What Happened at HP Last Week?

- Hewlett Packard announced that it sold an Indigo 5500 production color system to ProGraphics Communications, a printshop in Atlanta, GA. In addition, it sold an Indigo 7000 system to L&D Mail Masters, a print shop in New Albany, IN.

- Hewlett Packard and the National Basketball Association (NBA) have partnered to provide $80,000 in technology to 90 middle schools in the U.S. This includes:
- Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Miami, San Francisco & Washington DC
- HP tablet PC’s
- HP PhotoSmart color inkjet AIOs
- HP LaserJet printers
- Access to NBA photos, footage and other materials
- Tickets to 50 NBA games

- Hewlett Packard is apparently suffering from a backorder situation on several laser printer models, as well as laser print cartridges.

- Hewlett Packard’s Vyomesh Joshi, who is Executive VP of its printer/MFP division, was interviewed by Bloomberg:
- Printing market is “healthy”
- “2009 was a difficult year for printing hardware”
- “But supplies were fine. What that means is that printing is healthy – even with economic pressure, customers are still printing the content”
- Has posted 5 quarters of declining printer/MFP sales
- Plans to achieve the 15% to 17% profit margin he’s on the line to deliver to investors in 2010
- Printing unit is “poised for recovery and getting on the attack”
- Forecasting this quarter “double digit” growth in printer shipments
- The printing group accounted for 21% of HP’s $114.6 billion revenue last year and
3% of its $13.4 billion profit
- Company has shortages after orders picked up sooner than it expected
- To cut costs, HP is now shipping directly from Asian factories to some distributors and retailers instead of its own distribution centers (this will dramatically increase lead times for backorder fulfillment)
- “HP overall has a $60 billion supply chain. We have a fair share of that. When you have those kind of numbers, even a small percent of those numbers are a big number”
- “We don’t need to cut prices. In the market right now, our product, compared with any of our competition, is much better in terms of innovation, in terms of ease of use, in terms of quality, in terms of connectivity. That’s what the customer will be looking at”
- “What I can tell you is that the printing and imaging business is a great business with great opportunities. I want to make sure the transformational work I’ve started – I want to see that all the way to the end”

=-Good Selling=-

Never a Year Like '09

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In the past few years we've noticed that our membership is comprised of the best of breed sales professionals in the multifunctional copier industry. What's most encouraging is that our members are on the fore front of paper workflow, print solutions, fax integration and additional solutions that turn the boring multifunctional copier into amazing paper capture, systems that can save untold hours with managed paper!

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-=Happy New Year=-

MFP Weekend Industry Notes 12/26/09

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

- Yielding to complaints from Hewlett Packard, and the Federal Trade Commission, Kodak agreed to modify its ads on its color inkjet printers. The ads originally claimed that customers would save $110 per year on ink costs if they used Kodak printers and AIOs. Now the ads will say; “Save an average of $110 per year on ink based on just four pages per day”

- PODi (Print On Demand Initiative) announced that sponsors for its AppForum trade show in Las Vegas (on 1/25-27/2010) are:
- Konica Minolta
- Canon
- Kodak
- PageFlex software
- Xerox

- The Konica Minolta bizhub PRO C6501 received the coveted Fogra Certification (standard in Europe) for color quality.

- During the recent Copenhagen United National Climate Change summit, the delegates printed out their presentation on 30 different Konica Minolta bizhub color MFPs. The units were chosen due to their eco friendly design.

- Adobe Corp, announced its 4th quarter’s financials:
- total revenue of $757.3 million, as compared with $915.3 million in previous fiscal
- operating income of $153.6 million, as compared with $273.2 million in previous fiscal
- Predicts revenue of $800 million for first quarter of 2010

- Business Research & Testing Laboratories (BERTL) gave out its “BEST” awards to the following products:
- ABBY PDF Transformer software
- Canon imageFORMULA DR-X10C scanner
- Cima DocuClass Express document management software
- Colortrac SmartLF GX+42 large format color scanner
- docSTAR 3Ten document management software
- Drivve Image 3.0 imaging workflow software
- eCopy Paperworks desktop office utility
- Konica Minolta/eCopy integrated scanning solution
- Lexmark SmartSolution web-based application solution
- Mutoh ValueJet 1618A wide format color inkjet printer
- MWAi M2M asset management solution
- Nuance OmniPage 17 OCR solution
- Oce’ Plotwave 300 wide format color wax printer
- Ricoh PRO C900 production color system
- RISO ComColor high speed color inkjet system
- Roland VersaArt RS Series wide format color inkjet printer
- Sharp MS-M503/M363/M283 digital b/w MFPs
- Toshiba eSTUDIO 855 Series digital b/w MFPs
- Xerox Phaser 7500 color laser printers

- PC Magazine gave out is “Editors Choice” awards to the following desktop laser printer/MFP/AIO devices:
- Brother HL-5340D
- Brother MFC-8480DN
- Canon Color imageCLASS MF8530cdn
- Konica Minolta magicolor 1600 series
- Xerox Phaser 6280dn
- Xerox Phaser 7500dn

- IKON, a division of Ricoh, won the reseller of the year award from Kofax, maker of document management software.

- Former IKON executive, Rob Welcome, is now VP of National Accounts for New Leaf Brands Inc., a maker of healthy beverages in New York.

- Former IKON executive, Robert Rusnack, was named the new CFO of LaJobi, a children’s furniture maker in New Jersey.

- Ricoh announced it is now offering an embedded version of the Equitrac cost accounting software for select Aficio MFPs.

- Ricoh announced that it will offer AccuRoute scanning software from OmTool, as an option for its Aficio MFPs.


- Toshiba announced that it will resell cost accounting solutions from Pharos as options for its eSTUDIO MFPs.

- Toshiba is bidding on a 4 trillion yen project to build a bullet train system for Brazil. The project involves construction of a railway system over a 510 kilometer route connecting Rio de Janerio and Campinas, in less than 2 hours. Brazil wants the new system up and running in time for the 2014 World Cup soccer tournament.

- Toshiba introduced 64GB flash memory chips that it hopes will be in the next generation of Apple iPhone.

- Zoran Corp, maker of generic print controllers, announced it will source fax modem technology from LSI Corp. to incorporate it into new print controllers it will launch in 2010.

- A recent study gives bad press to hospitals that adopt electronic medical records software:
- conducted by Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School
- reviewed 4,000 hospitals
- adoption resulted in no cost savings
- negligible quality of care improvements
- administrative costs increased slightly

- To promote use of electronic medical records technology, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act passed the federal government provides:
- $17.2 billion in incentives through Medicare and Medicaid
- Large hospitals can receive payments for a 4 year period starting in 2011
- Physicians can receive incentives up to $44,000
- Medicare is the biggest health care payer in the U.S.
- the CMS-1500 is the most commonly scanned form in the medical industry
- Most common documents in healthcare are:
- ID cards and insurance cards
- patient records
- lab instructions
- insurance claims (CMS-1500 and UB-04 forms)
- EOB benefit forms (acknowledgement of payment by insurance company)
- medical supplier invoices
- X-ray, EKG, MRI and other test results

- Kodak announced that it will restate its 401K match and pay raises in 2010 for its employees.

- Kodak announced that Heidelberg’s factory direct branch in Australia will resell its Digimaster and NexPress production print systems.

- Kodak announced that it has sold a NexPress SE3600 production color system to Cohber Press, a print shop in Henrietta, New York.

- Kodak announced that it has sold its New York state based water treatment plant to Monroe County for $9.5 million.

- Kodak announced it sold it OLED (organic light emitting diode) division to LG Electronics of South Korea.

- Kodak announced it is relinquishing a lease it has held for last 22 years for a large hangar at the Rochester International Airport. It was paying $112,000 per year for the lease for its company airplanes.

- Kodak added executives for its scanner division, hiring Tony Barbeau as General Manager and Russell Hunt as Regional Business Manager.

- Doc It Inc. announced version 3.3 of its Doc It document management software, featuring:
- automatically recognizes large batches of files and place them in correct folder
- intelligent scan cover page
- universal search
- integration with CCH Tax software
- PDF editor enhancements, such as watermarking, redacting, etc.


- Hewlett Packard announced that it has certified an 18point thick stock for its Indigo production color system. HP now approves running the Masterpiece Premium 18pt CIS Board Stock for the HP Indigo WS6000 system.

- Oce’, (which Canon is attempting to acquire), announced that it won a facilities management contract from Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP, a large law firm with offices in Atlanta, Houston, Washington DC and New York.

- Large Oce’ shareholder, Orbis Portfolio Management, is still rejecting the proposed takeover bid by Canon, claiming that the purchase price is too low.

- Pitney Bowes announced that it would lay off up to 10% of its workforce to cut costs due to declining revenues.

- A group of independent copier dealers has been formed to fulfill managed print services contracts. For example, if a copier dealer A wants to offer a managed print services contract to a customer that has offices outside of copier dealer A’s territory, then it can use another copier dealer in this network, who agrees to provide service for a fixed dollar amount and parts markup. The new group is the National Printer Repair Network (NPRN), and it has also formed a partnership with BEI Services, for advanced national service call routing and service performance measurements.

- Management shakeup at Samsung of South Korea. Details:
- CEO, Lee Yoon Woo is out, and replaced by Choi Gee Sung, who was in charge of Samsung’s TV and cell phone business.
- In addition, it has hired Lee Jae Yong as COO, who is son of former Samsung chairman, Lee Kun Hee.
- Lee’s appointment shows that Samsung execs expect no further fallout from the tax evasion scandal, which led to a 3 year suspended sentence for former chairman Lee and the resignation of former CEO, Yun Jong Yong.
- During last quarter, Samsung reported a huge operating profit of $3.2 billion, as the Korean currency, the won, has not risen against the U.S. dollar as the Japanese yen has, thus giving the company a huge advantage over its Japanese competitors.

-=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 to launch new versions of the iGen production color systems. Details:
- Will be available in an 80ppm and 100ppm versions
- Unlike current iGen models, will use polymerized toner (Xerox EA), instead of pulverized toner
- EA stands for “emulsion aggregate”
- Unlike current iGen models, will not use fuser oil
- Offers a fifth toner, called “Clear Toner” to provide glossy finish or watermarking,
similar to the Kodak NexPress, as an option for the 100pm model only
- Uses a belt fuser, instead of fuser rollers
- Will handle up to 350gsm paper weights
- Systems will not slow down when handling heavier paper weights
- Newly designed organic drum and transfer belt will supposedly last twice as long as compared to previous models
- Possible list prices will be around $500,000 and $400,000

- Xerox announced that its PagePack program for managed print services, will now integrate with ConnextWise, which is a program commonly used by computer network service resellers to bill their customers.

- Xerox announced it won a contract from the University of British Columbia in Canada. The 6 year facilities management/managed print services contract will supposedly save the college $8 million over the life of the contract.

- Xerox announced that its research division in Canada, received its 100th U.S. patent in regards to making toner.

- Xerox announced it won a contract from the Galesburg Public School District in Illinois. The 5 year contract will supposedly cut the school district’s copying costs in half, and allow for color clicks of 5 cents each.

- Xerox’s sent out press release regarding its document management program, DocuShare:
- won KM World magazine’s “Trend Setting Product of 2009” award
- won Document Manager magazine’s “2009 Content Management Product of the Year”
- won PC World magazine’s “Best Integrated Document Solution”
- InfoWorld Green 15 Award went to DocuShare customer, Niagara Catholic School District Board
- Computerworld magazine’s Laureate award to DocuShare customer, Tulane University
- AIIM magazine’s Carl E Nelson Best Practice award to DocuShare customer, OwnerGUARD

- Xerox announced it sold a 700 Digital Color System to Print Allianz, a print shop in Gauteng, South Africa.



-=Good Selling=-

Managed Print Service Poll "Review"

We've had this poll running for about a month now, or is it more like three weeks. Ah, can't remember it's the end of the month, the quarter and the year and I'm being hammered every day about sales!!!!

Ok, back to the poll. We asked: You're now selling Managed Print Services "Your thoughts now". Basically tell us, it is working for you or not!

Here's the choices that vendors had to choose from and the percentages:

It's been a great success for us 27%
It's been ok for us 26%
It's not reaping the profits we thought it would 37%
If we had to do it over, we would not have gotten into MPS 10%

Very interesting to say the least, it seems to me that 47% or almost 1 out of every two vendors are not happy with the move. I thought it would have been more like 80% would have agreed with "It's been a great success for us".

I'm a follower of MPS, I believe it has it's place, however if 47% are unhappy, why is that? It's obvious that I can't answer that question, so I reached out to a friend of mine Greg Walters with Death of the Copier in Southern Cal, here's what he had to say......l check back here in a few hours for the response!!

Here's Greg's opine:

You study does not surprise me. I know of a few very successful MPS Practices. But I have been taking many, many questions in the past 5 months all around getting an MPS Practice "going".

It seems that most MPS practices are set up on the wrong premise. Whether MPS is thought of as a marketing ploy to move more equipment, a strategic motion to secure existing accounts or a way to capture ongoing, single function volumes, most attention has been focused on "programs" and internal tactics.

We are ignoring or missing the Client in all this.

And...

All the MPS momentum gained from MPS ideas and programs and goals and potential is being bled off before it gets to the Selling Professional. Either the MPS philosophy is so weak, the sales person ignores and continues as always or the MPS philosophy is so complicated and nebulous, the sales person ignores and continues as always.

Here's the secret - Your study does note reflect MANAGED PRINT SERVICES problems, your study reveals basic, selling problems.

Put that on your whiteboard and gaze upon genius...

LOL!

Greg Walters
-=Good Selling=-

Selling Copiers "Death of the Demo"

I started in the industry in the early eighties, matter a fact it was 1981. Whoa, the eighties the nineties and what do we call the last ten years, the Zero's? Fact is I'll be starting my fourth decade in the copier business in 2010.


Yup, the business has changed over the years. In the eighties and in my twenties, the job was actually fun, and along with being single the job had some great advantages. Pretty much as long as you did your numbers you were free to come and go as you please. But, then again the eighties was one of the hey days in the copier business, plain paper copiers were now the norm, you had two or three different models, along with the fact that you actually did a demonstration for a customer. What was so great about doing the demos you might ask? Heck, I could load up machine in the AM, and I would cold call for demonstrations!!! That's right, knock, knock and knock some more, eventually you found an interested party and one in three demos’ you left the machine at the customers office and brought back a check!! Fracking A, you were the king! To be the King you were always honing your demonstration skills and your closing techniques, nothing was better than bring the customer along with you for a sizzling demonstration.

As we moved into the nineties, times got a little more complex. Instead of having two or three models, we now had fax machines and about 6 or 7 different models of copiers and we had the introduction of sorters, staplers, duplex units, and auto document feeders. The systems got heavier and larger, the demonstrations of the eighties was coming to a close largely in part that you had bigger, heavier and faster units with more options. The good part, the clients needed the options, the document feeders, duplexers and sorters allowed businesses to be more productive and demonstrations still sizzled when clients got to see these units perform!! But the same held true for the nineties, cold calling was still the best bet for finding new clients; however phone soliciting still took a back seat until the mid nineties.

The mid nineties saw more telemarketing and less on-site demonstrations, seems we were now prospecting for appointments to show brochures that featured speeds and feeds. Digital machines made their entrance, these digital machines made a marked improvement in quality, reliability and productivity similar to the systems of the early nineties. But, somewhere in the late nineties we lost the on-site in office demonstrations. Copier companies needed their own fleet of trucks and delivery people for the larger units, this came as an added expense to dealers and thus the age of putting a copier on a gurney to demonstrate died.

But, along with the death of the demonstration, came the loss of demonstration skills and the profits. Copier salespeople were no longer allowed to present their knowledge, showmanship or closing skills. No longer were you in the customer’s office with the decision makers with a system that they could try, touch or feel. Dealer owners curtailed salespeople on the demos because of the expense to ship a machine, and have it set up to feed, collate, staple and print! Thus, salespeople were sent in the field with glossy brochures to sell their wares, and to tell you the truth all these beautiful brochures from every manufacturer touted we can do everything they can do! So, what was a customer to think, heck I can't see the machine work, I can't feel it nor can I touch it. There were no emotional strings to pull, no sense of I need it or want in now. Believe me, someone out there will say "bring to your office", we did that, however getting someone out of the office was a lot harder than bring the system to their office!

Hence the beginning of the end for demo's and the start of the commoditizing of the copier industry. I can count on two hands how many demonstrations I've had at the office in the past year and I can use one hand to count how many demonstrations at the customer location in the last 3 years. I'm still a big believer of the on-site demonstration and believe dealers that allow salespeople to perform demos on-site will sell more.

Times change, industries change, it seems we're more focused on teaching prospecting skills than knowing how the systems work, and why they work like they do. Most reps today would not be able to set up chapters, slip sheets, front or back covers from either the copy or print driver!

My rant for the year!!


-=Good Selling=-

Leasing Copiers "Who Stole the Cheese!"

Sniff and Scurry, two of my favorite mice.


While going through my emails the other day, I had an email from a client in the South. The email was in reference to "what is really the interest rate for a Fair Market Value lease for a copier."

The email stated that for the life of them they could not figure out the interest rate and was asking for help and advice. Well, asking me to figure out the interest rate is like asking me to get my dog to stop sniffing every pole or fire hydrate he passes. Not going to happen!

What I did enlighten them on is how copier companies figure out the monthly lease payment.

First, there has to be a rate factor that the salesperson gets from either the leasing company or the copier companies management. There are many different rates from many leasing companies and the rate factors change with the term of the lease (12,24,36,39,48,60,63 months), also the dollar amount of the lease would also change the rate factor along with the option at the end of the term (buy out).
There are primarily two different types of leases used:

Fair Market Value: Leasing company gives you the option to purchase for a percentage of the purchase price. This type of lease has the least amount of interest. True lease, tax deductible and write off every month

Dollar Out: You own the equipment at the end of the term for one dollar. This lease will have a higher interest rate than Fair Market Value. This is a finance lease and may not be depreciated like a true Fair Market Value Lease.

What's more popular?

The Fair Market Value lease, basically has four options at the end of the term. A) Ship back to leasing company at your expense at the end of the terms. B) Renew the payments at the end of term for 30 days, 90 days, or longer, check the lease that was signed. C) Trade the equipment back to the dealer and start a new lease, the dealer will then return the system for you. D)Buy the equipment from the leasing company for Fair Market Value.

How was the Cheese Stolen?

So, who is stealing the cheese? Well in this particular email, the customer wanted to find out the interest rate, which I couldn't help with, however I asked them to send me a copy of the quotes and I would tell them how much interest they were paying over the term of the lease. The next day I received five quotes.

For you newbie’s out there, as long as you have the monthly lease amount you can figure out the lease purchase price of the system or at least come close. You take the monthly dollar amount of the system and divide by the rate factor. In this case the customer was quoted $762 per month for a 60 month lease. They were also quoted a purchase price of $26,375 and they had a buyout of $9,142. This made the lease base according to the Direct Branch $35,517.

Now using an average rate factor of .0200 we take the lease price of $762 per month and divide by .0200 which equals $38,100 that would be funded to the Direct Branch for the system that had a purchase price with buyout of $35,517. Well...., we can see that someone has "stolen the cheese". If you now take the purchase price with buyout that was quoted at $35,517 and multiply it by the fair (60 month) rate factor of .0200 (fair for over $20k), the customers payments should have been $710.34. Hence the customer is getting ripped for $52 per month on a 60 month lease, thus paying an additional $3,120 over the term of the lease.
What's a rate factor?

Rate factors are given from the leasing company to the dealer or direct branch. A rate factor of .0200 means that the cost to borrow is $20.00 per thousand dollars. Thus if you wanted to prove the above numbers you would multiply $20.00 x 35.517 which would equal the payment of $710.34.

This was not a cost per copy lease, nor was service and supplies built into the lease, it's basically a game that has been played in the industry for years. Not only are they making money on the hardware but also "padding" the lease for additional profit!

To be fair, there are many different rate factors from different leasing companies, in this example I used an average rate factor. There are lower rates and higher rates that could either increase or decrease the amount to the dealer or direct branch. Most dealers and direct branches are in the average that I quoted.
Don't Blame the Salesperson

Don't blame the salesperson, most of the time the salesperson is not even aware of the average rates, there is a finance department at the dealer or direct branch that "pad" the rates to the sales person and or dictate that they HAVE to use these rates or ELSE! The salesperson is not getting the extra dollars for the unit.

In the instance above, the salesperson probably quoted the right purchase price, however they had to use a "padded rate" which increased the lease price per month. The branch received the additional profit from the lease.

Word to the wise, always when leasing ask for a purchase price for the equipment or the total amount of the order. Do some homework; ask what rate factor they are using and how they arrived at the price per month for the lease. If you think you're paying too much, you probably are.

How can you find fair rate factors? Well, that's probably the hardest part of the equation. You can always send me an email and I can give you the average for any dollar amount or term. Then you can do the math!

Oh, by the way, there are many dealers and branches that pass along rates without padding the rates, I think there are more of these than those who pad. I also think that this "padding" is much more common with direct operations than dealers. Just my thoughts!!


-=Good Selling=-

Print4Pay Hotel Updates

Whew, it's been a long week, we're at the end of the month, the quarter and the year. The push to get everything in is overwhelming. This is the first time in my 30 years in the business that I've encounter anything like this!

Just wanted to pass along some of the content that's been posted on the Print4Pay Hotel's forums in recent weeks. It has been busy with over 35,000 page views, 73 new members and over 1,000 downloads.

Here's the most popular downloads:

NYS Purchasing Memorandum (103 downloads)

Canon Termination Letter (248 downloads)

Most Viewed Threads:

Letter about Canon/Ikon Ricoh (355 views)

Actual Canon Termination Letter (244 views)

TABS on the Block (155 views)

Rumors (1,015 views)

Canon/Oce (558 views)

Interesting Threads:

Questions about Xerox's MPS Offerings to SMB Customers

DECEMBER PROMOS* and HOME THEATER GIVEAWAY!!*

Canon Buyout Marketing Dollars

Dealer and Direct Branch Counts

KonicaMinolta Bizhub 1200 "Pricing on the Street"

Thoughts about Healthcare Reform Bill?

"Green Jobs"

Proposals and Quotes:

Xerox 7435 $1.00 Option

Xerox WC 7435

Xerox Colorqube 9201 $1.00 Out

Xerox Colorqube 9201

Miami/Dade Public Schools

Canon Business Solutions Bid Award

Canon irc 3080

Canon irc5030

Major Ricoh Contract

The Print4Pay is the world's only business/social site dedicated to people who work in the office equipment industry. Go ahead log on.....become a member of the Print4Pay Hotel!

become informed, share and maintain your knowledge..

-=Good Selling=-

Copier Sales "Top Ten Consulting Tips"

Whats made me successful in the field for so many years? I given this much thought and would like to share my top ten from my 28 years in down the street sales.

1. Be a consultant and not a sales person. Dig deep for their workflow and volume.
2. Always try to meet with the buyer/decision maker and not the gate keeper.
3. Be a professional at your job. Be on time, Courteous, Clean, speak their language.
4. Find out what your potential client does, what do they sell or manufacturer.
5. Position your self as the expert. Testimonials, Recommendations, Certificates..etc
6. Find out who they do business with. You may have common ground.
7. What is their buying time and why? (do they have pain)
8. What will make them buy or lease now. You won't know if you don't ask.
9. Know who your competition is.
10. Be creative, think outside the box, just because they have one unit does not mean they are not open to more units. Offer third party software solutions. Change the rules if you need to.

Too many sales people get lazy and look for an easy sale, believe me the days of easy sales are over. A Customer has a 35ppm system and the first thought is they need another 35ppm system. WRONG! They may need more or less, you've got to dig deep into their workflow, volumes and current costs. It's much easier to place your system if you can show the customer that they will save money, or increase productivity at no extra cost. It can be done, you just need to do the research, ask the right questions and be creative.

-=Good Selling=-

Toner Bomb in Allentown, PA

I came across this article on the web today. Being in the industry and once being a tech we are all too familiar with "toner bombs", however our interpretation of a "toner bomb" is when someone opens the toner cartridge and then drops it on the floor and wallaa, you have a "toner bomb" due to rush of toner that escapes from the cartridge! Take it me, I've done a few of these and seen a few of these happen, it's not a pretty sight.

Well, in Allentown, Pa, it seems that a suspicious package was found outside one of the cities buildings. Hence the entire building was evacuated, the contents x-rayed (which was inconclusive) and then the package was blown up in front of the building. Contents of the box you might ask? A toner cartridge. Result of the detonation.... a cloud of black smoke!

Click here Toner Bomb Article:

Better yet, here's the video of the "toner bomb"

Hoping that wasn't one of our cartridges!!

-=Good Selling=-

Samsung Launching New Line of A3 MFP's

Samsung of Korea recently held their annual dealer convention in Las Vegas, and announced that they plan on launching a new line of A3 models to compete against Japanese vendors. In addition, supposedly they also previewed a prototype 70ppm color laser MFP model.

The above was an post I caught on the Print4Pay Hotel forums tonight. I've put a few feelers out to Print4Pay members and we'll see what we get back in a few days. Just as others have posted here and along with me, we feel that Samsung is ready to launch a major mfp war to get additional marketshare from the Japanese vendors and Xerox. Stay tuned the best is yet to come!

-=Good Selling=-

MFP Industry Rumors on the Print4Pay Hotel!

Over the last few months there's been a bevy of rumors posted on the Print4Pay Hotel forums in reference to the copier industry. Thought I'd share some these before the GIANTS/EAGLES game. GO GIANTS!

* Samsung to introduce new A3 devices

* Samsung to release 70 and 90ppm A4 devices

* TABS (Toshiba American Business Solutions) is looking for a buyer again?

* Ricoh set to release wide format inkjet printers

* Matt Espe becomes the new CEO of Ricoh Americas Corp

* Major shakeout at Global Imaging Industries with top exec's

* Memjet will introduce something

Keep in mind that these are rumors and just that, read it, think about it, and above all have fun with it!

-=Good Selling=-

MFP Weekend Industry Notes 12/12/09

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

- The Business Equipment Research & Testing Laboratories (BERTL) announced it has given its highest award, 5 Stars, to the new integrated eCopy solution offered by Konica Minolta, where the solution can be accessed right from the color LCD control panel of the bizhub MFP.

- Mail Boxes Etc. aka The UPS Stores, gave out its annual outstanding Sales Support Award to Konica Minolta, for the second time in last 3 years.

- Kyocera Mita, which leases 300,000 square feet of commercial space in South Carolina for its toner plant, recently sublet 27,000 square feet to another firm, as the space was vacated due to downsizing.

- Samsung of Korea filed a lawsuit on 12/2/09 against Sharp regarding alleged patent infringement in regards to LCD HDTVs.

- eCopy and EMC won a bid for document management at Easton Vance Corp., an investment management firm. The customer plans on scanning 200,000 records per month into the Documentum application.

- A dealer in Georgia wins a document management bid. Computer Troubleshooters NRD, using Cabinet NG software and Kodak scanners won bid from National EMS, an ambulance service company. The company claims it will save the customer 80 labor hours per week with the new solution.

- Lexmark announced that LG Electronics (based in Korea) will relabel some of its inkjet and laser printer/MFPs.

- Lexmark won a managed print services contract from The Rexel Group. Details:
- headquartered in France
- distributor of electrical supplies
- has 30,000 employees
- 2,300 offices in 34 countries
- 5 year contract
- Will reduce costs 20% to 60% depending on country
- Reduced number of devices by 20%

- Hewlett Packard claims that the country of India is a huge growth market for printers and MFPs. Apparently for every employee that an IT firm takes on in India, generates 2,500 pages of printed material during the recruitment process. The company also claims to sell 70,000 devices per month in the country.

- Hewlett Packard announced it has sold two of its Indigo production color systems to Datamail Group, a print for pay in New Zealand.

- Hewlett Packard announced it won a managed print services contract from CZ Insurance of The Netherlands. Details:
- 3 year contract
- has 3,500 employees
- has 3.3 million customers in Europe
- Covers 60 million prints per year
- New hardware installed includes LaserJet M5035XS MFPs and LaserJet P4515x printers

- Hewlett Packard hired QualityLogic to perform tests of print quality and reliability on several desktop color laser printers. The test results revealed:
- Kyocera product had 2.5 times more unacceptable print quality pages as compared to HP
- Kyocera unit had to have its amorphous silicon ceramic drum cleaned every 2,600 pages, and took up to 15 minutes
- Kyocera unit had to have its waste toner container replaced every 2,650 pages
- Ricoh product had 3.5 times more unacceptable print quality pages as compared to HP
- Dell product had 3.5 times more unacceptable print quality pages as compared to HP

- Gartner Inc., a leading research firm that monitors the printer/MFP industry, announced it will spend $64 million in cash to acquire one of its competitors, AMR Research.

- Gartner also stated that computer server shipments are down 17% and server revenue is down 15%.

- According to Gartner, providing data storage as a service is on of the top 10 technologies that solutions providers cannot afford to ignore in 2010.

- Fuji of Japan announced it has hired a champion Sumo wrestler, Hakuho, to promote its printers and MFPs (which are sold under Xerox name in U.S.) The company wants to promote the products strong reliability to the Asian markets.

- Wayne Prinkey, a 79 year old man in Springfield, PA, was arrested for making fake $20 bills with a color copier and attempting to use them at a local store.

- Sharp named Rich Boomsma Senior Vice President of U.S. Sales. In his previous 9 years with Sharp, he worked with Government and Major Account Sales and Dealer Sales. Prior to Sharp, Rich spent 28 years with Xerox.

- Three men were arrested in Bensalem, Pennsylvania after they were caught ordering $90,000 worth of Xerox Phaser color printer supplies, and never paying for them using three shell companies.

- Google is about to launch its first computer operating system, called “Chrome”, which it hopes will compete with Microsoft Windows. Google stated that one of the reasons it will be more reliable is; “We want to get out of the business of printer drivers. All the problems related to drivers we want to go away.” This quote comes from Linus Upton, Google’s engineering director who has a new “wonderful printing solution”.

- Forrester Research gave out its rankings on leaders in enterprise content management:
- Leader in traditional ECM suite providers:
- IBM
- EMC
- Oracle
- OpenText
- Strong Performers, but lack breadth and sophistication of above:
- Hewlett Packard
- Hyland Software
- Microsoft

- Innerworkings Inc. of Chicago, won a print management contract from Scotts Miracle-Gro Company, headquartered in Marysville, Ohio.

- According to RMG Enterprises, the image capture software market appears to be bouncing back from the recession. Three vendors, Datacap, Top Image Systems and Kofax, all reported revenue growth during the last quarter.

- According to Kodak, in regards to color inkjet printer usage:
- Average consumer prints 1,500 pages per year
- Kodak shipped 800,000 printers in last three quarters
- Last year, during same time period, shipped 400,000 units
- In contrast, HP shipped 18.4 million units

- Electronics For Imaging(EFI), maker of Fiery print controllers, announced it won a patent litigation case against Durst Fototechnik of Germany, over EFI’s white ink technology used in its VUTEK large format color inkjet printers.

- Toshiba announced it has hired a former DANKA executive as VP of Operations. Jim Hawkins, formerly Senior VP of Field Operations for DANKA, will now report to Wayne Wilkinson, Senior VP and GM of Toshiba’s copier division in Irvine, CA.

- Have customers who wish to print from their Apple iPhone? As you may know, this cell phone does not offer Bluetooth technology for remote printing. Instead, an application named “Print Magic”, was launched, and sells for $6.99 and supposedly allows customer to print via WiFi to a printer connected to a Macintosh.

- In an effort to drive down the value of the Japanese yen, and help many Japanese equipment providers who rely on U.S. sales, the Japanese government announced it would make available $115 billion in three year loans at 0.1% interest to Japanese firms. (Japan’s companies lose a combined $369 million in annual operating profit for each 1 yen appreciation against the U.S. dollar according to Daiwa Research)

- IDC reported worldwide printer/MFP shipments for third quarter:
- B/w laser printer and MFP unit shipments were up 14%
- MFP units shipped were 17 million, representing 63% of all devices (laser and inkjet)
- Color laser MFP units up 1.3%
- Laser units trail inkjet by 42%
- Laser MFP market value of $2.8 billion
- Laser MFP units represented 11% of total market
- HP was top brand in units, followed by Canon, Epson, Brother and Samsung

-=Good Selling=-

This Week in Canon "TWIC Notes"

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

- Canon announced it is shipping a new line of calculators that are “anti-bacteria” equipped to help prevent the spread of H1N1. The new calculators apparently have a germ fighting agent embedded in the plastic casing.

- According to some industry analysts, Canon will be launching a program to authorize copier dealers in the U.S. to sell its products with the Hewlett Packard name on them. In theory, this would allow the company to create another wholesale distribution channel, and open up more distribution in cities where it already has Canon branches and Canon dealers.

- In an interview with Charles Holliday, chairman of DuPont, he related a story about his visit to Canon’s headquarters in Japan. He took a team to visit Canon’s CEO, Fujio Mitarai, and at end of visit, he noticed that someone had put a brand new Canon digital camera on each of his employee’s chairs. Mr. Holliday and his staff wondered what to do, as their company has an ethics policy which prevents them from accepting such a gift. They wondered if they would offend Mr. Mitarai if they returned the gifts. When they returned the gifts to Canon and explained why, Mr. Mitarai said; “you are a step above everybody else we deal with…what other company would have returned the cameras for such a good reason?” Canon has since adopted a similar policy.

-=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!

- IKON, a division of Ricoh, won a large managed print services bid at a Pennsylvania university. Clarion University replaced 540 Hewlett Packard printers with 27 color MFPs and 44 b/w MFPs. Total volume per year is 6 million b/w pages and 250,000 color pages. The university decided to make a change when it realized it was spending $60,000 per year just on print cartridges.

- According to survey conducted by Ricoh, the following responses were collected from businesses in countries who are trying to cut back on printing waste:
- France = 43.5%
- Italy = 42.7%
- Germany = 41.7%
- England = 38.5%
- Only 33% of companies claim to have implemented a strategy
- Total spent on documents per year in Europe = 14 billion euros
- 32% of business owners allow employees to do what they like

- Ricoh announced it is now shipping “biomass” black toner for some of its copiers in Japan. This is a test to try to replace traditional petroleum based toner resin.

- Are Ricoh dealers providing their customers with new parts or used parts? Equipment Brokers Unlimited of Van Nuys, CA announced that it is expanding its used Ricoh parts division due to increased sales of used parts to dealers. The company claims that used parts are 40%-80% less expensive than buying new parts from Ricoh.

- Ricoh announced it has sold an Aficio PRO C900 production color system to Genova Diagnostics of Ashville, NC, which prints out lab test reports for medical clinics.

- IKON, a division of Ricoh, announced it will hold a “Graphic Arts Digital Discovery” event for production color prospects on 12/8 at its Indianapolis, IN branch. Sessions will include Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, Acrobat and Enfocus PitStop.

-=Good Selling=-

Can Ricoh, Xerox, Canon & KonicaMinolta be the next GM & Chrysler?

For those who know me, they know that when I'm traveling from appointment to appointment I never listed to the radio, or cd's.

This was not by choice, my buddy Darby (185lb dog), knocked out the SIRRUS antenna one day while getting out of the car and along with the fact that I lost the code for my regular radio, well my rides are pretty dam quiet w, except for the rambling thoughts cruising through my head all day!

Thus this came to me the other day when speaking with a fellow p4p'er in Florida. We got on the topic of A4 devices, my question was "Why have the Big Dogs like Ricoh, Xerox (Xerox/Fuji), Canon and Konica Minolta not come to market with their own A4 devices? Well, the answer I got was surprising and made sense. My fellow p4p'er stated that the Japanese are reluctant to re-tool the factories due the cost involved. There is no money made on the hardware anymore, they are relying on the consumables for profits.

Hey, I'm the guy in the field, on the streets and in the trenches, my customers love the A4 devices that we have from Sammy (Samsung), and if you haven't heard Sammy is doing very well with their A4 devices.

About a year ago Sharp launched their Frontier Series which is an A4 multifunctional device made by Sharp. Just today BLI awarded them "BLI Pick of the Year Awards" for three different models. At a recent Sharp dealer meeting it was noted that 24% of placements in 2008 were A4 devices.

So, while the chickens are roosting in the hen house at night, companies like Sammy, Sharp and Muratec (relabled Sammies) are quietly taking market share from the likes of Ricoh, Xerox (they also relabel a few Sammies), Canon and KonicaMinolta. Gesh, I would have thought by this time that the Big Dogs would have at least stepped up to the plate.

I reached out and made another call to a prominent p4p'er and got these quotes:

* Samsung certainly is doing quite well with its A4s.

* I feel like the reason Sharp is so hot for A4 is because they realize they cannot beat the big dogs at their own game (A3s) so they are looking to build share through A4 while maintaining or slowly growing A3 share. Man do they say how great A4s are every chance they have though. Not sure where this was sourced from, but at Sharp's dealer meeting they said that A4s were 24% of all MFP units in 2008 and 35% of all 31ppm+ MFP unit growth between 2005 and 2008.

* Most of Xerox metered A4s are either sourced from Samsung or most recently Konica Minolta so that's a sign that they don't want to retool and are looking externally for their A4 lines. That said, FujiXerox does make A4 engines for Lexmark and Infoprint, so they have the ability.

* Considering Canon supplies HP with all those A4 engines I would think they would expand in A4 if they wanted. They are probably limiting A4 presence for different reasons.

Ah, Canon the biggest dog of them all and why haven't they entered the market? I'm thinking they have some type of agreement with HP. WOW, we forgot about HP, here's another instance where HP is now replacing their own laser printers and others with their own A4 Multifunctional devices. Yet, all of this is one of the least talked about topics and the mass migration of A3 to A4 is happening before our eyes.

I read an article today from Channel Web, where a representative from Gartner stated "recommended customers use fewer A3-sized printers, which print at 11 x 17 inches, and adopt more A4-sized devices, which print letter-sized documents, to cut costs."

Sammy is poised to steal even more business, if you think they're satisfied with four or five A4 multifunctional devices, well you're wrong. They want to be the manufacturer of choice for dealers in the near future.

So, back to the topic, if the Big Dogs don't a make a move soon with their own A4 platforms where will they be in two years. I'm thinking they could go the way of GM and Chrysler, they've rested on their laurels and their A3's engines far too long, and instead of investing money in new factories and re-tooling, they all opted to buy market share by purchasing the likes of Savin, Oce, Global, Danka, Gestener, Ikon, Monroe, and Imagagistics. Did I miss any?

BTW, special thanx to the p4p'ers that helped me out with the additional information. If you like to be a member of the largest and fasted growing group of copier professionals in the world, then take a trip here. Print4Pay Hotel

-=Good Selling=-

Christmas Dogs!

Truly, one of my favs for this Christmas Season!

Copier Sales "Position Yourself as an Expert"

Do you feel that you are the one of the best at selling MFP's? Do you consult more to the end user and then let the customer buy from you? Are you consistently producing print assessment reports for customers that have and instant ROI?

If so, you need to add this weapon to your arsenal. In your territory look up the 10 largest CPA firms. Once you have them, be prepared to make the calls to success!

CPA firms are in the business of making money as are all of us, they have many business clients that have trusted their services for years and years. What we want to do is to add value to the CPA's service's that they provide to their business clients, by added a new service for their customers. A customized Print Assessment Report for their clients.

Positioning yourself as an expert in the field of print assessments, meaning you are offering your services to the CPA firm for their clients, the CPA firm can either bill out this service or include it as an additional service that they offer for their clients. Your goal is to sell your knowledge and nothing else. Have copies of Print Assessments that you have completed to show the accounting firm what the typical report entails, here you are breaking the mold from the common copier salesperson and establishing yourself as the expert. You can even offer a FREE print assessment to the accounting firm to show them your expertise and your creative ideas for print assessment and print migration.

You can start by telling them about the high cost of printing to multiple devices and that you specialize in provided a detailed print assessment cost of what they are spending and a solution to save their clients money and or productivity. Your fees can be as much as $150 per hour plus expenses for your work.

All of the information needed is at your finger tips, companies like Ricoh offer a COG (customer opportunity generator), this software program gives you real life per page cost for about 95% of all the print devices that are on the market. For the other 5% you can do your research on the Internet.

In reference to all of the print device software that is on the market..... they are ok, however nothing is better than visiting every single print device, generating a report and then interviewing the end user for their needs. Interview can uncover tremendous savings and opportunities for all.

If you would like a copy of my print assessment report please log in to the Print4Pay Hotel and become a member www.p4photel.com/eve. I'll have the document posted in the Industry Proposals and Quotes forum (you'll need to purchase a Premium Membership for $15.00)

-=Good Selling=-

MFP Weekend Indsutry Notes 12/4/09

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

The falling value of the U.S. Dollar is having huge impact in Japanese manufacturers.

Details:

- Japanese yen was trading at its strongest against the dollar in 14 years, climbing to as high as 84.83
(in other words, the dollar is worth only 85 yen, in contrast, it was worth 110 yen a few years ago)
- Canon’s CEO, Fujio Mitarai, said Japan is “standing on edge of a cliff”, and that Japan needs “urgent steps to counter this critical situation”
- Japan’s electronics companies lose a combined $369 million in annual profit for each 1 yen appreciation against the dollar according to Daiwa Research Institute Ltd.
- In contrast, the South Korean won has fallen 20% against the U.S. dollar, thus helping
the record profits of Samsung.

According to research firm, IDC, Samsung is the number one supplier of A4 MFPs during the last two quarters worldwide.

Lexmark launched a new A3 series of b/w laser printers, the W850 series, featuring:
- Replaces W840 series
- Base MSRP of $2899.00
- Print engine made by Fuji of Japan (also sold by Xerox as Phaser 5550 series))
- Top speed of 50ppm print only
- 1200x1200dpi
- 35K yield toner cartridge that sells for $241.99
- 60K drum yield for $180.99
- Comes standard with two paper drawers and stack sheet bypass, with
total paper capacity of 1,100 sheets
- Maximum paper capacity with optional drawers of 5,100 sheets
- Adding paper drawers and/or cabinet make unit floor standing
- Built-in print controller
- 10/100/1000BaseT ports
- PCL, PostScript and XPS print drivers
- 800MHz processor
- 256MB RAM standard (can expand to 1GB
- Optional 80GB hard drive for spooling jobs from network
- Maximum duty cycle of 300K/month
- Auto duplex optional
- Optional finishers offer stapling and hole punching

Panasonic announced it has purchased India’s top electrical accessories company, Anchor Electricals, for 9.2 billion yen.

Hewlett Packard gave out information on using dots per inch (DPI) versus bit depth with color printing:
- “DPI (dots per inch) is the traditional measurement and indicator of a print device’s out quality. With the advent of color printing however, other factors have a dramatic effect. In particular, increasing the number of colors per dot (bit depth) greatly improves image quality. Amazingly, some inkjet printers with only 600dpi print resolution are able to produce photographic results due to the range of color they can fit in to a single dot. The image enhancement technology that provides this capability……has forever changed the usefulness of DPI as the sole metric for determining print quality”
- “Ironically, the historical emphasis on DPI as the critical factor for assessing print quality has made these print quality improvements difficult to explain.”
- “The bottom line, use your eye, not DPI, when evaluating image quality”

Hewlett Packard gave out more details of its last quarter’s financial performance:
- Net revenue down 8% to $30.8 billion
- down 3% in Americas
- down 17% in Europe
- Net revenue for full fiscal year down 3% to $114.6 billion
- Operating profit for full fiscal year was $10.1 billion
- Services revenue increased 8% to $8.9 billion
- Imaging and Printing Group (printers and MFPs) was down 15%
- Printer/MFP supplies revenue down 8%
- Commercial printer/MFP hardware sales down 32%
- Commercial printer/MFP unit shipments down 38%
- Profit of $1.2 billion
- CEO, Mark Hurd, stated the following on this division; “IPG is poised for recovery and is getting on the attack. Demand is improving for our printers. We are also encouraged by our managed print services funnel, which are at record levels. Now with a printer refresh coming, we feel pretty good about it.” (is he referring to the impending launch of the full Canon MFP product line?)
- CDO, Cathie Lesjak, stated; “if we have to trade off some operating dollars for growth we will”
- HP predicts that 2010 total revenue will be $119 billion

Ricoh announced that its Aficio MP 9001, a 90ppm b/w MFP, won 4.5 stars from Buyers Labs Inc. BLI’s duplex productivity test results were high on the Ricoh due to its document feeder that scans both sides of original at same time.

Ricoh won a court case in Wisconsin. Quanta Storage was ordered by a U.S. District judge to pay Ricoh $14.5 million as a penalty for violating Ricoh’s optical disk drive patents.

Ricoh announced that is C900 production color system won Fogra certification, a standard used in Europe.

Canon’s Senior Director of Production Print, Denis Grif, announced that the company sold a imagePRESS C6000 production color system to Urner Barry Printing & Mailing of Bayville, NJ. He also stated that Canon now has 61 factory direct offices in the U.S. serving 38 major metro areas.

PC Magazine gave Canon its “2009 Readers’ Choice Award for Service and Reliability” for its digital cameras and desktop color inkjet printers/AIOs.

A recent article in Graphic Arts magazine, had following statistics about toner:
- “companies persist in calling their toner “dry ink”, even though it’s really a minutely milled plastic powder”
- “with a couple of exceptions, toner is produced as blocks or sheets of plastic….these are pulverized”
- With pulverization process, toner particles are 4 to 15 microns in size, and are
random-sized, rough-edged, shards of plastic.
- Particle of talcum powder is 10 microns
- Human hair is 70 microns
- Hewlett Packard’s Indigo production color system uses toner particles that are pulverized in
Israel to as little as 1 micron, and then mixed with liquid carrier, to create a viscous paste.
- Indigo inventor, Benny Landa, stated that particles are so small that if they were not contained in liquid carrier they would just float around the room.
- HP’s Indigo is only digital system that offers option of white toner

Sony predicts that by the year 2013, over 50% of the HDTV’s it will produce will be three dimensional systems (3D). The company will launch its first 3D unit in late 2010.

MedAssets Supply Chain Systems announced that Konica Minolta is its preferred vendor for MFPs. The 3 year agreement is accessible by its 33,000 member locations in the U.S., including health systems, hospitals and non-acute care providers.

Xerox announced it sold one of its iGen4 production color systems to Angstrom Graphics, a print shop in Cleveland, OH and one to Manor Creative, a print shop in East Sussex, England.

QuoCirca Research, announced that Xerox is the Market Leader in its evaluation of managed print services in Europe.

Ursula Burns, CEO of Xerox, and Antonio Perez, CEO of Kodak, were named by President Barack Obama to lead a $260 million program called Educate to Innovate, which will explore how social networks can be used to connect teachers with companies and improve student performance.

Toshiba announced it will partner with Nantong Huada Microelectronics Group in China for computer system chip assembly, to move more manufacturing out of Japan.

Toshiba’s bid to build a nuclear plant near San Antonio, TX is for $8 billion.

Some questions have been raised about copier bid award in New York. Oneida County awarded a 5 year copier contract to Arlott Office Products, even though its president is Oneida County Legislator, James D’Onofrio.

PrintAudit, provider of managed print services software, announced that is won a contract from Pitney Bowes Management Services, Inc., which will use it to sell MPS to its customers in the U.S.

The country of Indonesia announced that it wants to have copiers made in the country, instead of bringing them in from Japanese manufacturers. Details:
- Currently spends $210 million per year on copiers in the country
- Dataproducts of Malaysia and Teco Group of Taiwan both will spend up to $25 million each to build copier plants in the country
- Indonesia’s Industry Minister, Ramon Bangun, stated; “I’ve promised them that the government will gradually stop imports once they have realized their plans.”
- Ramon also said he would invite three Chinese manufacturers to invest in copier plants in the country.

The Equipment Leasing and Finance Association (ELFA) announced:
- Business volume for month of October was down 32.8% year over year
- Receivable over 30 days increased 17%
- Charge-offs rose by 25%
- Credit approvals dropped 71.7%

Three 16 year old boys were arrested in Easton, MD for making fake $20 bills using a color copier.

Lafayette County Arkansas Sheriff Victor Rose announced that Demarcus Tucker, Dexter Lowe & Edzell Wyrick were arrested for making fake $10 bills using a color copier. They were caught when they attempted to buy cigars with the counterfeit money.

According to the Printing Industries of America:
- number of printshops in U.S. declined 18% compared to last year
- total industry employment is down 11.6%
- real output per employee is up 11.8%
- industry output down 4.5%

Madison Advisors of New York announced findings of a study of companies who are trying to reduce their employees’ printing habits:
- Average amount of suppression is 8% to 16%
- Some as high as 70%
- Majority of companies have a 5 year plan of 26% to 50% reduction of paper
- Financial institutions planning for 50% to 75% reduction in paper

-=Good Selling=-

WANTED Federal Printers "Dead or Alive"

Going through my alerts last night I ran across and article from the Washington Post, the Federal Bureau of Engraving and Printing has posted WANTED Posters for desktop printers.

Get this the Bureau of Engraving is offering to Federal employees $75 gift cards for their desktop printers.

From the Washington Post Article:

"For a limited time, to incentivize you to voluntarily give up your active personal printer, BEP will share the savings with you," the flyer said. "You will receive a gift card in the amount of $75 if you turn in an active personal printer."
Get this, our government paid for these printers and now they're giving employees gift cards to relinquish them! I've got a better idea, take them away, no gift cards given, use the network printer for you prints and get up off your butt!

There is an estimated 534 printers, at $75 a pop that represents a total cost of $40,050. Atta boy Feds, way to spend our money when you could easily just take them away and tell everyone to print to the network printer or multifunctional device.

I for one applaud the fact that finally the Bureau has recognized that small convenient lasers printers have an extremely high cost per page, and the work or 10 oer 12 small printers can be done by one network printer or one multifunctional device. However, giving out $75 gift cards to relinquish something the Bureau provided the employees with is downright wrong!

Here's a few facts that most people don't realize about networked multifunctional devices:

Lower cost per page, typically multifunctional devices can have a page cost of .007 or less compared to .03 cents per page for small desktop printers

Less consumable items, most desktop laser printer utilize and AIO (All in One Cartridge), and these are thrown away after a few thousand prints, multifunctional devices use bottles or cartridges of toner which can last as much as 30,000 pages and then the container is sent back to the factory to be refilled.

Longer life span (who the heck is going to repair a $300 laser printer when the cost to have someone on-site to replace a part will cost $200 or more, fact is the printer is thrown in the trash and another is purchased. How wasteful is that?

Virtual mailboxes, users of multifunctional products now have the luxury or printer to a mailbox (space on the hard drive) and then can walk to the printer, enter their pin code and have all of the documents print while they're at the printer!

These are just a few of the features that are available on most multifunctional devices and networked printers.

My God, what's next, we'll offer employees additional gift cards to print on both sides of the paper, or give them gift cards for not printing at all and creating electronic files?

The Bureau needs to get a set of balls and tell it like it is, we're taking your printer, get up off your butt. If you don't like it, show them the door!

-=Good Selling=-

Print4Pay Hotel Updates

This months winners for Premium Memberships were announced on the Print4Pay Hotel Message Boards.

These Premium Memberships are possible through the sponsorship from Print Audit and Dealer Marketing Systems.

Jason R (Top 5 Posters) wins a 6 Month Premium Membership from Print Audit

jswinberlin (Top 5 Topic Starters) wins a 6 Month Premium Membership from Dealer Marketing Systems.

For those of you not familiar with the Print4Pay Hotel, P4P Hotel is social site dedicated to Imaging Industry Professionals. We have over 2,300 members from around the world and average 75 plus new members every month. The Print4Pay Hotel forums has generated over 75,000 threads in 45 forums related to Imaging Industry.

We share information, inspiration and ideas about our industry. The site is FREE, and new members are welcome! Click anyone of the links and you'll get to the registration page.

Updates:

5 Most Active Topics

UPDATE 3-Canon buys Dutch Oce for $1.1 bln, fights Ricoh by Art Post (with 34 posts and 540 page views)

A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Copier Demo/Appointment by Art Post (with 16 posts and 173 page views)

Dealer and Direct Branch Counts by GIntel (with 9 posts and 133 page views)

Weekend Industry Notes from 11/01/09 by Neal (with 9 posts and 127 page views)

How long have you been in the copier industry? by Art Post (with 4 posts and 128 page views)

Weekend Industry Notes from 11/01/09 by Neal (with 9 posts and 127 page views)

-=Good Selling=-