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=-