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.
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