerox and Muratec.

Hold on a moment we're talking about high speed A4 MFP's not the small printer centric stuff sold at superstores and some of the recent low end devices that have been released. We're talking 35 page per minute speed or above. Now that I've got the straight, we'll continue..., Sharp then released their Frontier Line of A4 MFP's (Sharp was the first to release a copier centric device, all of the others are more of a printer centric device). Now, just the other day I heard from a pretty good source that Ricoh will release a copier centric A4 MFP device (this is the first I heard of this and I am still trying hear from others to confirm this).

If this proves to be true, you can bet dollars to donuts that Canon, Toshiba, KonicaMinolta, Kyocera and Xerox will follow with their own devices. Some of you may ask, well what's the big deal? Traditional 45 page per minute A3 MFP devices (will copy or print up to 11x17) with all of the bells and whistles will have a street price of $10K - $15K. The A4 MFP devices (will copy or print up to 8.5x14) with all of the bells and whistles has a street price of $5K-$7K or a third to half the cost of the traditional systems.

Manufacturers will see a decrease in margins along with decreased revenue in total sales. Dealers will also see a decrease in margins and lower revenues as the market heats up for these devices. Dealers and Salespeople will have to sell even more hardware wo keep up with Quotas, while adjusting to accepting lower margins for these devices. A good example would be a dealer had sold 100 A3 MFP devices last year at an average of $11,000 for a total of $1.1 million dollars. So, according to HP's study done many years ago, 78 out of 100 of these machines would now resell for $6,000 and 22% (A3) at the $11,000 for a combined total sales revenue of $710K. Which result in a revenue drop of $390,000 or about 35%. Now to look at profit, just using a 10% profit... a dealer would lose $40K in profit for selling and supporting the same amount of boxes and would also fall behind in quota dollars.

A4 MFP devices are here to stay and with recent rumors of 70 & 90 page per minute devices somewhere down the road, what's can a dealer do? Dealers need to become......I'll have part two of this next week.

Just read this 5 minutes ago that Panasonic just announced a 35 page per minute A4 device for $495, what piece of ..... weighing in at a mere 21 lbs..

-=Good Selling=-

MFP Weekend Industry Notes 8/15/09

Special thanx to Print4Pay Hotel Members for these updates!! BTW, we've added boards for Muratec, Okidata, Toshiba, Panasonic, Hp, Kodak, OCE and Lexmark. Go here (Print4Pay Hotel)an become a member of the largest network of copier professionals in the world!!!

Fuji of Japan announced that it will show a prototype full color inkjet press at the upcoming PRINT 09 show:
- Was originally shown at the DRUPA show in Germany last year
- Is sheetfed design, instead of rollfed
- Largest sheet size of 20.5” x 28.3”
- Will not actually be running in the booth
- Claims that output has look and feel of an offset press
- Top speed of 10,800 letter size sheets per hour (or 180ppm)
- Infrared drying system
- Uses piezo crystal inkjet head technology (called Dimatix Samba)
- 4 bit imaging
- launch date and selling price unknown
- unknown if Xerox will relabel

More financial woes for Oce’. The Dutch Central Bank has approved plan for Oce’s Pension Fund. Details:
- The fund ratio had dropped to 79.4%
- The Dutch Central Bank had requested that Oce’ submit a recovery plan
- Oce’ will now make a further annual contribution to the fund of 7.5 million euros
- Fund ratio now is 83.9% (goal is 100%)

Lexmark marked the 15th anniversary of the launch of its first inkjet printer, the Lexmark ExecJet 4076 IIc:
- Original design made by IBM, which sold off its printer and typewriter division in 1991,
which became Lexmark
- Just under 100 people were involved in the project
- Project was led by Vic Hair, who is not Lexmark’s VP of R&D
- Many thought that inkjet would be a failure and not replace dot matrix printers
- Original prototype design was a failure as the ink spray in the printer caused a rubber belt
inside to disintegrate
- Company is still selling cartridges for the original model

Lexmark now shipping the RFID UHF option for some of its b/w laser printers. This special drawer allows the printer to print on a special paper that has a built-in radio frequency generator. The purpose for this could be:
- Allowing someone to find a lost important document by using a RFID tracking device
- If someone tried to leave the building with a confidential document, it could trigger an alarm

Hewlett Packard announced it has sold one of its Indigo 5500 production color systems to Walsh Color Print, a print show in Ireland.

Two weeks ago, Hewlett Packard, through its Indigo division, offered its employees the option of receiving their pay statements electronically. So far, only 35% have opted not to receive a printed statement. HP had planned on saving the cost of printing 156,000 statements per year.

Hewlett Packard announced it has sold one of its Indigo W7200 production color systems to Mercury Print Productions. What is significant is that the print shop is located in Rochester, NY, which is headquarters for Kodak, and large presence of Xerox.

According to the Photizo Group. Hewlett Packard has overtaken Xerox in the global market for managed print services revenue.

A recent survey conducted by a lead research firm revealed the following about choices companies make when acquiring desktop printers:
- 71.9% of the b/w printers installed are HP
- 55.6% of the color printers installed are HP
- 42.3% of all printers installed are color
- 64.9% of output from a color printer is in color
- 5.7% of all color devices have software installed to restrict color
- 16.7% of color printers sold are purchased from a copier dealer
- 38 months is average age of printer
- 71.2% of printers are connected to the network
- 71.6% prefer to print to their printer instead of a shared MFP
- 38.6% have a printer on their desktop
- 57.5% make additional copies using their personal printer rather than MFP/copier

Sharp announced another copier dealer acquisition. This time the company acquired one of its own dealers, First Choice Business Machines, which has 8 locations in the Seattle, Washington area. All will be run by Dan Taylor. First choice also sold Oce’, Kyocera, and Ricoh made products, and was 30 years old.

Offset press maker, Heidelberg of Germany, announced its last quarter’s financials:
- Unit sales down 52%
- Revenue down 22%
- Reported a loss of 63 million euros
- Will lay off an additional 2,500 employees (on top of 2500 already let go)

InfoTrends released a study on why so few Japanese print shops have invested digital production color systems. Apparently, Japanese printshop owners have not adopted web-to-print software or variable data, as they feel they would rather maintain face to face selling with their customers. In addition, most feel that offset print quality is still superior.

R.R. Donnelly, North America’s largest commercial printer, announced that its profit has dropped 83% due to slow sales.

Kodak launched Prinergy PDF File Editor Software, allowing graphic artists to use power of Adobe Photoshop and/or Adobe Illustrator to modify PDF files to improve their quality for production printing.

A scientist named Jeon Hwn Ju is trying to market a printer concept named “RITI” which uses coffee grounds instead of ink to create a b/w image.

Gary Johnson, president of Toshiba copier dealer, Zoom Imaging Solutions, announced they are moving their headquarters to Roseville, California. The 16,000 square foot building will house 60 employees. The company employs a total of 135 people in 9 different offices.

After losing millions trying to launch its HD-DVD format, Toshiba announced that it will instead adopt its rival’s technology, and begin making Blu-Ray HD players, which was invented by Sony.

Despite the weak economy, variable data software maker, DirectSmile of Berlin, Germany, announced double digit sales growth, as more printshops migrate to digital production print systems. Their new Director of Marketing is Franziska Muller, formerly of Konica Minolta.

TWIX "This Week in Xerox"

Xerox announced it has settled a patent infringement case brought against the company by Acacia Research Corp. Acacia is a company that seeks out obscure patents, so that it can chase companies for licensing revenue. In this case, it was a patent regarding networkable multifunction printer technology. The amount of money it is now going to receive from Xerox was not released. Toshiba also settled out of court as well.

Xerox launched two new color laser production print systems, the DocuColor 7002 & 8002. Details:
- replace the 7000, 7000AP, 8000, and 8000AP models
- 70ppm and 80ppm top speeds respectively
- Base MSRPs start at $245,000.00
- both come standard as print only models, and do not make copies
- optional scanner
- requires 240v/30amp circuit
- 7002 has maximum duty cycle of 1 million per month
- 8002 has maximum duty cycle of 1.2 million per month
- Built-in spectrophotometer, so no external color calibration device is needed (apparently only works if end user chooses the Xerox FreeFlow print server, and not with EFI Fiery or Creo servers)
- Horizontal 4 tandem OPC drum design
- can replace toner on the fly while unit is running
- uses mylar film transfer belt, or digital blanket, to move image from drums to paper
- Can handle from 16lb. bond to 110lb. cover (maximum of 300gsm)
- in the “All Weights” mode, can run thick stocks at top speed (not recommended for best image quality)
- in the “Mixed Media” mode, slows down to produce best image quality on thick and/or coated stocks
- engine uses steel for durability, reliability
- advertised as offering 2400x2400dpi with VCEL technology (is actually 600dpi, divided into 4, with each ¼ of the pixel designated for each color, or 1 bit per quadrant)
- Not true 8 bits per pixel continuous tone imaging
- maximum paper size of 12.6” x 19.2”
- minimum paper size of 7.2” x 7.2”
- can auto duplex up to 300gsm
- comes standard with two 2,000 sheet paper drawers
- can add two more 2000 sheet paper drawers
- Corotron cleaning assembly allows end users to clean the corona wires on their own
- Finishing options include
- GBC eBrinder 200
- punches and binds all on line
- uses polyester binging material
- can use black, blue, white or clear binds
- can bind from 2 to 100 sheets
- letter size only
- Tape binder
- can bind from 15 to 125 sheets
- letter size only
- uses thermal adhesive taple
- available in black, blue and white tape
- DB120-D Document Binder
- maximum of 120 sheets of letter size paper
- in-line thermal binder
- Booklet maker (made by Horizon)
- GBC FusionPunch II for inline punching
- Standard Horizon ColorWorks Document Finisher
- inline folding, corner and top stitching
- standard face trim
- optional multi-line scoring and bleed trimming
- Stacker/stapler staples up to 50 sheets maximum

- Print controller options include EFI Fiery, Kodak Creo and Xerox FreeFlow
- Xerox FreeFlow server
- actual maker unknown
- 2.5GHz processor
- 4GB RAM
- 300GB hard drive
- PCL and PostScript print drivers
- Xerox EX Print Server
- relabeled EFI Fiery
- two 3GHZ processors
- 2GB RAM
- 80GB hard drive and two 250GB hard drives
- Xerox CX Print Server
- relabeled Creo

Xerox announced the first customer for its new DocuColor 7002 is Kings College in Wilkes-Barre, PA.

Xerox gave out more details of it past quarter’s financials:
- Segment 2 through 5 installs up 10%
- Service annuity revenue down 4%
- Total pages tracked down 5%
- Color pages grew 12%
- Color equipment placements down 21%
- Segment 1 installations down 84%
- Color MFP installs down 21%
- Color printer sales down 42%
- Managed print services has run rate of $3.5 billion

Xerox announced that its Hawaiian operations now employ 200 people:
- first opened branch in the state in 1961
- now has office in Honolulu/Oahu, Lihue/Kauai, Hilo & Kona/Hawaii

Copier Quotes Uploaded on Print4Pay Hotel

Over the past few days I've been able to upload some new copier quotes that were emailed to me (Special thanx to those Print4Pay Hotel Members). These quotes are located in the Industry Proposals and Quotes Forum.

Xerox ColorQube 9203
RFP Results for 41 MFD Sale
RFP Proposal from Konica Minolta
Toshiba e-studio 35 Proposal
Ricoh MP C2050SPF Proposal

I have also uploaded documents that I've created over the years:

P4P's "Top Ten Rules for New Reps"
Objection Sales Document
ROI Spread Sheet for Wide Format (Get the break point for upgrading ink jet wide format to LED wide format)
Interesting Paper Factoids (Nice drop off piece that focuses on what is costs to maintain paper files)
Faith Based Sales Intro Letter

You will need to become a member (it's FREE) for access to the Print4Pay Hotel, click on the above links and you'll be guided through the process.

-=Good Selling=-

Inglorious MFP Copier Poll! "Would You Pay More"

A recent poll from the Print4Pay Hotel asked end users, What "brand of copier/multifunctional" device would I pay more for?

If this was a horse race at Monmouth Park, I would have picked (thinking about end users now), 2,5,4, for the trifecta (straight bet). What are the odds of winning two straight trifecta bets at the racetrack? Well, to make a long story short, I did. Two separate days, bet $20 straight trifecta in race #2 both times and hit. I left the park after each time after getting my winnings! I'm still wondering if the third time will be the charm. If and when I go back, I'm gonna bet the second race again and this time, I'll up the ante to a $100 straight trifecta! WOO YAA!

In first place with 36% of the votes is Canon, second place is a tie between Xerox and KonicaMinolta (geez who woulda thunk that KonicaMinolta's rise to the top would have been this quick), third place goes to Ricoh and the rest..., well see for yourself.

Ricoh 17%
Xerox 21%
Canon 29%
KonicaMinolta 21%
Kyocera 6%
Sharp 5%
Toshiba 2%
Panasonic 0%
Oce 1%

We did not bother to list Savin, nor Lanier since they are Ricoh products. Check out the result here!
-=Good Selling=-

MFP Weekend Industry Notes 8/09/09

Special Thanx to Print4Pay Hotel Members for this! Go ahead become a member of the fasting growing social network for copier people! Print4Pay Hotel
8-9-09

Toshiba’s president, Norio Sasaki, stated the following during a press briefing in Tokyo:
- It plans on coming out of the downturn by expanding its energy, healthcare and
environment-related businesses
- Expects its nuclear plant division to be its most profitable division by 2012
- Nuclear energy expansion “will provide a basis for strong growth”
- Predicts this division will bring it $3.7 billion in profit by 2012
- Will cut fixed costs by 330 billion yen this year
- Will cut spending in research & development in other business units to 1 trillion yen
from 1.17 trillion yen
- cut its profit forecast from $5.2 billion to $2.6 billion for the year
- cuts its sales estimates by 25% to 7.5 trillion yen
- posted a record 343.6 billion yen net loss last fiscal year
- it expects orders for 39 nuclear reactors by 2015
- “the results in fiscal year 2008 were dreadful”
- “starting with restoring the capital base, we aim to transform ourselves into a
company with a solid financial footing to start again for further growth”

Toshiba won a $116 million bid to supply two steam turbine engines for a coal plant in Vietnam.

During its 2009 Regional Summit, Toshiba’s President & COO, Mark Mathews announced:
- its managed print program is now 6 years old
- has 1 billion pages per month in its MPS program.
- Announced that Toshiba has entered into a “Strategic Agreement” with Hewlett Packard, apparently allowing it access to Hewlett Packard printers and MFPs (branches and dealers may now start marketing HP products in addition to Toshiba products)
- MPS program is called “Encompass 3.0” and is run by Jon Hafey,
Director Program Management & Service Delivery

Comdoc, a dealer in Ohio recently acquired by Xerox, announced it won a $80,000 bid to supply document management for Dimension Service Corp, a warranty company, who supposedly was spending $240,000 per year on outsourced scanning/storage services for 80,000 documents per month. The solution included 5 Kodak desktop scanners and DocuWare software, according to Director of Sales, Dan Nihiser.

Sandy Jones and Nicole Moses were arrested in New Hampshire after allegedly making fake currency using a color copier. Both women were arrested after they use a fake $50 bill to buy lottery tickets.

Heidelberg is apparently working on a high speed color inkjet production print system. The company has invested in inkjet printhead maker, Spectra, and plans to launch a new product named Linoprint.

Forrester Research predicts the following marketing methods will see increases:
- social media = 34%
- mobile marketing = 27%
- display advertising = 17%
- search marketing = 15%
- email marketing = 11%

Hewlett Packard announced it now has a total of 5,000 Indigo production color systems installed worldwide. The product was first shipped in 1993, when Indigo was an independent company, before it was acquired by HP in 2002 for $800 million. According to InfoTrends, the supply cost per page on the new Indigo 7000 is only 2 cents.

Hewlett Packard announced it plans on launching “Cloud-Print”. This service will allow end users to print from their Blackberry device to any printer connected to the Internet. Launch date and cost unknown.

Kodak announced it has sold a NexPress S2500 production color system to a print shop in Italy named Grafostampa.

The U.S. Postal Service, despite implementing $6 billion in cost cutting measures, announced it will still lose a whopping $2.4 billion. It now has reported a loss for 11 of the last 12 quarters.

EFI announced that since it offered its version 5.0 of Fiery Command WorkStation free upgrade, that 10,000 users have downloaded the software.

Printable Technologies, maker of the popular FusionPro variable data software, announced a record quarter for sales and profits.

According to WhatTheyThink.com, commercial printing shipments were down 12.2%, and printing volume was down 9.7%.

InfoTrends released the following list of top features for production print systems:
- Overall fastest system is the Kodak Versamark VX5000 color inkjet system at 750 feet per minute
- Fastest cut sheet toner system in the Hewlett Packard Indigo 7000 at 120ppm
- Fastest cut sheet color inkjet system is the Riso HC5500 at 120ppm
- Fastest color MFP is the Ricoh Aficio Color MP7500 at 75ppm
- Largest cut sheet paper capability is the Xerox iGen4 at 14.33” x 22.5”
- Longest image possible is the color LED Punch Graphix Xeikon 8000
which is unlimited with rolls of paper
- Most flexible cut sheet media handling is the NexPress from 16lb. bond to 130lb. cover
- Most flexible roll fed media handling is the Punch Graphix Xeikon 8000 from 27lb. text to 122lb. cover

Epson has filed patent infringement suit against a company in California who refills Epson print cartridges. Green Project Inc. of Hacienda Heights, filed a countersuit claiming it is doing nothing wrong.

Great America Leasing announced that it has hired famous sales training author, Steven Power, to provide training to dealers who plan to succeed in managed print services.

- Kyocera announced version 5.0 of its KYOcapture option for its MFPs:
- Actually is a relabeled version of Notable Solutions Inc. (NSI) AutoStore software
- Has customizable user interface
- Software is loaded onto customer’s server
- Provides a document capture workflow solution
- Improved bi-directional search functionality
- Retrieve indexing data from databases
- Browse folders across network

Kyocera announced that it is partnering with Wells Fargo and GreatAmerica to provide leasing options for its dealers.

Kyocera announced that in the U.S., it has shipped just over 1800 of the new TASKalfa color MFPs. It claims that the TASKalfa name will be on 23 different MFP and printer models.

Creo print servers received accolades from the International Cooperation for the Integration of the Processes in Prepress, Press and Postpress (CIP4) organization, as achieving the highest level of connectivity to third party workflow solutions. CIP4 measures vendor’s compatibility with the new Job Definition Format, or JDF standards.

EFI announced results of its second quarter’s financials:
- Total revenue of $90.1 million compared with $143.8 million last year
- GAAP net loss was $13.3 million
- GAAP net income was $13.4 million
- 14% growth in inkjet business
- Operating expenses reduced by 22%

Sharp announced it will hold its next dealer meeting during week of 8/31/09 at the Gaylord Resort in Washington D.C.

Okidata announced that it is replacing its CEO of its North American division. Out is Stewart Krentzman, after 12 years with the company. He is replaced by Takabumi Asahi from Japan.

Okidata announced it will offer PrintFleet managed print service software to its dealers.

-=Good Selling=-

TWIR "This Week in Ricoh"

Ricoh announced that it has sold one of its Aficio Pro 900 production color systems to a print shop in Des Moines, Iowa. Its IKON office in the area, sold one to Colorfx Inc., which is now using the system to produce variable data direct applications.

Ricoh announced that some of its products received accolades from Business Equipment Research & Testing Labs (BERTL):
- 5 star ratings given to MP C2550, C3300 & C5000 color laser MFPs
- BEST award given to C2550 & C5000

Ricoh announced more details about its new b/w production print systems (906EX, 1106EX, 1135EX) where it now expects end users to perform some of the service, under the “Trained Customer Replacement Units (TCRU). Details:
- Advertised as allowing end users to minimize downtime
- End users receive one hour of on-site training to learn how to replace the TCRU parts
- Consists of 8 different parts including; fuser section, fuser cleaning web, OPC drum, corona wires/grids,
waste toner receptacle, etc.

Details on the finishers offered for the new Ricoh b/w production print models:
- The GB2000 perfect binder can glue bind up to 200 sheets of paper, and can trim 3 edges of book
- booklet size of either 8.5”x11” or 8.5” x 5.5”
- uses tray on top to insert cover material
- top speed of 20 booklets per hour
- unit takes 6.5 minutes to reach melt temperature
- maximum paper weight handling of 163gsm for body, up to 300gsm for cover
- does not support use of coated/glossy stock
- the optional EFI Fiery does not support this option
- The RB5000 ring binder can punch and bind up to 100 sheets of paper
- can only use 8.5” x 11” paper
- when loading ring material, must choose either 50 sheet or 100 sheet ring material
- can not load both 50 & 100 rings at same time
- choice of either white or black ring material
- is not three ring, but instead punches 21 holes, and rings resemble comb binding
- when using 100 sheet bind, top speed of 30 booklets per hour
- when using 50 sheet bind, top speed of 55 booklets per hour
- output drawer can hold up to 11 booklets maximum
- ring material replacement will produce 75 booklets
- maximum paper weight that can be used is 216gsm
- The BK5000 booklet maker can stitch up to 15 sheets of paper
- The BK5010 booklet maker can stitch up to 30 sheets of paper

Xerox Gets a Jolt from Meridian School District!

I saw this come across last week, where Meridian School District had awarded a contract to Xerox for 120 copiers with a monthly payment of $43,758 per month. The reason it made the news is that Bosie based Fisher's Document Systems had bid $32,417for 120 copiers ($11,000 lower a month). The initial report I read stated that the school board had rated the bids not only on price but also factors like company history, equipment compatibility and customer service. Fisher's had finished second in the bidding.

I thought, well just another case of Xerox being Xerox. However, Xerox was providing one full time and one part time employee to oversee maintenance of these copiers. The numbers don't lie, the Xerox bid was $11,000 a month higher than Fisher's. Let's see, there are 22 work days a month, so the daily cost was $500 per day. An employee and a half would represent 12 work hours, therefore the hourly rate for these employees was $41.66. That's a tidy some to have someone at your beckoned call! Plus the fact that service was probably figured in to the bid, because Fisher's was offering on-site service as needed and machine replacement in 24 hours!

What were they thinking!! Did anyone do the math here?? I've said this in the past and I have no idea if this is the case, however you've really got to wonder why someone would pay and EXTRA $11,000 per month for service on a fraking copy machine!!

This was the statement from Eric Exline (Distric Spokesman) "In the world of schools, having a machine shut down for 24 hours would be unacceptable," he said. "You have teachers lined up every morning printing materials for their students."

It's my experience that if a machine is going to be down for 24 hours, it's going to need a part. Now, where is the part coming from? Is Xerox providing a parts facility at the location (I didn't read this), what happens if the part is back ordered into Asia? For the most part, if a copier goes down, someone if gonna be there in a few hours, and most times the call can be rectified right away. I can't tell you the last time I had a machine down for more than 24 hours.

So, the real question is, out of the 120 copiers, maybe one goes down a month for a part, and some teachers may have to wait a few hours or go to another machine in the building. Now is this worth $11,000 a month of the tax payers money! Naw, I think not, the fraking copier is broke, due with out and do some creative teaching instead of making copies!! My four cents!

-=Good Selling=-

Wide Format "Start a New Profit Center"

Over the years I've been in a few facilities that have many wide format machines. What's the one thing that's missing from most of these scenario's, there's no ability to track or bill the prints for different systems from different manufacturers! Your job is too go back to those accounts especially now, and a recent industry study concluded that:

-Companies are looking to save money and
now have an expense reduction focus

−Staff reductions are forcing companies to review how they are using their hardware and print services

−Reduced end user resistance to giving up their desktop printer and consolidating to a networked device shared by multiple users

Enter Ratio Plotbase! Here's some information I gathered for all!

RATIO PLOTBASE & Scan Software offers many features and benefits for most wide format plotters & scanners. Their experience in making everything work together well, even in complex, multi product installations can turn the tide from customer dismay to full satisfaction. To check out what their solutions can do, Just give RATIO a call to schedule a 30 - 40 minute interactive demo that can focus on;

Wide format tracking / accounting for one or more LED / Ink Jet plotters & Scanners.

Wide format plotting issues & workflow such as PDF batch plotting for embedded or external controllers or Ink Jets

New Scan software for Wide Format Scanners that can integrate Copy tracking with plotting to multiple devices. Also full color image editing features

RIP CUBE high performance hardware RIP alternative to regular Windows PCs, with pre-installed plotting / scanning software, built in recovery drive and complete support from RATIO

General Improvements for plotting workflow to your WF Ink Jets, LED plotter / scanners and small to mid-size printers for AEC users

Keeping your plotting software up to date with latest Autocad HDI drivers, PDF versions, Windows versions for any embedded or external or WF Ink Jet plotter

http://www.plotbasepm.com
http://www.cadstationpro.com

-=Good Selling=-

HP Sued Over Unpaid Commissions

Just picked this up a few hours ago. Former HP salespeople are suing HP for failure to millions of dollars owed to it's sale force. In one article "Former HP employees sue over unpaid commissions" the three former sales people are alleging that software didn't keep accurate records of sales and commissions.

Now HP stated that "Recently a very small percentage of HP's global sales team were impacted by a technical issue relating to processing commissions", the article goes on to mention that there are some 23,000 sales people. In another article "Suit filed over HP commissions", Portland Business Journal reports that there may be 2,000 sales people affected. That's almost 10% of the sales people, sounds to me like it's more than a small percentage.

HP has acknowledge problems with the sales tracking software, but they believe the lawsuit "substantially exaggerates the scope" of the issue. The three former employees are asking for a class action that would encompass 50,000 current and former HP sales employees, stating the total owed is more than 5 Million Dollars!

Hey, when it comes to commissions this is my bread and butter. Some people just don't get it, sales people rely on their commissions to pay the bills. Glitches in software, delays in delivery, delays in ordering, and out of stock issues can severely hamper our financial condition. Most of us in the industry get a meager salary and we rely on commissions, and bonuses to feed the family.

-=Good Selling=-

TWIX "This Week in Xerox"

One of Xerox’s subcontractors also suffers financially. Flextronics Corp., headquartered in Singapore, announced it last quarter’s financials:
- Loss of $154 million
- Last year made a profit of $130 million
- Revenue fell 31%
- Company has plant in Aguascalientes, Mexico that makes the Microsoft Xbox,
and refurbishes Xerox copiers

Xerox was the target of protestors. Members of Greenpeace marched in front of Xerox’s office in downtown Montreal, complaining that the company buys and sells paper that come from trees in Canada.

Xerox lost its legal dispute with the state of Wisconsin. Xerox was claiming that the $8.3 million in copiers it leased to City of Milwaukee and City of La Crosse was exempt from property tax.

Xerox announced it has hired Kari Byron, Grant Imahara & Tory Belleci of the MythBusters Build Team show on Discovery Channel to give presentations in its booth at the upcoming Print 09 trade show in Chicago in September.

A local dealer is protesting a bid won by Xerox. Gary Mahn, owner of Fisher’s Document Systems, claims that the Meridian Public School District, is wasting $680,000 over 5 years by choosing Xerox over his bid. Mr. Mahn’s bid was for $32,417 per month, while Xerox’s was $43,758 per month. The contract is for 60 months.

Xerox’s executive, Tom Salierno, announced that David Scholle has been hired as President of its Minnesota Global division. Global’s presence in Minnesota apparently was created by the consolidating the MIF of its Xerox agents in the area.

"How to Increase Sales & Profits for Color Wide Format Print, Scan & Copy".

Paradigm Imaging (Print4Pay Hotel Sponsor) will host a webinar "How to Increase Sales & Profits for Color Wide Format Print, Scan & Copy". This webinar is for all current wide format dealers and dealers that would like to enter the wide format market. Focus will be on how to increase sales of Color Wide Format Multifucntional Systems.

Paradigm Imaging will introduce you to their wide selection of hardware & software, and provide you with information needed to sell color multifunctional wide format systems, color scanners, color plotters, and many AEC software solutions. personally I have been selling Paradigm products for the last two years and their products have filled the gap when I could not place my own wide format product and I've benefited from sales leads and sales for color wide format multifunctional systems.

Date: August 20th 2009

Webinar #1 Time: 9:30AM EST (Mid Amercia & East Coast Dealers)

Webinar #2 Time: 11:00AM PST (Mountain & Pacific Dealers)

Paradigm Imaging will be giving away a free Canon scanner (details to come) at each webinars for dealers that attend!

The links will be posted in each of the Print4Pay Hotels Message boards. The Print4Pay Hotel has message boards for Canon, Ricoh Family Group, Sharp, Kyocera, Xerox and KonicaMinolta.

Please set some time aside for Paradigm Imaging Webinar. You'll be glad you did!

Thank you for your support!

-=Good Selling=-

Notable Solutions, Inc. to Provide Enterprise Scanning Capabilities

Notable Solutions, Inc. to Provide Enterprise Scanning Capabilities for the Navy Marine Corps Intranet

Company selected by EDS to centrally manage thousands of multi-function peripherals

Rockville, MD, August 6, 2009, Notable Solutions, Inc. (NSi), a leading developer of distributed content capture and workflow solutions, today announced it has been selected by EDS, an HP company, to provide an enterprise scanning solution on Multi-Function Peripherals (MFPs) for the Navy Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) program.
Under the terms of the agreement, thousands of MFPs from a wide range of manufacturers including Xerox, HP, Ricoh and Sharp, will have an enterprise scanning capability centrally managed by NSi’s AutoStore platform.

The AutoStore technology supports the integration of over 450 models of MFPs, providing EDS an enterprise platform to manage an international distribution of devices. EDS has deployed AutoStore servers throughout the United States and Japan to support MFP scanning on military bases and installations worldwide. Navy and Marine Corps users can now utilize a common interface at the panel of an MFP to scan-enable business processes.

“This is a great opportunity to work with EDS to reduce government operating costs by leveraging the Navy and Marine Corps’ existing infrastructure to provide enterprise scanning,” said Nick Caruso, Director of Federal Sales for NSi. “We are seeing an increased interest by government agencies to fully utilize their existing investments to improve business processes.”

“Within the first month of providing this service for NMCI we received over 1,500 MFP order activation requests,” said Sam Macmillan, account director of U.S. Navy business at EDS, an HP company. “Leveraging NSi’s AutoStore platform with EDS services will enable us to enhance our solution offering to NMCI.”

NMCI includes 363,000 computers serving more than 700,000 sailors, Marines, and civilians in 620 locations in the continental United States, Hawaii and Japan, making it the largest internal computer network in the world. Deployed in both the classified and unclassified NMCI network, AutoStore has been certified by EDS through an extensive DoD certification and accreditation process.

About Notable Solutions, Inc. (NSi)

Notable Solutions, Inc. (NSi) is a leading provider of paper and electronic content capture and business automation solutions. NSi’s flagship product, AutoStore, captures paper and electronic documents from a copier, scanner, or printer, then routes the information into the appropriate business system based on the document type. As a result, business is done faster, with less effort - and less paper.
NSi’s solutions are the underlying business process automation system offered by many of the world's leading multifunction peripherals (MFP) manufacturers and can be identified by the "Powered by AutoStore" moniker. With the largest number of unique devices supported by any capture platform, AutoStore is the information on-ramp for over 450 models of MFPs and network attached scanners from Canon, Fujitsu, HP, Kodak, Kyocera, Ricoh, Sharp and Xerox.

The company is headquartered in Rockville, Maryland USA, with local offices in both Europe and Latin America. For more information, please visit: Americas: www.nsius.com; Europe: www.nsieu.com

-=Good Selling=-

Selling Copiers "On The Road Again"

Most days, you'll find me driving around Central New Jersey visiting existing accounts or cold calling accounts that I've pre-planned. On the average I can do about 2,000 miles a month or more on my Eclipse (knock on wood 129K and still working).

When you're on the road that much you pretty much see it all. One morning going through Long Branch I was stopped behind a pickup truck at a railroad crossing. The train had passed and the pickup did not move. I waited for about 20 seconds and proceeded around the pickup, and believe it or not the guy at the wheel was slumped over the steering wheel! Well, my first thought was that he had been ill, or died while waiting for the train! As I look back in my mirror the driver behind me beeped the horn as he passed the pickup and low and behold the driver head bobbed up, apparently he fell asleep waiting for the train!

On that same road last year, a driver pulled up on the right of me and passed on the right, and then continued to pass on the right as he sped up to pass a large truck, little did he know the right lane was going to end up ahead. I saw the car dart in front of the truck, the truck slammed on the brakes, you could see the smoke from the tires of the truck, and the next thing the driver who had passed me lost control of the car and veered off the right of the road and into the woods. A large tree had stopped the car after about 30 feet. I pulled over and rushed through a patch of briar's to see if I could help. Two passengers were in the car, both were alive, a man of about 5o or older was in the driver seat and an elderly lady was in the passenger seat. Thank God all were ok.

So, I could go on and on about the stupid things I've seen on the road and I've pulled a couple of stupid maneuvers in my time. However today I picked up this article from the web "Texting Top Driver Distraction, New Va. Tech Study Finds". Well.... I have to say that yeah text'd is distracting and you need two hands to text, so what's left to steer the car?

So, what's my point, if you can't drive while on the phone and you can't text, then you shouldn't be able to eat, drink, put your eyeliner on, brush your hair, put lipstick on, change your radio station, or light a butt. Why don't they make laws for all of that also? How bout those navigation units where you have to take your eyes off the road or the new LCD displays for navigation.

My feelings, if you can't do two things at once, then you shouldn't be driving a car! Some people have a hard enough time just going straight! Maybe, new driver courses should include talking on the cell while driving, text'd and eating your lunch, then we'll see who's ready for the road and who's not! This type of new driving test would eliminate most of the problems right? Or if you can't drive in a straight %^$%^& line, then you fail!

So, the next time I'm driving down the road and I see some idiot swerving and causing a hazard, I'll think back to the good ole days when there were no phones in the car, just my eight track player, radio and a couple of good friends.

Let me know what kind of drivers you've seen on the road and what they were doing!

-= Good Selling=-

MFP Weekend Industry Notes from 8/3/09

Special thanx to the Print4Pay Hotel members for this!

According to MAIT’s Performance Review, unit sales of computer printers and MFPs, are up 1% over last year worldwide.

Nuance Communications purchased X-Solutions of the Netherlands. Details:
- Xerox was the catalyst in the formation of both companies
- History of Nuance:
- Xerox purchases Kurzweil Computer Products, an early developer of OCR technology, in 1980
- In 1988, Xerox acquired scanner make, Datacopy
- Xerox combines Kurzweil and Datacopy to Form Xerox Imaging Systems (XIS)
- In 1998, XIS sold to Visioneer
- Visioneer renames itself ScanSoft
- In 2000, ScanSoft purchased Caere, maker of OmniPage OCR
- ScanSoft dumps its TextBridge OCR engine for OmniPage
- In 2005, ScanSoft merges with Nuance Communications
- In 2006, it paid $357 million for Dictaphone
- In January, 2008, it filed a patent infringement lawsuit against ABBYY, maker of FineReader OCR engine. It also sued ABBYY’s largest customer, Lexmark.
- In September 2008, it filed a patent infringement lawsuit against eCopy
- In October 2008, IRIS, who OCR engine is part of eCopy, filed a suit of its own against Nuance.
- Nuance claims to have 70% marketshare of OCR software in the U.S.
- X-Solutions is the maker of ScanFlowStore, an OCR scan embedded application sold with Xerox MFPs.
- Also makes DigiDocFlow for Ricoh, SmartOfficeScan for HP and SimplifyScan for Sharp

Kofax, maker of high end production scanning systems and software, announced it is going downmarket. Its new Kofax Desktop, can be downloaded from their website for only $29. The company hopes to compete against eCopy Desktop or Nuance PaperPort with this new product. It adds a scan tab to MS Office, and works with any TWAIN scanning device, but only offers pull scanning, and not push scanning.

Oce’ has renegotiated its debt covenants, as the company struggles financially, to prevent the banks from taking over company. The new covenants now call for:
- a net debt to EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) ratio of under 3.5
- an EDITDA to net interest ratio of over 3.5
- the banks charged Oce’ 12 million Euros for this covenant restatement

The City of New York just signed a 3 year, $1 million contract to supply typewriters to the New York City Police Department, according to CIO magazine. I quess they don't have forms software, I haven't seen a typewriter in an office in years!

A worker for the State of California reported that budget cuts are so deep, that his department, the Osteopathic Medical Board in Sacramento, is being prevented from buying toner cartridges for its Kyocera KM-3035 digital copier.

Dell Computer agreed to pay out $9.1 million to settle a class action alleging that the company discriminated against women in its methods of compensating and promoting its employees.

Samsung’s North American headquarters won a temporary restraining order against its former chief managing officer in a suit alleging that his accepting the same position at rival Motorola Inc. will illegally pass to Motorola, some of Samsung intellectual property.

Samsung owner and former group chairman, Lee Kun-hee, has been cleared of all legal charges, with the exception of tax evasion, by Korea’s Supreme County after a 13 year court battle. Lee led Samsung for 20 years before quitting after being indicted on charges in April of 2008.

InfoTrends expects desktop scanner sales to increase by 2013, even though sales this year are down as compared to a year ago.

Lexmark reported its last quarter’s financials:
- earnings down 80%
- stock shares fell $1.27 to $17.50
- profit down to $17 million from $83.7 million a year earlier

Police in Utica, NY have arrested Ngoc Nguyen on July 16th, after he allegedly destroyed a copier at an office at 901 Park Avenue.

According to the Printing Industries of America, digital print accounts for 12% of printers’ shipments, or about $36.7 billion. By 2020, the growth in digital print could add $13-$20 billion.

Industry analyst, Gartner, predicts that printer/MFP manufacturers will lose more than $13 billion in revenue to companies that make unauthorized generic toner and ink cartridges, due to the rising popularity of managed print services programs.

Interesting statistics from U.S. Postal Service:
- 86% of domestic mail is generated by business
- 14% of mail is from households
- In 1995, 20% of world communications was mail
- 99% of companies worldwide use email
- 86% of companies have a website
- 78% of companies have an intranet
- 72% of companies plan to process transactions over the Internet
- 45% of all print is distributed via the Postal Service

Kodak reported its last quarter’s financials:
- sales down 29%
- reported a loss of $191 million
- revenue from digital business down 28%
- gross profit was 18.5% of sales, a decline from 23.6% a year ago
- SG&A expenses were down 26%
- R&D expenses down 38%
- Current debt is $1.311 billion
- Graphic Communications Group sales were down 24% (this is division that makes controllers and product print systems)

Pitney Bowes reported its last quarter’s financials:
- revenue was $1.38 billion compared with $1.59 billion a year ago
- reduced its debt by $179 million
- U.S. Mailing revenue declined 8%
- Equipment sales declined 7%
- Software revenue declined 12%

EFI announced results of its last quarter’s financials:
- revenues were $90 million compared with $186 million a year ago
- a net loss of $13.3 million
- CEO, Guy Gecht, stated “main disappointment for the quarter was the delay in shipping the Vutek GS3200” (this is a $600,000 high speed wide format color inkjet system)
- Reduced operating expenses by 22%

EFI announced it had won its legal battle against Zurich American Insurance Co. and Old Republic Insurance Corp. The two companies claimed that they were not obligated to cover a $19 million settlement in a shareholder derivative class action

PrintWeek magazine reports that Heidelberg and Manroland are considering a merger. Both are large offset press makers, who are suffering due to the slow economy. However, the German government may not approve this supposed merger, due to antitrust concerns.

Lexmark launched a new option for some of its printers, which will allow the devices to print on RFID material. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Ultra High Frequency (UHF) technology is used in tags that allow companies to track their assets. RFID tags can be placed into a special $2499 drawer option, so that the Lexmark printer can print an ID number on the tag.

In his memoir, Bob Metcalfe, inventor of Ethernet networking, gave some history on how he first tried marketing his new product:
- DEC said; “Yes, but we’re gonna have to be sure that you know how to build stuff because we wouldn’t want to buy junk. We’re a serious computer maker. We need to check all your
manufacturing processes”
- IBM said; “Get the hell out of here. We’re not doing business with you. We think Ethernet is junk. We’re gonna do the token ring. We were selling millions of Ethernet cards to buyers of IBM PCs without IBM’s permission.” (IBM eventually discontinued Token Ring in favor of Ethernet)
- Apple ordered 300 units, but required that they be external boxes made with lots of metal. “I believe that all 300 of them are out there in the San Francisco Bay right now, serving as boat anchors,
holding yachts in place”

Kyocera announced a connector to allow its MFPs to work with CutCom’s SentryFile document management software.

Kyocera announced that it would relabel a product from Ricoh. The new Kyocera FS-C1020MFP, a desktop color laser MFP, is actually the Ricoh Aficio SP C232SF. (since it is made by Ricoh, it uses organic drum, and not Kyocera’s amorphous ceramic silicon drum)

Kyocera now shipping its new color laser MFPs, the TASKalfa 750C, 650C & 550C offering:
- 750C offers 75ppm b/w & 65ppm color
- 650C offers 65ppm b/w & color
- 550C offers 55pm b/w & color
- All three are actually relabeled Toshiba color laser MFPs (and therefore do not use Kyocera’s amorphous ceramic silicon long life drums, but instead use organic drums which Kyocera normally says is inferior technology)
- product marketing manager for the new products is Danielle Wolowitz
- all come with 10.4” touch screen color LCD display
- optional EFI Fiery print controller (this is unusual, as in the past Kyocera did not offer Fiery)
- Standard built-in print controller (Peerless technology), has 80GB hard drive, and 1.2GHz processor
- 100 sheet document feeder


A company that sells generic toner and ink, announced that it has created a free website for end users to solve their printer problems. PrintCountry.com launched a new site on YouTube with videos showing printer users how to solve common print driver issues, which they hope will drive more traffic to their consumables website.

Sharp reported details on its past financial quarter’s performance:
- reported a 20% drop in sales, down to $6.32 billion
- reported a loss of $266 million, as compared to a profit of $262 million a year ago
- Office technology sales down 14%
- announced a joint venture with Sony to sell large sized color LCDs

Sharp launched the FO-2080 desktop A4 b/w system featuring:
- 20ppm top speed
- Copy/fax/print/scan
- Two paper drawers
- Letter/legal size only
- 50 sheet bypass
- Auto duplex standard
- Button Manager is a built-in utility which offers scan to OCR

TWIR "This Week in Ricoh"

Ricoh announced that its DocumentMall off-site document management solution is managed by Savvis, Inc., and meets Statement of Auditing Standards No. 70 (SAS 70) Type II requirements. SAS 70 meets requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) for internal controls by public companies.

Ricoh announced it will resell OmTool’s AccuRoute Capture document management software, as an option for its models that offer embedded software options.

In an interview with Barron’s magazine, Ricoh’s CEO, Shiro Kondo, gave out following details:
- total global copier market is $28 billion per year
- “The current business environment has been challenging to say the least”
- Sales down 6% to $21 billion worldwide
- Operating profits plummeted nearly 60Z%
- Earnings per share fell
- Stock dropped from $111 to $63
- Generates half its revenue from software and services
- 55% of sales come from outside Japan
- In 2001, purchased Lanier
- In 2006, purchase DANKA Europe
- In 2007, purchased printer division of IBM, called InfoPrint
- InfoPrint division has yet to turn a profit
- by 2012, analysts expect it could add 100 billion yen in revenue
- In 2008, purchased IKON, which also has yet to turn a profit
- Expects IKON to deliver 280 billion yen in revenue
- Expects total company revenue to grow 3.3% this year and 10% next year
- “You may find these targets a little too aggressive, but we are determined to do our
best to achieve these goals”

- Ricoh released the MSRPs for its new b/w production print systems, the Pro 907EX, Pro 1107EX & 1357EX

- Pro 907EX mainframe = $40,000
- Pro 1107EX mainframe = $51,000
- Pro 1357EX mainframe = $62,000
- Letter size LCT = $3000
- Tabloid size LCT = $4850
- Bypass tray = $1400
- Cover inserter = $3500
- Multi folding unit = $9150
- Stacker unit = $15,750
- Stapling finisher = $5830
- Hole punch unit = $920
- Booklet finisher = $11,800
- Trimmer unit = $12,400
- Print controller = $3300
- PostScript print driver = $1900
- Ring binder unit = $24,825
- Perfect binder = $44,830
- GBC punch unit = $8995
- GBC die set = $475

-=Good Selling=-

TWIC "This Week in Canon"

Canon’s factory direct branch in San Francisco, formerly a dealer named NewCal, will now be the official office equipment provider for San Francisco Giants baseball team.

Canon announced it received two “Pick of the Year” awards from Buyers Laboratory Inc. for the following products:
- imagePROGRAF iPF755 wide format color inkjet printer
- imageRUNNER 5050N digital b/w MFP
- color imageCLASS MF8450C
- imageFORMULA ScanFront 220eP

Canon convinced U.S. Senator, Check Schumer, to help lobby State of New York government to financially assist Canon build its proposed new north American headquarters:
- The huge new building is planned to be built on the former Tilles Pumpkin Farm in Melville
- Current building is in Lake Success
- “I believe that there is no recovery act candidate more deserving that this one” said Senator Schumer.
- Canon is pushing for the State of New York to reallocate transportation stimulus money it received from the federal government to upgrade and widen Route 110 service roads,
which lead to the property.
- Expected cost to taxpayers is $6 million

Canon reported its last quarter’s financials:
- Net profits down 86% from 107.8 billion yen to 15.6 billion yen ($164 million)
- Will cut 220 billion yen in costs, an increase of 28% of original target
- Predicts at end of fiscal, its profit will be down 62%
- Assumes that dollar/yen exchange of only 95 yen to the dollar
- Stated that the rise in the value of the yen versus the U.S. dollar has cost the
company 151 billion in revenue
- Expects it sales of laser engines to Hewlett Packard (all HP LaserJet products are
actually relabeled Canon’s) will fall 45%
- Copier supply revenue fell nearly 30%
- Total revenue down 28%
- plans on opening up 1,000 factory direct branches in China within 2 years

Canon announced new optional software that can be embedded in MEAP equipped Canon laser MFPs. The new software; “Security & Cost Control Pack”, provides an affordable secure job tracking and cost recovery solution.

-=Good Selling=-