Top Ten Predictions for the Copier Industry in 2010

It's that time of the year again!!

Can we all be thankful that 2009 is going, going, gone!!!

The office equipment industry was rocked this year with additional consolidation with the likes of Canon, OCE, Nuance, e-Copy, Xerox and HP.

I've got good news, this is going to continue into 2010!

Who will the players be in 2010?

Here's my predictions for 2010, enjoy!


1. HP makes Hostile bid for Xerox


2. Kyocera acquires Sharp's MFP business


3. KonicaMinolta acquires Toshiba's MFP business


4. Ricoh acquires Kodak Print Production Group


5. Matt Espe is announced and new Ricoh CEO


6. Samsung purchases Memjet technology


7. Samsung is number #1 in world wide MFP placements


8. Panasonic finally throws in the towel!


9. Print Management Software is now a standard bid spec for the federal government (GREEN rules)


10. Okidata acquires Lexmark


Yeah, I know some of these are far fetched, who knows we've seen crazier things happen in the industry, right? If you've got anything to add, post it here and I'll add the comments!





-=Good Selling=-

You're now selling Managed Print Services "Your Thoughts Now

Well, very interesting is all I can say. About a week ago, we posted a new poll for Managed Print Services "Your Thoughts Now". We asked, since you're now into MPS, how's it going?

As of right now, more than half rate it as a failure or not reaping the profits that they thought they would, while another 25% states that it's ok and only 9% stated "It's been a great success for us".

If you're into MPS take the poll, I can't wait to see the final numbers on this one.

We'll have this poll running till the end of the year.

-=Good Selling=-

This Week in Xerox "TWIX Notes"

- Xerox announced it has sold one of its iGen3 90 production color systems to the in-house printshop at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota:

- Replaced a Xerox DocuColor 6060 and two Konica Minolta bizhub PRO 1050s
- Added a Xante’ Ilumina Digital Envelope Press (relabeled Okidata color LED printer)
- Purchased two Hewlett Packard Edgeline CM8050 color inkjet units to print letterhead

- Xerox provided a few details about the sales of the ColorQube color wax copier so far:
- Claims that over half the units sold replaced competitive color or b/w MFPs
- 25% of clicks are “useful color pages” (contain b/w and very small amount of color)
- 50% of clicks are “everyday color pages” (some color)
- 25% of clicks are “expressive color pages” (lots of color)
- “color pages are running higher than expected”
- Would not disclose how many units were sold so far

- Xerox announced it will now offer an embedded version of Equitrac usage tracking/control software for its EIP (extensible interface platform) equipped MFPs.

- Xerox is using a test report from Buyers Labs Inc. (BLI) to tout that its MFPs are faster and more productive as network printers than its competitors. However, what I've heard is that the tests that were done used “banner sheets”, to separate the print jobs. Banner sheets are rarely used by end users, as they are considered wasteful. However, since many MFPs treat these banner pages as separate print jobs, they process slower than a Xerox MFP that treats banner pages as part of the print job.

Summary: if customer does not use banner pages, they most likely will see no speed increase with a Xerox.

- Xerox announced it will resell CAStor content storage software from Caringo Inc. of Austin, Texas.

-=Good Selling=-

MFP Weekend Industry Notes

- Dell Computer reported its last quarter’s financials:
- Revenue down 15% to $12.9 billion
- Income down 54% to $337 million
- Large enterprise business revenue fell 23%
- SMB (small to medium size businesses) revenue fell 19%
- Consumer revenue down 10$
- Public sector revenue down 7%
- Perot Systems division revenue fell 12% to $629 million
- Desktop PC revenue fell 26%
- Desktop PC units fell 15%
- Mobile PC revenue fell 14%
- Server sales fell 6%, units down 7%

- Premier Purchasing Partners, which is a healthcare alliance of more than 2200 hospitals and 63,000 healthcare sites, announced that it will now offer Konica Minolta, Ricoh & Xerox products to its membership. The new contract, with these offerings, will be launched 1/1/2010.

- ABBYY Software Ltd., the OCR manufacturer headquartered in Russia, announced that Ingram Micro will distribute its products to resellers (VARs & dealers) in the U.S.

- Secunia, a network security alert firm, announced that denial of service network attacks could be carried out using a vulnerability found in some Hewlett Packard Color LaserJet models.

- Hewlett Packard announced that it won bid to supply Kmart locations with a version of its Edgeline color inkjet MFPs. The HP Photosmart ML1000 Minilab will allow Kmart stores to sell digital photo printing. (OMG, did Kmart not read about the edgelines??)

- Okidata announced that it will relabel Nuance document management software (PaperPort) as an option for its MFPs and call it the Okidata Desktop Capture Solution.

- IKON, a division of Ricoh, announced that it will resell software from KnowledgeLake, which offers viewing and retrieval technology for Microsoft Sharepoint.


- Ricoh’s factory direct branches will now offer the ability for their sales reps to:
- bundle in software and computer hardware into a lease
- bundle in professional services/network service, by a pass thru approach on a lease, so end users can pay for the service monthly

- In Japan, Ricoh launched the MP-C1800 A3 color laser MFP offering:
- 18ppm top speed
- Slower, less expensive version of existing MP-C2200
- Will replace the C1600/615C, which is a color inkjet copier, based on Ricoh GelSprint technology
- 4 tandem OPC drum design
- Optional fax board

- The U.S. Postal Service announced it will end 2009 with a $.38 billion loss.

- Sharp now shipping new low end b/w laser MFPs, the MX-M200D, MX-M260 & MX-M310 offering:
- MX-M200D offers 20ppm top speed
- Replaces AR-M207e
- Based on Pegasus A3 engine design, first launched in 2003
- Base MSRP of $4090
- Comes standard with 40 sheet document feeder
- Unlike other Sharp models, does not offer the textured plastic exterior
- Small, non-touch screen monochrome LCD panel
- Toner yield of 16K based on 5% coverage per page
- Developer and drum yield of 50K
- Comes standard with USB port and 48MB RAM
- Scans in color and b/w, but only TWAIN scan standard
- Optional network printing and scanning for $750 with PCL print driver
- PostScript print driver for $395
- Fax board for $660
- 10MB fax memory for $195
- Comes standard with two 250 sheet paper drawers and 100 sheet stack bypass
- Auto duplex standard
- Additional 250 sheet drawers are $450 each
- No finishing options
- MX-M260 and MX-M310 offer 26ppm and 31ppm respectively
- Based on Andromeda A3 engine launched in 2003
- Replace the AR-M257 & AR-M317
- Base MSRPs of $5650 and $6995 respectively
- Come standard with USB port and 32MB RAM
- Optional 1GB RAM
- No scanning standard
- Optional print controller for $1195
- PCL print driver
- PostScript print driver for $395
- 300MHz processor
- 64MB RAM (can upgrade to 320MB)
- $395 for data security kit
- No hard drive option for spooling or storage
- Network scanning is additional $1095
- Scan to email/FTP/desktop in b/w only
- Application Integration Module allows end users to enter data at control panel for their scans for $349
- Fax board is $1195
- No second fax line option
- Toner yield of 25K based on 5% coverage per page
- Developer and drum yields of 75K
- Come standard with two 250 sheet paper drawers and 100 sheet stack bypass
- 8.1” monochrome LCD touch screen
- 100 sheet document feeder with top scan speed of 39opm
- Can add two 500 sheet drawers for $795
- Optional internal stapling finisher for $1795

- Lexmark now shipping a floor standing A3 b/w laser MFPs, the X860 series offering:
- Are actually made by Fuji of Japan
- Similar versions are also sold with Xerox DocuCentre name on them
- X860de is 35ppm for base MSRP of $5989
- X862dte is 45ppm for base MSRP of $8249
- X864dhe is 55ppm for base MSRP of $10,799
- Will be sold by 150 Lexmark dealers in the U.S.
- Will also be sold with Ricoh will also sell under the InfoPrint name
- Large full color touch screen color LCD control panel
- Built-in print controller
- Embedded Solutions Framework (eSF) allows for embedded applications
- 800MHz processor
- 80GB hard drive and 256MB RAM
- Can upgrade to 1.28GB RAM
- 10/100/1000BaseT & USB ports
- PCL, PostScript & XPS print drivers
- Network scanning in b/w or color
- Fax board for $300 more
- Toner yield of 35K based on 5% coverage per page
- Comes standard with two 500 sheet paper drawers and 100 sheet stack bypass
- Auto duplex standard
- 75 sheet document feeder, with 55opm top scan speed for b/w and 27opm for color
- Add two more 500 sheet paper drawers for $899 or 2,000 LCT fo $1399
- Optional side mount 2000 LCT for $1249
- Stapling, hole-punching finisher for $1375
- Booklet making finisher for $2699

- Lexmark announced it will now offer Ringdale’s FollowMe for its printers and MFPs that allow for an embedded application. FollowMe enables end users to enter a PIN code, Windows login, ID card reader or biometric reader to authenticate and track usage.

- Due to downsizing, Lexmark is now trying to lease 135,000 square feet of office space in Lexington, Kentucky.

- Another imaging software company plans on entering the market in the U.S. to compete with Nuance eCopy and NSI’s AutoStore:
- New Dynamic Solutions (NDS) is based in Brugge, Belgium and is now selling products in Europe
- Will enter U.S. in early 2010
- In Europe is now selling its “ScanFlow Suite” to work with Ricoh (ScannerVision),
Konica Minolta (Document Navigator) and Toshiba (eBRIDGE Capture & Store)
- Founded in 1983
- CEO is Rene Brunt, who formerly worked for Ricoh
- Is a C++ based application
- Employs 25 people
- Software is embedded in the MFP, and uses color LCD touch screen control panel
- Approximately $223 for entry level “Express” version
- $748 for “Office” version
- Each additional MFP licensse is $148
- Optional modules for OCR/ICR, forms recognition, barcode recognition ($298 to $1497 each)
- Customizable control panel
- Has two dozen connectors to third party applications

- Quark of Denver, makers of QuarkXPress desktop publishing software, announced it is launching a web-to-print website, so it can better compete with Adobe InDesign. The website, QuarkPromote.com, allows end users to use a free design tool, and choose from hundreds of templates, and then order prints from a Sir Speedy, PIP or Signal Graphics printshop.

- Since Xerox bought ACS, HP bought EDS and Dell bought Perot Systems, many have speculated if Computer Sciences Corp. is also up for sale. According to company president, David Booth; “We like our position. We truly believe that there’s a role for companies like ours in the market”

- Samsung of Korea now shipping the CLX-8540ND color laser A4 MFP featuring:
- base MSRP of $8249
- 40ppm top speed
- 100K/month max monthly duty cycle
- Built-in print controller with 800MHz processor
- 1GB RAM
- 160GB hard drive
- 10/100/1000BaseT ports
- Maximum paper capacity of 2,720 sheets
- 600x600dpi (9600dpi with interpolation)
- Optional hanging stapling finisher
- Color touch screen LCD control panel
- 20K black toner yield
- Color toners yield 15K

- According to a Chinese newspaper, Toshiba is considering selling off its notebook computer manufacturing division to Asustek of China. Asustek makes computer motherboards, and its own PCs, selling in the U.S. through Best Buy and other retailers.

- According to survey conducted by the Photizo Group, half of the companies that are using a managed print services program, have done so by partnering directly with an equipment manufacturer.

-=Good Selling=-

Happy Thanksgiving from the Print4Pay Hotel!

May everyone have a healthy, and Happy Thanksgiving.

At this time of year please make a gesture with extra change, gifts or work to the needy!

Copier Sales "What Comes Around Goes Around"

If you've been in the business as long as me, you'd be considered ah... well.....OLD! Believe it or not sometimes OLD is good!


Over the years I've sold many systems and developed many relationships. Additionally in these years I've seen business relationships change. Change is a part of our business, whether technology or our contacts.

I can remember an article of years gone by that spoke about customer/account attrition, going by memory I believe the article stated that you could lose up to one third of your accounts each year due to a voluntary or involuntary churn.

Just lately I've had some calls from contacts who have moved to other companies and even a few who have started new companies, thus new opportunities were created! So even in the worst of times there are some silver linings among the doom and gloom.

So, this Holiday season, make sure you touch base with all of your customers, until you make the call, you may not be aware of a change with your relationship. Consider this, even if your contact has moved on, with your call you've just established the beginning of a new relationship with someone else.

-=Good Selling=-

Copier Sales "New RFP's Uploaded to Print4Pay Hotel"

I've posted some new information that's been posted on the Print4Pay Hotel Message Forums.

New RFP's For You!

Multifunctional Copier Rental

RFP for Printers, Copiers, and Multifunction Devices "Due 12/4/09"

Bid for Toshiba 2830 "Due 11/30/09"

Soliciting proposals to lease/purchase a digital

Digital Archiving Project for the Central Library "Due by 12/3/09"

Printing Solution "Due 12/08/09"

All of these for you! Keep in mind that you need to be a member to view the Print4Pay Hotel message boards. Become a member of the largest group of copier professionals in the world!!

-=Good Selling=-

New Managed Print Service Poll Launched

We ran this poll for a few months over the summer of 09. Is your company going to offer Managed Print Services?

These were the responses to that poll:

#1 Yes 39%
#2 No 14%
#3 We already have it in place 47%

We've launched our new Poll Managed Print Service "What Now?" We want to know, now that you've entered the Managed Print Service Arena, how has it been for you?

Here's the poll, you can also find it on the left side of this blog along with being featured in the "polls" forum of the Print4Pay Hotel Message Boards.

P4P Hotel Poll

You're now selling Managed Print Services "Your Thoughts Now" It's been a great success for us It's been ok for us It's not reaping the profits we thought it would If we had to do it over, we would not have gotten into MPS View Results

-=Good Selling=-

Canon & HP "Your Thoughts on The New Alliance"

We've had this poll running on the blog for awhile and I thought it's time we closed it to add a new poll for the Canon/Oce purchase.

When asked: Canon & HP "Your Thoughts on The New Alliance"

It's not going to affect us at all and we are not concerned 51%
We're a Canon Dealer and we are concerned 26%
We're a Canon Dealer and not concerned 12%
We're an HP Dealer and we are concerned 8%

What can we take from this? 63% of those responding as an HP or Canon were not concerned about the alliance. 34% were concerned about the new alliance. To put this in a little more perspective the chat on the Print4Pay Hotel Forums has been minimal since the alliance was announced. But, with the emergence of the Canon/Oce purchase looming, it seems to me that Canon saturation in major and secondary markets may now drive Canon Dealers to another vendor, just as it did with all of the Ricoh purchases over the last few years. I'm also sure there will be alot of pain in the supply line also, once OCE starts moving the Canon boxes.


-=Good Selling=-

MFP Weekend Industry Notes 11/19/09

Gathered from Print4Pay Hotel Members from around the world and a few moles in very good places!

- Hewlett Packard reported info on its fourth quarter financials:
- Revenue down 8%
- Revenue estimate for fiscal year of $119 billion
- MFP/printer division revenue dropped 20% to $5.7 billion
- Printer shipments dropped 23%

- Hewlett Packard has agreed to reduce its claim against bankrupt Circuit City to only $70.5 million.
- Hewlett Packard announced it will spend $2.7 billion to acquire 3Com Corp. Details:
- will now compete head to head with Cisco for network switching and routing equipment
- 3Com was founded in 1979 by Bob Metcalfe, and retired in 1990
- Bob Metcalfe invented Ethernet, while working for Xerox
- ship the first Ethernet adaptor in 1981
- 3Com sold its first PC Ethernet in 1982
- becomes world’s largest manufacturer of network interface cards (NICs)

- Hewlett Packard announced it won a managed print services contract from Leighton Contractors of Australia. Leighton employs 9,000 people in Australia and New Zealand. HP will reduce the fleet from a seven-to-one user to printer ratio to 10-to-one.

- Kyocera apparently has chosen to use PrintFleet software for its KYOfleetmanager managed print services program.

- Intel agreed to pay AMD a whopping $1.25 billion to settle an anti-trust lawsuit filed against the company by AMD.

- Kodak announced it is reducing its staff in British Columbia and shifting work to Israel. This will reduce the Canadian staff from 1265 to 500. The Canadian office was part of the $980 million acquisition of Creo in 2005. Also, Kodak sold some of its office space in the area for $43 million.

- Ricoh announced that it has sold an Aficio C900 production color system to GAM Printers, a print shop in Sterling, Virginia.

- Ricoh announced it is forming a Business Process Automation Group, as part of its Document Solutions & Services Division. “BPA is a true value-add for Ricoh customers because we’re able to offer a suite of services from consultation to sales to implementation under one roof” said Mark Miller, Senior VP & Deputy General Manager at Ricoh. Ricoh’s BPA consultants will “assist customers in turning their current processes into turnkey solutions to fit their workflow requirements”

- X-Rite, maker of color measuring devices, and Pantone color systems, announced its last quarter’s financials:
- net loss of $9 million
- net sales down 25.6% to $45.6 million
- operating income of $1.6 million

- X-Rite, which recently launched Pantone color software for the Apple iPhone, called “myPANTONE”, had the software tested by the Flemish Center for Graphic Communication. The research firm found that when it viewed certain Pantone colors on several iPhones, that each one had a different shade of color. (there is currently no way to calibrate the screen of an iPhone)

- After being acquired by Nuance Corp. last week, eCopy has laid off a portion of its staff.

Details:
- Richard Mack, VP of Corp. Communications, stated that less then one-third of staff was affected.
- Any layoff larger than that would have triggered the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which requires companies to provide advance notice of a mass layoff.
- Before layoffs, eCopy had 220 employees
- some of jobs will be transferred to Budapest, Hungary, where Nuance has office
- Nuance has 6,000 employees worldwide in 30 offices
- eCopy was started by a handful of people working out of Edward Schmid’s condominium in 1990, and was originally called Simplify Development Corp.
- Nuance, through its OmniPage division, provides OCR software to OmTool

- Tech Data Corp., a leading IT products distributor, announced a new Healthcare Specialized Business Unit to assist its computer resellers (VARs) meet growing demand in this vertical market:
- healthcare industry will spend $81 billion on IT in 2010, according to Gartner
- $22.8 billion will be spent on healthcare IT over next 6 years according to INPUT Research using federal funds from American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA)
- Department of Veterans Affairs has 2010 budget of $3.3 billion in IT spending

- American TonerServ, provider of generic laser print cartridges in Santa Rosa, CA, reported a 192% increase in last quarter’s revenue.

- Dell launched three new printers, with the following features:
- All are made by Fuji of Japan (which makes most Xerox copiers and printers)
- Dell 5130cdn is 47ppm A4 top speed full color laser printer for $1549 base MSRP
- 4 tandem OPC drum design
- polymerized toner
- optional paper drawers can make unit floor standing
- optional hanging stapler finisher
- unit’s exterior is dark grey plastic
- 8.5 second first print out time
- 1200x1200dpi
- 800MHz processor
- PCL and PostScript print drivers
- supports up to 216gsm paper weight
- auto duplex up to 163gsm
- Dell 7130cdn is A3 speed LED color printer for $2700 base MSRP (Xerox sells an MFP version)
- Dell 3330dn is 40ppm A4 b/w laser printer for $599 base MSRP

- In an effort to reduce costs, Colorado State University in Boulder, CO, announced it is closing its central reproduction department or campus printshop.

- Adobe Systems announced that it will layoff 9% of its workforce to cut costs. This will amount roughly 600 of its current 7,000 workers.

- Sun Microsystems announced it will layoff 128 workers at its Broomfield, Colorado campus. Oracle Corp. is attempting to buy Sun, but acquisition is being held up by European Union over antitrust concerns.

- Samsung of Korea lost a lawsuit to Sharp. Sharp’s lawsuit claimed that Samsung violated 4 of Sharp’s color LCD manufacturing patents.

- A report released by Samsung reveals that 83% of companies surveyed are not implementing basic technologies to reduce the volume of printed materials. Other findings:
- only 11% use a solution to track amount of pages printed
- over half of all document output costs are associated with purchasing paper and toner
- 69% of workers still prefer paper printouts

- A consortium of inkjet manufacturers have donated money to Cambridge University of London, England, to pursue development of a robust single pass production color printing system.

- Duplo, maker of duplicators, and finishing systems, announced it will create a sub brand, called Duplo Digital, to emphasize its finishing systems that are fully digital. (the company also sells relabeled Sharp digital b/w copiers)

- Two men were arrested in Eugene, Oregon for making counterfeit money with a color copier. Nicholas Pisciotta and Joseph Ulchinsky are facing forgery charges after police found a stash of fake $20 bills.

- According to survey, the average selling price of a b/w copy in a printshop is now 4.5 cents.

- EFI lost a lawsuit it filed against Leggett & Platt over supposed patent infringement regarding wide format color inkjet printers. EFI claimed that the company’s patent on UV ink curing was invalid.

- Canon announced it has hired John Hamm, former owner of Balmar Printing of Washington, to develop content for Canon’s imagePRESS Essential Business Builder Program. This is Canon’s option that can be sold to customers of Canon production color system to assist them in marketing and selling the output.

More on Canon Oce Deal

This was emailed to me yesterday in reference to the Canon/Oce deal. Seems like good stuff, so I thought I'd share with everyone.

Canon intends to make an offer of € 8.60 per Share for 100% of the outstanding Shares of Océ, representing a premium of 70% over Océ's stock price.

There does not appear to be opposition to the deal either from European regulators or Océ board members.

Océ will remain a separate legal entity as a Canon division, headquartered in Venlo (the Netherlands).

The Océ brand is to be maintained and applied in all relevant markets. Océ will continue to lead its R&D and manufacturing and key management will remain in place.

Océ will be responsible worldwide for wide format, commercial printing and business services. Canon's Large Format Printing will functionally be integrated in the Océ Production Printing Division ("Océ division") over time.

Océ's office activities will be integrated in Canon's Office Imaging Products (OIP) division.

Océ had 2008 sales of 2.9 billion euros, one seventh of Canon's revenue from imaging products and printers.

The integration of both Canon and Océ businesses will take place over the next 3 years. The Sales and Service integration will be led by joint integration teams per region with initially two dedicated organizations, respectively for Canon's OIP and for the Océ division.


Expected Synergy

Océ's headquarters, combining R&D, production and sales functions, is expected to play an integral role for Canon's European regional operations.

Canon and Océ products have little overlap. Canon will have access to Océ's production printing and wide format technologies while Océ will benefit from Canon's office MFP product line where Océ has struggled.

---> "Oce's strength is really more in the higher end production printing and they just don't quite have the market share, and not quite the pull yet in the office space" - Customer quote (from a recent Ricoh Win Analysis of a global account)

The acquisition will give Océ access to Canon's large sales network in Asia (were Oce is weak) and help Canon rebuild its sales presences in the US after the loss of IKON.

Konica Minolta stands to lose the most from this deal. Océ and Konica Minolta formed an alliance last year that had Océ selling Konica Minolta office MFPs while Konica would have access to Océ's heavy production printing equipment. Currently, Océ is the largest Konica Minolta reseller.

-=Good Selling=-

This Week in Xerox "TWIX Notes"

- Xerox scientists have developed a new coating to extend the life of organic photoreceptors (OPC drums). The new “armor” can extend the life of the drum by 33%. Goal is to improve the coating so that drums could last the life of the copier.

- Xerox announced it won a managed print services contract from Ingersoll Rand, a diversified industrial firm. Details:
- will supposedly save the customer millions over the life of contract
- contract is for 9 years
- reduce operational costs by 30%
- will also apply to the Trane division, acquired in June of 2008

- Xerox announced more modules for its ProfitAccelerator package. This package is an option that Xerox sales reps offer to customer who purchase production color devices, so that they now how to market and sell the output from their devices. The new modules are:
- Print on Demand Initiative (PODi) Customer Case Study Kit, has 105 actual variable data samples from 15 different industries
- Vertical Market Industry Kit Volume 1 offers 120 different samples from market segments; automotive, banking, healthcare, hospitality, insurance, real estate, retail, securities and investments
- Marketing4Digital (from PIA/GATF) Volume 5 provides introduction into trends and opportunities in print industry across a range of different markets.
- Customizable Calendars Print Kit
- Highlight Color Systems Samples Print Kit (for the DocuTech 128/155/180 series that uses black and spot color toner instead of CMYK)
- Sports Marketing Application contains overview and samples of a cross media
sports marketing campaign



- Xerox announced it purchased one of its largest dealers, Mr. Copy, which is headquartered in San Diego, CA. Former owner, Bob Leone, will stay one, and plans to add 30 more employees. Details:
- Started the Xerox agency in 1994
- Last year reported $44 million revenue
- Has 130 current employees
- purchase price not disclosed
- Offices in San Diego, Orange County, Los Angeles, Oakland, Silicon Valley, Reno, Portland and Eugene.
- When asked for reason for his success, Mr. Leone said:
- “We just plain outwork and out-hustle the competition”
- “This is not the place to work if you’re not a performer”
- “We measure activity and we measure results”
- “If you are not driver, you’re not going to last here”
- “We spend a lot of time training our people”
- “You can’t train attitude”

-=Good Selling=-

Canon Pulls the Rug out from KonicaMinolta "MFP WARS"

I was just on the phone with a friend of mine in upstate NY, can you guess what we were discussing, yup you got it the Canon/Oce deal.

Think about this, when Xerox bought Global, Ricoh was the big loser. When KonicaMinolta bought Danka, Canon was a loser, along come Ricoh with the acquisition of Ikon and Canon got their clocks cleaned and now Canon agrees to buy OCE and KonicaMinolta gets hammered! The only one who hasn't lost is Xerox! Funny how these things happen. Many months ago there were rumblings that OCE was for sale, many of us thought the logical buy would have been KonicaMinolta.

Some of the additional threads posted on the Print4Pay Hotel stated that Canon had opened 8 new branches across the country, but they had no customer base and no machines in the field. Illustrating that business was tough to come buy and Canon had to make a move to gain and preserve market share.

One Print4Pay Hotel member suggested that OCE had as many as 30-50 direct sales branches in the US (OCE never had a dealer base, and always relied on direct sales). With the impending deal, Canon now has coverage with Direct Sales in almost every major market plus some.

Perspective from the Street:

Canon once a non player in the AEC market, can now offer arguably some of the best wide format systems. That's a plus in my book, traditionally they would have had to walk away from wide format opportunities in the AEC market. As for me, I'll now have Canon dealers and Canon branches to deal with when selling wide format.

KonicaMinolta, nothing that's going to hurt me here. But, I'll be dollars to doughnuts that KonicaMinolta (keep in mind that most of OCE's MFP were manufactured by KonicaMinolta and relabeled as OCE) will start putting some hefty spiffs out for OCE and Canon units. I may get a few placements with the change over from KonicaMinolta MFP's to Canons. I've seen it happen with Global, and Ikon, customers who just bought systems will have endure with the change over from one brand to another. Some will embrace the change, but most will look to change vendors early because of dwindling parts, and knowledgeable service support.

OCE, not a big deal in my area, really never had much coverage in my area. I don't expect to see a change in my area.

Who Loses:

Thoughts are KonicaMinolta is the big loser. How much will they lose? I'm not an analyst however I think they lost big time! OCE gave them the universal number one (as one member stated on the Print4Pay Hotel) OCE is the largest reseller of KonicaMinolta products, plus KonicaMinolta enjoyed access to OCE heavy Print Production units.

Canon Dealers, they lose again! After the Ricoh acquisition of Ikon, Canon went out and signed new dealers, and added Direct Sales Branches. Thirty to Fifty new branches moving Canon boxes will surely upset many of the traditional Canon dealers.

This was an interesting thread from a Print4Pay Hotel member:

Strengthens Canon in Europe
But not a large change in USA.
Canon Production and wide format business impacted the most.
Xerox may see an opportunity in high end

We'll there goes one of my predictions for next year! The business never ceases to amaze me. BTW, if you'd like to read the threads on the Print4Pay Hotel, click the link.

-=Good Selling=-

Canon to buy Dutch copier maker Oce for $1.09 bln

It's early here on the East Coast, guess the last thing I expected this AM was to read the PR Releases that Canon plans to buy OCE. But, I will tell you that I was not surprised with the Press Release. Canon had to do something to combat Ricoh, was this the right move to combat Ricoh?

Well. yes and no, Canon will now have a presence in the AEC wide format market place, something they didn't have before the plans to buy OCE. Canon increases it's presence in print production, CRD and back office placements. I don't know the official numbers, however there's a heck of a lot of clicks out there.

It's off to work I go, I'll have more tonight after reading and getting other peoples comments. What I will say, all of you Canon and OCE people in major market areas, say hello to the new Canon!

-=Good Selling-=

Copier Sales "A Very Busy Week"

It's been almost two years since we've had a down turn in the New Jersey market. When speaking to other Print4Pay Hotel members from across the country, it seems to same for most everyone.

However, there may be a bright light at the end of the tunnel. For the first time in a two years, my pipeline is just about full, and a number of deals have closed already this month. Seems like those customers who were on the edge are finally committing.

I've also had a heck of time getting deals approved, luckily all have been approved. Some deals were submitted 6 and 7 times before we had an approval. Things are looking up and as we all know this time of year can either be a boom or a drag. It's what YOU make of it. If you've already decided that customers won't do business because of the Holidays...., well then they won't. But, if you have the three D's and move clients towards the end result...., well you'll have a great end of year.

Don't forget Section 179 of the tax code for year end $1.00 out leases. Plus there are companies that have made a profit and will be willing to part with it before the end of the year to lower their taxable income.

There's no tricks, secrets or magic wand, just dogged determination keep prospecting!

-=Good Selling=-

EIS Quatra Color Wide Format MFP Saves the Day!

Another repost for ya, btw the way we're killin it with sales, now we have to keep it rolling!!

I just finished my first install on the EIS Quatra "M" series from Paradigm Imaging. This is an awesome unit! The ease of set-up and install is exceptional along with the configuration of scan, print and copy drivers!

First, we had the unit dropped shipped to the customers location, this was a great savings since the shipment did not have to come to our office first and then ship to the customer. Second, we had the unit up and running inside of one hour! There were no issues with software, hardware or print drivers (whew)! Third, the software was easy to use and was very user friendly, we took about and hour to train the customer on all of the features they needed to use. Very cool software!

For those of you not aware of the EIS Quatra "M" series, Paradigm Imaging has combined a Graphtec 36" color scanner (24 bit) with Graphtec 24" color printer and their awesome Rocket controller and Image Flow software. Customers can scan scan wide format in color or monochrome, print in color or monochrome and copy in color or monochrome, all for under $9,000! We were also able to batch print, scan and copy.

Clients looking for a wide format color scanner (24bit) can expect to see prices upwards of $14,000 for a 36" wide system. The Quatra fills the void for the price conscious buyer that still needs high end productivity and solution work flow software. If you are player in the wide format arena, I highly suggest that you get on board with these systems!

Copier Sales "Prospects Never Want A Lower Price"

I thought I'd repost this as a reminder for us all to sell value!

I'm very pleased to present our next "Guest Blogger" Jim Parker from CBS Digital from Longview, Texas. Jim's a great salesmanager and has been one of my "go to" guys over the years and he has put together a fanstastic Blog for everyone. Jim is also known as "Old Glory" on the P4P Ricoh Family Group Message Boards. Enjoy!





We are all often faced with requests to lower our price. However, is that really what is being asked of us? As Zig Ziglar says, “Thousands of ¼ inch drills are sold every year to people who did not want ¼ inch drills. What they wanted were ¼ inch holes.” Our customers never, I repeat NEVER want a lower price. What they want is a better deal. Whether you are competing with a current payment, competitive bid, whatever, it still boils down to wanting a better deal. The only way the prospect knows how to ask for a better deal is to ask for a better price. A peddler will just give him the better price. A salesperson will help him to see other options that may be available to them.

For the sake of this discussion, I am going to assume that the sales rep has already done their due diligence and gotten clarification. A professional sales rep will never “launch” into a rebuttal without first seeking clarification. “What leads you to believe that my price is too high?” or “Is there a number that we need to work together to try to meet?” are a couple of possible examples. The answer will go a long way toward determining which of the examples below you will want to try. If the answer has something to do with a competitive quote, make sure that the other aspects of the quote are comparable. If you are shopping for a kitchen appliance and get a quote that offers free delivery at a higher price, don’t you go to the cheaper place and ask for free delivery? You may have maintenance pricing that more than offsets the competitor’s cheaper equipment price. See the whole picture before you address the concerns.

I am also assuming the prospect would prefer to do business with you but needs help justifying his decision. If you aren’t his preferred vendor, probably nothing but price will win the deal.
Some of the choices below only apply to cash purchases and some assume a lease arrangement while some are applicable regardless. Every one of these will work for you someday while none of them will work every day. You just need to be prepared to try them all on every deal until something works. Nothing here is rocket-science, just common-sense and over 25 years of industry experience but don’t take any of them lightly. While some may seem obvious to you, none are obvious to your prospect.

In no particular order:

· Remove an accessory. “You can always add it later Mr. Customer.”

· Give away an accessory or supplies. Depending on your pay-plan, it is probably less expensive to give away an accessory worth $1,000 than it is to discount $1,000.

· Give away a printer…same principle as above, but may provide the incentive he needs. However, never suggest that they can take it home for personal use. That might constitute a bribe if the decision-maker is anyone but the owner. You might also consider giving away entry-level document management such as eCopy.

· Step down to a slower model. They may have wanted a 30 ppm because that is the speed of what they are replacing. However, the 25 ppm units of today are as productive as the 30 ppm units of yesterday unless all of their volume is long-run/single-page.

· Most units have multiple finishing options as well as multiple paper- feed options. What about offering a lesser option?

· Lengthen the lease. Sometimes just adding 3 months to the term gets the job done. If they prefer to do business with you, they should be willing to commit to an extra 3 months to get it done.

· If they have 3 months left on their old lease, add 3 months to the term and do a 90-day deferred payment lease rather than buying out the old lease. The customer gets the new equipment now but continues to make payments toward their old lease. Your payments begin when the old lease runs out. You haven’t paid the buy-out and they haven’t had to wait to get the new equipment or make dual payments.

· Step Lease. This is a lease where the first year has a lower payment than subsequent years. “Mr. Customer, what if I had a way for you to have that lower payment for the first year, would that make it easier?” If you can get away with a higher payment for the subsequent years, great! If not, you are still better off than had you given it all away.

· If you can’t compete apples-to-apples, bring in an orange.

By the time you have tried all of these, the prospect will probably have voluntarily told you the real reason he isn’t buying from you and it probably had nothing to do with price to begin with. Either way, you have saved face and maintained your integrity. As long as we can say that, we’ll do OK in this business.

Jim Parker
Director of Sales
Complete Business Systems, Inc.Longview, TX

MFP Weekend Industry Notes from 11/08/09

Gathered from Print4Pay Hotel Members from around the world and a few moles in very good places!

- According to IDC Research, MFP sales were down only 6% during second quarter of 2009, versus second quarter of 2008. In contrast, the entire hardcopy peripherals market (including printers), was down 21%

- Hewlett Packard has 40% of the computer peripheral market in units, according to IDC Research. Following HP is Canon, Epson, Brother and Lexmark.

- InfoTrends states that the recession has driven more to consider outsourcing their document needs. 20% of businesses surveyed stated that they will outsource in 2010.

- Canon stated that its digital radiography system sales in China are up 100%, as the Chinese government stated it would invest $124.5 billion over next three years to revamp its medical system.

- More details on Canon’s third quarter financials:
- revenue down 21.5%
- operating income was down 53.6%
- operating profit up 33.6%
- net income fell 55.8%
- revenue from America’s fell 24%
- Office equipment accounts for 2/3’s of revenue
- Copier revenue down 28%
- B/W MFP revenue down 31.3%
- Color MFP revenue down 29.4%
- B/W MFP unit sales down 26%
- Color MFP unit sales down 15%
- Color MFPs account for 27% of units and 48% of total MFP revenue
- Laser printer sales down 26.8%
- B/w laser printer sales down 38%, color down 15%
- Laser printer unit shipments (most sold by HP) down 60%

- IDC Research stated the following on imaging infrastructure in corporate America:
- as much as 5% of business’s revenue is spent on document production and management
- as much as 0.2% is spent directly on printing hardware, supplies, maintenance and help desk support
- remote management of imaging assets allows companies to save as much as 8% to 41% per year on spending on hardcopy devices, IT support and consumables
- current installed of fleet of faxes, copiers and printers are operating at just 5% of their capacity

- Mark Bardin of Granville, Washington, was sentenced up to 6 years in prison after he pleading guilty to making fake $20 bills using a color copier.

- Ronald Thacker of Nashville, TN was arrested after attempting to use fake $20 bills to go bowling at Just One More Sports Bar. Police stated bills were made on a Canon color copier.
- Okidata announced it has promoted Doug Whetzel to VP of U.S. Commercial and Public Sector Sales, reporting to Greg Van Acker, VP of U.S. Sales.

- Riso donated a working, see-through HC5500 high speed color inkjet printer to the Museum of Printing in Andover, MA.

- MWAi, maker of remote device management software for dealers, announced it hired former IKON executive, Steven Stegman as Customer Engagements Manager.

- New York attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, filed an 83 page complaint in a U.S. District Court, claiming that Intel Corp. bribed and threatened computer manufacturers to block the sale of rival’s products in a “worldwide, systematic campaign of Illegal conduct”.

- Panasonic made its tender offer of $4.5 billion to acquire all shares of its rival, Sanyo.

- The following data was released about consumers:
- Wikipedia has more than 13 million articles
- 100 million videos are viewed on YouTube every day
- 65,000 new videos are uploaded to YouTube every day
- 400 million blogs are now in existence
- Flickr contains more than 3.6 billion images
- 5 billion minutes are spent on Facebook every day

- EFI announced that it will hold its next EFI Connect trade show in Las Vegas on 4/18-21/09.

- The Printing Industries of America released the following data about sales in the print for pay marketplace:
- Sales in first half of 2009 are down 4.75%
- Digital print sales are down 10.63%
- Inkjet print sales are down 96.48%
- 68% of printshop owners reported a decline in profits
- Employment levels decreased by 6.9%
- 73% of owners do not expect hiring levels to pickup thru first half of 2010
- 15.9% of sales are from digital devices

- eDigital Corp. of San Diego, CA announced it is filing a patent infringement suit against companies it claims are violating its flash memory patent, including; Canon, Kyocera, Nokia, Pentax, Panasonic, Roland, Marantz, Imation, Polaroid, TEAC and others.

- CFO magazine reported data on equipment leasing in the U.S.:
- Volume of new business declined by 31%
- 5.6% of receivables were not paid in more than 30 days
- Losses rose from 2.05% to 3.01%
- Total number of employees at leasing companies down 10%
- Income down as much as 20% due to increased credit losses

- Arizona State University announced it is saving $10,000 per year in its construction purchase order department, by implementing eCopy systems. (ASU has contract with Canon Business Solutions)

- Ricoh announced that its Aficio MP 6001/7001/8001/9001 series of b/w MFPs won the “5 Star” award from BERTL.

- Ricoh announced that it sold an Aficio PRO C900 production color system to the Girl Scouts of Wisconsin, located in Milwaukee, WI. The system will be used to print membership certificates, solicitation letters and training materials.

- IKON, a division of Ricoh, announced that the University of Arizona agreed to renew its copier contract. IKON won the contract 5 years ago.

- A group of HP pension fund investors, who claimed that HP erred in handing former CEO Carly Fiorina a $21 million severance package, lost their lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Appeals.

- A company in China that makes offset printing presses, is going public to raise cash for growth. Details:
- Douyan Printing is incorporated in Wyoming, but manufacturing is in China
- Company manufactures 15 different types of single color presses
- In future will launch multicolor presses, auto booklet maker, and a paper cutter.
- Company has 1,339 employees
- reported net income of $32.6 million on revenue of $10.6 million
- hopes to raise $47 million
- CEO is Christopher Holbert, who is paid $280,000
- COO is Xiqing Diao, who is paid $42,650
- CFO is William Suh, who is paid $$192,000
- Will market to the 90,000 printshops in China.

- The United States Postal Service announced that there will be no postal rate increases in 2010, including First Class, Standard, and periodical rates.

- Since Fujitsu (no relation to Fuji) sold its hard drive business, the only unit continuing to operate out of its Sunnyvale, CA, North America headquarters is the document scanner business. CEO is Etsuro Sato, and Scott Francis is VP of Marketing.

- During Kofax Software’s recent TRANSFORM event, it had some of its customer speak about the use of Kofax products for document management, including executives from:
- Catholic Healthcare West (CHW)
- Boeing Corp.
- Pharmaceutical Product Development, Inc.
- Oppenheimer Funds

- In an effort to cut costs, David Patterson, governor of New York, ordered state agencies to:
- “except under compelling circumstances, agencies are to implement double-sided printing”
- “eliminate personal printers, except in cases where an accommodation must be made for a person with a disability”

-=Good Selling=-

This Week in Xerox "TwiX Notes"

Gathered from Print4Pay Hotel Members from around the world and a few moles in very good places!

- Xerox received the 2009 Harold W. Gegenheimer award from NPES, the association for suppliers of printing, publishing and converting technologies. Xerox is the first manufacturer of digital printing equipment to win the award. The award is named for former NPES president, whose innovations helped increase usage of offset printing.

- Xerox announced it sold a DocuColor 8000AP to the Engine Room, a print shop in Johannesburg, South Africa.

- Xerox announced it has sold a DocuColor 5000AP and a 700 Digital Color Press to Aldridge Print Group of Mitcham, England.

- Fuji of Japan (which makes most Xerox printers and MFPs), announced that its CEO, Shigetaka Komori, won the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold & Silver Star award from the Japanese government. The award, originally created in 1875, was given to Mr. Komori because of his accomplishments in the industry.

-=Good Selling=-

Copier Sales "Friday Night Lights"

Being in the business for almost 30 years means you've been on many appointments. But you always seem to remember the appointments that are scheduled on the off hours. Such as very early in the AM (I don't set too many of these) and then the weekend appointments (especially when you need to hit your numbers), however the ones I remember most are appointments done after hours or in the evenings.

I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that many of you have never had a late night or early evening appointment, now late night appointments to me are the ones that are after 7PM. The later the better and if it's a Friday, then pretty much I'm a happy guy.

Consider this, if someone is willing to see you on a Friday night, make sure you bring all of the documents you need to sign the order! This just happened to me this Friday, originally we had the appointment for Thursday evening, but I had a call to reschedule for Friday, did I feel like going on a Friday evening..., well,... no, but I knew the chances of getting an order goes through the roof!

After the appointment, I had the order and a check for 60ppm color device!! Nice way to end the week huh?

Point is, if you've had trouble with hooking up with your customer during the week, ask for an evening appointment, only the serious will commit and you pretty much bank on getting the order.

-=Good Selling=-

Copier Sales "The Hardier I Work the Luckier I Get"

Just a short story for everyone today. Back in December of last year I was asked to quote on a copier for a local company. Not a big unit or sale, but a 25ppm monochrome device.

The company new and credit was extremley hard to get approved, after six weeks of trying off and on, we finally got it done. I called the customer and they didn't have the time to wait and had negotiated with another company (sort of like a sub lease). Well almost a year later and I got a call from the company that they had kicked out the old vendor and needed another system. We got the call!

The 3 D's represent Desire, Dedication and Determination. Desire to succeed, Dedication to your profession by being a professional sales person and not someone who slings mud at either the competition or the other sales people, Determination to be the best at your craft and to always have the zeal to learn as much as possible!!

-=Good Selling=-

Copier Sales "Increase Year End with Section 179"!

Now is the perfect time for your customers to lease equipment. Congress recently extended the section 179 expensing section included in the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009. Section 179 allows small businesses to expense up to $250,000!! of the cost of equipment and accelerate the depreciation on the equipment placed in service this year. This effectively allows your customers to acquire your equipment at a significantly lower cost.

Equipment must be placed in service during 2009. $ 1 purchase options qualify for section 179. Below is an example of the financial impact to the customer:

* Equipment sale & lease is for $50,000
* Customers anticipated net income for 2009 is $ 70,000
* Customer makes one lease payment in 2009 for as little as $150 and they can take an immediate deduction of $50,000 using section 179
* Customers taxable income is reduced to $20,000 reducing net taxes due significantly.

Print4Pay Hotel does not offer tax or accounting advice. Your customer should consult their accountant.


-=Good Selling=-

MFP Weekend Industry Notes 11/2/09

Hewlett Packard loses one of its largest distributors in Australia, Phoenix Toner. The general manager, Don Bentley, stated; “The business didn’t want to have that amount of cash tied up in something that was not profitable”, referencing the HP printer supplies that it sold. The company will now concentrate on other brands.

- Hewlett Packard has filed an injunction with the U.S. International Trade Commission in an attempt to bar Asian companies from importing print cartridges into the U.S. that violate HP’s patents and work with HP printers. The companies involved include Ninestar Technology of China, InkTec of South Korea and Acer of Taipei.

- Hewlett Packard announced a partnership with the University of Michigan to sell physical copies of over 500,000 rare books, while making digital versions available online for free. HP’s BookPrep service will take in raw scans of books, clean them up, and then offer print-on-demand copies for sale.

- MyFax Inc. announced that end users can download a free program that will allow anyone to fax from an application, using Internet Fax. The free software, MyFax Print-to-Fax Assistant, allows end users to Internet fax, by choosing Print from their application. End users must have an Interfax service, which MyFax can provide for a monthly subscription fee.

- Kofax, maker of document management software, announced that when businesses acquire a Fujitsu business scanner, they can get 50% off on Kofax Express software.

- Williams Lea announced it won a huge facilities management contract from Elizabeth Arden, a worldwide cosmetic company.

- A Chicago area man faces up to 20 years in prison for falsely claiming he was reselling high speed production print systems. Matthew Scott, owner of Gelsco Inc. of Northlake, Illinois, started as a printer repair company. However, in last 9 years Mr. Scott supposedly bilked 60 investors out of $28 million, claiming he was buying printers worth more than $100,000, and was able to resell them in under 90 days for 20% profit.

- A study conducted by Harris Interactive reveals that two out of three Americans prefer print media to email ads:
- 58% believe that the paperless office will never happen
- 64% prefer reading print on paper versus computer screen
- 67% would rather save money than save the environment
- 11% believe their company is now less likely to “be green”
- 26% say their company outsources print jobs at least once per year
- 19% say their company orders print over the Internet

- Kyocera announced two new options for its MFPs:
- ColorLock allows businesses to control color printing, achieved by offering a log-in screen that requests users to enter a passcode before they can use MFP, and allows color only to authorized users.
- AccessLock allows IT managers, through Microsoft Windows Active Directory, to set parameters to allow users access only to features need by their employee job functions

- Toshiba announced it is now reselling new solution software from Prism:
- deskRecord
- deskSystem
- deskForm

- Toshiba released its last quarter’s financials:
- Net loss of $2.2 million
- Sales fell 14%
- Will cut fixed costs by 10% on top of existing plan to cut 300 billion yen
- Will cut 3900 employees
- Will reduce research & development costs by 15%
- Will cut spending on equipment and factories by 59%

- Toshiba is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for allegedly trying to fix prices and rig bids for computer optical disk drives.

- Toshiba launched a new battery it hopes to be used in cell phones. The Dynario is palm sized, and uses a mixture of methanol and ambient oxygen. The chemical reaction between the two generates electricity.

- Lexmark announced it has hired former Ricoh executive, Ken Owen, as Value Print Channel Development Director. This new position’s goal is to increase channel awareness of Lexmark’s managed print services program.

- University researchers trying to find way to remove toner from paper. Thomas Counsell & Julian Allwood of the University of Cambridge, claim that when they expose a printed image to 60% demethylsulphoxide and 40% chloroform, followed by ultrasound, toner is removed, and paper is reusable.

- Athens-Clarke County police in Georgia are on the lookout for someone who is making fake $20 bills on a color copier. Most recently, the fake currency was used to buy Halloween figures from a local retailer.

- EFI announced that its products, including Fiery print servers and MicroPress print systems, would immediately support Microsoft’s new operating system, Windows 7.

- EFI announced details on its last quarter’s financials:
- revenues of $100.9 million, down 30%
- net loss of $12.2 million
- net income of $1.2 million
- 22% growth in inkjet business
- Fiery revenue down 38% to $42 million
- Gross margin was down 57%

- EFI, in an effort to boost value of its stock, announced it will buy back $70 million worth of its shares.

- IDC announced that the enterprise publishing market (transpromo VDP production print) grew 8.3% in 2008, and “will continue to post strong growth over the next 5 years”.

- BEI, a company that tracks service data for copier dealers and market service management software, announced it has hired former Global/Xerox executive, Steve Rolla. Previous to Global, he was an executive with IKON.

- One leasing company buys another. EverBank Financial’s CEO Rob Clements, announced that the company acquired Tygris Commercial Finance Group. Purchase price not revealed.

- Another obscure company acquires patents and sues for licensing fees. St. Clair Intellectual Property Consultants, of Michigan, is now suing Apple Computer as it claims the company is violating patents it owns regarding digital camera technology. The company already has won the following lawsuits:
- $25 million from Sony Corp.
- $34.7 million from Canon
- $3 million from Fuji
- Other deals were struck with HP, Kodak, Verizon, Motorola & Sanyo

- Red Bend Software Inc. of Israel, is suing Google for patent infringement, claiming that the company violated a patented algorithm in Google Chrome Web browser.

- A managed print services company gets purchased. MyPrint Corp. of Irvine, CA, announced that a majority interest in the company was purchased by Triton Pacific Capital Partners, a private equity firm in Los Angeles. MyPrint’s president, Jeff Carlson, stated; “We are all excited about the opportunities to work closely with the Triton Pacific team in growing MyPrint to the next level”

- Sanyo, which is about to become a part of Panasonic, announced it sold its battery plants to Fujitsu for $71 million.

- Sharp reported its latest financials:
- net loss of $196 million for first half of fiscal year
- operating profit fell 96.9%
- total revenue fell 17.5%
- copier sales revenue down 19.2%

- Kodak reported its last quarter’s financials:
- revenue fell 26%
- net loss of $111 million
- revenue in production print fell 18%

- Oce’ announced it sold a VarioPrint 6160 monochrome production print system & CS665 Pro color system (relabeled Konica Minolta bizhub PRO C6501) to Fry Communications, a print shop in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. The equipment will be used to print variable data direct mail pieces.

- Oce’ announced that the president of its Production Printing Systems division, Mel Babolyian, was named to the board of directors of NPES, the association for suppliers of printing, publishing, and converting technologies.

- Konica Minolta is partnering with companies in Russia to develop nanotechnology. The partnership with Sun Innovations and RUSNANO Corp, will apparently use industrial inkjet printers to make special coatings for solar panels.

- The Japan Industrial Design Promotion Organization (JIDPO), has given Konica Minolta four “Good Design” awards for the bizhub C220, C280, C360, C452, C552, C652, PRO 1051 and PRO 1200.

- Whack an old printer for a dollar. Students, faculty and staff at Purdue University were given the chance to use a sledgehammer to smash an old printer to raise money for the computer graphics department.

- The Equipment Leasing and Finance Association (ELFA), which tracks lending practices, stated that equipment leasing revenue fell 30.9% in September from the same month in the previous year to $4.7 billion. This is because of increase in delinquencies.

- Image Print & Sign Ltd. of New Zealand was fined by local government for illegally making copies of copyrighted books.

- PrintFleet is partnering with De Lage Landen in Europe to help copier dealers sell managed print services with a cpc lease program.

- In a survey of independent copier dealer service managers, Office Products Analysts found:
- average scanned pages per month on a scan-enabled MFP is 3,000 pages per month
- favorite brand based on reliability was Kyocera
- 54% admitted that they use Non factory original parts when they fix their copiers in the field
- 52% admitted that they provide their customers with Non factory original toner

-=Good Selling=-

Canon imageRUNNER Advance "Spec Review"

- More tentative details on the new Canon imageRUNNER ADVANCE series of color MFPs:
- Outside of units have new off-white plastic shell called “cashmere beige” (Canon has yet to adopt a darker coloring scheme as most of its competitors have)
- Units have “soft rounded corners” called the “Round Square” design
- Back of copier is now covered and called “omni-directional design”
- Uses recycled plastic in coverings
- Uses 8.4” color LCD touch screen on some models that pulls out, and then tilts downward for Section 508 compliancy.
- Other models use a 10.4” color LCD touch screen on an armature (PRO series only)
- Background of the LCD display can be changed by customer to fit personal preference
- Paper drawers have sensor to detect paper size
- End user must push a button to open paper drawers
- Has Advanced Smoothing Technology (AST) and Super Smoothing Technology (SST) to improve color letters and lines
- Uses fuser belt heated by ceramic element in the fuser section, rather than traditional fuser lamp heating
- Uses “pQ” toner, same pulverized toner technology used in imagePRESS C7000VP
- Document feeder can scan up to 120ppm, and be loaded with up to 300 originals in the C7065 model
- When using the duplex mode, the document feeder can scan both sides of original at same time, at 140ipm top speed full color (70 originals per minute)
- With the C5051 model, top speed when using duplex scan is 100ipm, (50 originals/minute)
- To the left of the LCD control panel, optional IC card reader takes SD memory cards and memory stick media, infrared (IrDA) or cell phone via email text
- When using OCR option, can scan right to MS PowerPoint format or searchable PDF
- Optional hard drive data encryption kit
- Optional Universal Send Expansion Kit for scan to email/LDAP
- Optional PDF Encryption kit
- Optional Web Brower kit
- Optional single or dual line fax boards
- Standard generic print controller offers PCL print driver standard, and Adobe PostScript is an option
- Models from 30ppm to 50ppm, do NOT offer toner on the fly replacement (IR-ADV C5030, C5035, C5045, C5051)
- IR-ADV C7065 and C7055 offer on the fly toner replacement

Note from Art: TBA, waiting to hear from you, anything we missed?

-=Good Selling=-

This Week in Ricoh "TWIR Notes"

Gathered from Print4Pay Hotel Members from around the world and a few moles in very good places!

- In an effort to increase sales, a Canon & Ricoh dealer in England, named ABT Office Supplies, announced that it will now sell its copiers at cost. The only catch is that customer must sign up for a minimum annual service/supply contract. (wonder what Canon and Ricoh think about one of their dealers revealing what wholesale cost is…….)

- Ricoh reported that during the last quarter, its net profit declined 89.5%

- Ricoh announced its IKON division sold a Ricoh Aficio PRO C900 production color system to Alphagraphics of Fort Worth, Texas.

- According to some industry authors, Ricoh is planning on launch a replacement for the C900 in summer of 2010 that will NOT use fuser oil, and use polymerized toner instead of pulverized toner. Also supposedly in the works is a 120ppm color unit.

- Ricoh is touting the fact that its Aficio PRO C900 production color system won a “5 Star” award from Business Equipment Research & Testing Labs (BERTL)

- IKON, a division of Ricoh, announced it won a bid to provide scanning services for the Pittsburg County Assessors office. The winning bid was $16,950 to scan 226,000 documents.

-=Good Selling=-

Is selling at cost the future for print hardware?

This was the title of a recent blog/article I found on Print4Pay Hotel Message Board to see what everyones response would be. Here's the article:

Deptford reseller ABT Office Supplies has started offloading its Ricoh and Canon multi-function devices (MFDs) at cost price, subject to a delivery charge and service agreement sign-on.

The dealer claims the move is to save the cost of printing for businesses by encouraging a switch to MFDs rather than stand-alone printers, copiers and fax machines.

“A recent study has shown that few companies have any true understanding of just how much they are spending on photocopying and printing,” the company said in a statement released to the press this morning.

“For most organisations, printing is typically the third highest expense behind rent and payroll, yet research shows that replacing the traditional photocopier with a new MFD can reduce printing costs by over 50 per cent. Such a decision will save even relatively small companies many thousands of pounds each year.”

ABT, founded in 1997, is advertised as a low-price supplier of new office equipment. However, it said this was the first time it had offered MFDs at cost.

Replies from Print4Pay Hotel members:

Larry from Oxnard replied with:

"I think this is hilarious. When all else fails within your business model turn to being the low price leader. What ever happened to selling value. I thought business were in business to profit. I would be curious if they stole their current business model from RBS. Being the low price leader will get you somewhere for segment 1/2 but you sure are not going to be a very healthy & profitable company long term."

Jason from Tennessee replied with:

"Hrmm, well, sure they are.

Notice it doesn't say anything about Service or Supplies, we can assume those are either at their normal rate or slightly elevated.

It doesn't say anything about lowering the lease rate on this MFD you are buying at "cost" either, so we can assume those are also either at normal or slightly elevated.

If we also assume that their sales will increase by X amount due to the promotion, the only loss they could expect from this is if X amount of additional revenue doesn't cover the profit from the previous selling price of the MFD.

Since they were a "Low-price" seller before, the amount they have to make up in this scenario is probably minimal."

5050 from Pittsburgh replied with:

"Without a value statement that goes beyond copiers and even mps at this point --- people will be selling at cost, because they are transient, non-professional, and either don't have or have confidence in their skill set.

The Trick is to work with companies that aren't in the market to buy copiers---I guarantee that their are other challenges that they are facing and trying to overcome...When you do this you can sell at retail, because there is no competition and you earned that commission.

Why sell just to sell? That's stupid. I don't know anyone who got into sales to sell something. I got into sales to make money!"

Merlin from New York replied with:

"There were many questions I had, but the real question is define cost? Does cost includes overhead , sales commissions, taxes,dealer salaries,gas, lights, heat. You know all the expenses that's goes into running a company.

That is cost. Not want the dealer accuracy pay for the equipment."

lep524 from Ontario replied with:

"Interesting approach to the sales process. Strikes me the next promo is for 10% below sticker price...of course unlike cars, manufacturers don't put a sticker price on MFP's to advise the public what the price is supposed to be. At this point we find the margin we are able to obtain on most sales of hardware barely covers the cost of sales for the product...any business profits come from services bundled around the hardware, either connectivity plans, support plans, supplies for colour etc. Many large HP dealers have been going under cost price on bigger deals for years...one of the reasons for not selling HP for many dealers. The big HP players count on the rebates for volume to give them a return on the sale.

Pricing models vary by client size, region and brand...but in the end you have to make a profit on your install base to stay in business and to provide a good level of support...good clients understand this and value your efforts...poorer clients will milk you for every cent they can get. Our task is to find more of the former and fewer of the latter."

Note from Art: These were just a few of the threads that were posted by Print4Pay Hotel members, to read the rest of these click on the P4P Hotel link and become a member of the largest group of MFP, MFD, Copier Professionals in the World.. Go ahead it's FREE!!

-=Good Selling=-