Kodak announced its first quarterly profit ($443 million) in over a year due to increased sales of its desktop color inkjet printers and MFPs. In 1988, it employed 145,300 workers, now it only has 20,300.
Samsung of Korea stated it earned 3.05 trillion won ($2.63 billion) in the fourth quarter of its fiscal year. Other announcements:
- Moved its U.S. printer/MFP division from southern California to New Jersey (where it will be close to its major competitors)
- Is now world’s second largest maker of laser print engines
- In Asia, the company relabels the Toshiba MFP product line
Fuji of Japan (which makes most Xerox branded MFPs and printers) announced a reorganization to its copier/MFP division:
- Has realigned and consolidated its development and manufacturing functions to form
two new companies
- Fuji Xerox Advanced Technology Co., Ltd. will take on developing functions
- Image capture
- Paper feeding
- Fax functions
- Finishing devices
- Custom development
- Production print
- Fuji Xerox Manufacturing Co., Ltd. will manage manufacturing functions
- Ground toner in Japan
- Photoreceptors in Japan
- Emulsion aggregate (EA polymerized) toner in Japan
- Electronic parts in Japan
- Optical apparatus in Japan
- Shift all desktop printer production to China
In a survey conducted by Ricoh of businesses that have in-house copy/print shops (CRDs), the results were:
- Top types of work that is outsourced
- 73% went to offset printing press
- 43% went to digital production color units
- 34% went to digital production b/w units
- 32% was variable data jobs
- Top reasons why work was outsourced
- 52% did not have right equipment
- 48% did not have enough capacity
- 30% because of cost concerns
- 23% unaware of capabilities
- 14% doubted capabilities
- 11% lack of software
- 9% quality concerns
- 7% delivery concerns
Quad/Graphics, a large print for pay headquartered in Wisconsin, announced it purchased rival, World Color Press of Canada (fka Quebecor), for $1.3 billion. This would create North America’s second largest commercial printer, behind R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co. Expected revenue from new combined company is $5.1 billion, and includes locations in U.S., Poland, Latin America & Canada. Quad/Graphics is owned by Quadracci family of Sussex, WI.
Michael McDonald Collins and Michael Cass were arrested in West Madison, Missouri after they were caught using a color copier to make fake U.S. currency.
Thomas Onan of Williamstown, Kentucky was sentenced to two years and six months in prison for using a color copier to turn bleached $5 dollar bills into $100 bills.
EFI announced a new free option for its Fiery print servers, called Fiery VUE offering:
- Standalone application or plug in for Microsoft Office applications
- Users can specify complex finishing with few clicks of mouse
- Goal is no training for end users to print/finish with Fiery driver color MFP
- Result of data gathered by EFI during customer focus groups
- Uses plain English and images
- Thumbnail views of pages and documents
- Premade templates
- users can flip through pages of their document, showing paper types, tabs, inserts, etc.
In an article in the Wall Street Journal titled; “Ten Brands That Will Disappear in 2010”, the author included Kodak. Better sell now!
Comments regarding the future of the PC/laptop market from David Carini, managing director of Maverick China Research in Bejing, China:
- “will we need to store all our files on a local hard drive, and will we need to carry a laptop around?” (if people use cloud computing and data storage, they could log on to Internet, and complete work without need for laptop computer)
- “If Dell and HP were to invest more into making cooler, funkier PCs, then I think it is an overstatement that they will disappear, but if they keep on competing on price, then the Taiwanese and Chinese manufacturers will continue to gain”
- “The success of Apple computers show that consumers are willing to pay when they see value”
-“The U.S. can still operate factories efficiently, but you still have to pay workers $20 per hour. In China, you could pay same workers $1 an hour”
Canon, in a press release, stated that it was “looking into merger and acquisition opportunities and business tie-ups towards launching into biotechnology, nontechnology and life sciences”
IKON, a division of Ricoh, announced a new division, called IKON Managed Document Services:- Headed by Terrie Campbell, VP
- End to end printer/MFP fleet management with IKON TRAC for automated service call dispatch
- Consulting and business process support services
- Intelligent device rationalization
According to The Legal Intelligencer magazine, here are the Top 10 low cost ways for a law firm to market itself
- Keep attorney bios fresh (need high quality color laser MFP to print on demand rather than
- outsource to printing press)
- Record and post video to law firm website
- Make firm’s marketing materials downloading from website. (use color MFP to scan to PDF)
- Create on-line newsroom (more PDFs)
- Make marketing virtual (use of LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.)
- Blogging
- Align marketing and business goals
- Monitor reputation on-line
- Ask “why is this important” first before creating press release
- Still can’t beat face to face (make time for meetings)
While Xerox announced last fall that it had acquired one of its biggest dealer agents, Mr. Copy (with offices in California, Nevada and Oregon), what was announced recently is that its former owner, Bob Leone, is part of a group of Xerox agents that filed suit against Xerox in 10/2007, after the Global acquisition, that may go to trial in 2010:
- Will take place in Los Angeles County Superior Court
- Their lawyers stated that Xerox agents “have suffered and will suffer losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars” due to Xerox’s “breach of their respective contractual agreements to exclusively market Xerox products”
At recent symposium held by Lyra Research in Rancho Mirage, CA, analysts stated that growth of managed print services is being hampered by a lack of inclusion of inkjet printers and MFPs.
Ovum Research stated following on IT hardware purchasing in 2010:
- U.S. market will grown 2% in 2010
- Will grow 3$ in 2011
- Hugh unemployment will be a drag on technology sales in 2010
- End will remain in a defensive IT spending position in 2010
Auxilio of Mission Viejo, CA announced it won a managed print services contract with Palisades Medical Center of North Bergen, NJ:
- Partnered with Sodexo, a healthcare service solution provider
- The hospital servers 400,000 people per year
- 202 bed hospital and 245 bed nursing home
- Value and term of contract not stated
One of the largest chains of office equipment dealers in China, Lanxum, went public. Details:
- Owners sold some 26.5 million shares on Shanzen Stock Exchange
- Ended 2009 with market capitalization of $500 million
- Has 6.1% marketshare, behind Fuji which has 17%
- In managed print services, it is behind Fuji and Hewlett Packard
- Authorized to sell Ricoh, Toshiba, Canon & HP devices
- Headquartered in Bejing, with ten other offices in China
- Plans on opening up 19 more branches
Hewlett Packard’s VP of Healthcare Business, Chris Mertens, announced:
- HP is launching programs to take advantage of the “rolling cascade” of opportunities in the healthcare market due to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) mandate of Electronic Medical Records (EMR) software
- HP announced it is now a partner with McKesson, maker of EMR software
- HP dealer/VARs will be able to source McKesson products from Tech Data, a computer hardware/software distributor
- HP hopes that this will help its VARs penetrate independent physician practices
- “It’s such a huge population, and what we’ve seen plays absolutely to the strengths of partners and HP”
- “Physicians are looking for a local partner to be able to deliver the solutions they need in the new healthcare paradigm”
- Physician practices are now required to implement “meaningful use” EMR systems, or lose out on tens of thousands of dollars in Medicare and Medicaid incentives within a few years.
- “Physician practice market needs to move to technology, and they have not only a carrot, but also a stick; payments to them will be reduced if they don’t get that technology”
- HP estimates the size of the physician practice EMR opportunity at 600,000 businesses in the U.S.
- HP also works with McKesson’s competitor, Cerner, through Tech Data’s competitor, Computer Discount Warehouse (CDW).
- “Physicians want to buy from partners in their communities – people they see in the supermarket, that may be patients of theirs. They don’t want to buy from a Website.”
- McKesson products include; Practice Partner, Lytec, Medisoft, Bright Note Technology, etc. Keep in mind Hospitals need to have implemented a certified ERM by October 2010 and Medical Practices by October 2011
In Japan, Ricoh announced to its shareholders that it is revising its sales forecast downward by 3.1%, but its net income will be up by 50%, due to cost cutting measures.
When asked about economic recovery, Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft stated; “When you have a financial crisis like that, it’s years of digging out”. The current economic situation is “the toughest Microsoft has ever faced”.
Xerox announced it is reducing what it pays U.S. workers in severance. Details:
- Will cut another 2,500 jobs
- “We are identifying various cost reduction actions to help us re-size our company in the face of significant revenue decline and to be getter positioned to invest going forward.”, according to Jim Firestone, President of Xerox.
- Instead of receiving 1.5 weeks for every year employed, now laid off workers will only get 1 week for every year with company.
-=Good Selling=-
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