MFP Weekend Industry Notes 11/29/10

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

- Okidata reports financial data:
o Worldwide hardcopy revenue declined 12% in first half of 2010 to only $675 million
o Operating loss of $34 million for first half of fiscal year
o Printer revenue down 22% as compared with 2006
o Printer revenue is 33% of total company

- The Equipment Leasing & Finance Association (ELFA) announced that U.S. businesses originated $4.9 billion in leases and loans to invest in capital equipment (which includes MFPs), which is up 14% from this time last year.
o 2.95% of borrowers were delinquent 30 days or more, down 3.41%
o Lenders in October considered just 1.2% of the loans in their portfolios as losses unlikely ever to be paid, down 1.7%
o 73% of all credit applications were approved, up from 72% last year

- Epson announced that in Europe, it will relabel desktop b/w laser AIOs from Kyocera (aka Kyoto Ceramic Company). In addition, Epson sold its printer R&D unit in the Philippines to Kyocera.

- Epson announced it celebrated its 20th anniversary of launching piezo crystal inkjet technology:
o competes with technology used by HP and Canon, known as thermal inkjet, that uses heat to vaporize liquid water-based ink and fire it through printhead nozzles
o Instead uses mechanical pressure generated by a piezoelectric element when an electric current is applied to push droplets through nozzle
o Developed by current Epson president, Minoru Usui
o Is division of Seiko, the watchmaker.
 After launching its first dot matrix printer in 1968, the EP101, Seiko Corp. decided on the name “Epson” in 1975 as the division was the son of the EP printer.
o First printer to use technology was the Epson Stylus 800 in 1993
o Technology superior as it produces more precise ink droplets, resulting in sharper and smoother prints, with lower operating temperature
o Able to use synthetic colorants
o Will roll out its first color production inkjet system, the SurePress L4033A in late 2011

- Sharp announced it is the official sponsor of a 13 foot by 9 foot video wall at the September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York. The video wall will be constructed of 9 Sharp PN-V601 60” color LCD panels.

- Oracle Corp. won a lawsuit it filed for patent violation against SAP, and a federal jury ordered SAP to pay Oracle $1.3 billion in damages. New HP CEO, Leo Apotheker was running SAP at the time of the infraction. SAP will appeal the decision. HP’s former CEO, Mark Hurd, now works for Oracle.

- HP’s new CEO, Leo Apotheker, announced that the company will dump its current Siebel CRM, (division of Oracle) and instead go with Salesforce.com.

- In a press release, new Hewlett Packard CEO, Leo Apotheker, stated that he will refocus the company’s R&D to increase software sales. “With software, companies can add much value to any product which is intended for HP customers”.

- Hewlett Packard filed a patent for “multi-threading” called “Parallelization in Printing” that will supposedly enable servers to speed up processing of large multi-page print jobs.

- HP reported its last quarter’s financials:
o profit up 5%
o total revenue up 8% to $33.28 billion
o net income of $2.5 billion
o operating margin decreased to 9.9% from 10.2%
o PC sales up 4% to $10.3 billion
o Services revenue up 0.4% to $9 billion
o Software revenue up1% to $974 million
o Printer/MFP division revenue up 8% to $7 billion
 Supplies revenue up 6%
 Commercial hardware revenue up 22%
 Consumer hardware revenue down 2%
 Commercial printer/MFP units up 43%

- EFI announced a printing solution for owners of Apple iPads. The company released PrintMe Connect for AirPrint, a free software package, allows users of iPads, iPods or iPhones to print to a Fiery driven MFP.

- Apple will roll out a second generation iPad next April, according to Wall Street analyst, Brian Marshall. In addition, the company announced it purchased the former headquarters of HP in Cupertino, CA for use as new office space.

- Lexmark announced that some of its products will now be sold by Best Buy.

- Ricoh stated that its worldwide sales decreased 1.9% to $5.8 billion last quarter.

- A retired Columbia University professor who held the sole patent covering a method of producing LEDs and laser diodes has died at age 83. Details:
o Gertrude Neumark Rothschild began research career with Sylvania Research Labs in Bayside, NY in 1950s
o Later worked at Philips Labs in Briarcliff Manor, NY
o Joined Columbia as professor of materials science in 1985
o Her patents led to laser and LED technologies used in laser print engines, DVD players, computers, instrument panels and background lighting in cell phone screens.
o In March, 2008, she sued LG, Nokia, Pioneer, Samsung, Sanyo, Sharp, Sony and Toshiba for patent violations
o She received settlements totaling $27 million according to her lawyer, Albert Jacobs.

- A company finally shows a desktop color inkjet printer based on Memjet technology. Details:
o Company is Astro Machine Corp. of Illinois
o Unit will be called AstroJet Color Page Printer
o 1600x1600 dpi and 1600x800dpi modes
o Lower resolution delivers up to 3600 letter size pages per hour
 Unlike traditional inkjet models, coverage does not slow down print speed
o Can also handle up to 9,000 number 10 envelopes per hour
o Maximum sheet size of 9.5”x17”
o Maximum paper thickness of 0.5mm
o USB port
o Weighs 75lbs.
o 20”Wx24”Lx17.25”H
o Pricing and ship date not announced

Impact Networking, a dealer with locations in Illinois and Wisconsin, announced it has adopted Pickard Elementary School in Chicago, providing its 432 elementary students with Christmas gifts.

- FM Audit Inc. of Jefferson City, MO announced it has added a “Green Reporting” feature to its managed print services software that will allow dealers to provide info to customers on their printer’s paper consumed, supply usage and power consumption.

- Fuji Xerox president, Tadahito Yamamoto, gave an interview to the press about future of printing business:
o Company is three years into reinvention as a managed print services provider
o Due to maturing hardware markets, is scrambling to diversify its revenue mix
o Spent $761 to build the Yokohama Minatomirai research and development facility
o Will spend $755 million on R&D this fiscal
o Company’s current ingrained hardware manufacturing culture is proving difficult to change
o Looks to IBM as role model

- Sony Corp. announced it is selling its digital photo printer division (dye sublimation technology) to Dai Nippon, which currently makes the Screen color inkjet production printing systems.

- Notable Solutions Inc. (NSi) reports that 25,000 customers now have one of its AutoStore document capture server solutions.
- Toshiba announced it is entering the portable data center market, and has opened up a demo center in Tokyo. It hopes for $240 million in revenue for this new division by 2015.

- Toshiba announced that its total worldwide revenue last year was $69 billion, but that its TEC division (which offers MFPs & printers) was only $2 billion.

-=Good Selling=-

This Week in Canon "TWIC Notes"

Canon launched a new desktop A4 color laser MFP, called the imageCLASS MF9220Cdn featuring:

o MSRP of $1495

o 25ppm top speed b/w or color

o 3.5” color LCD display

o Scroll wheel on control panel to choose features

o No warmup time from sleep mode

o 4 tandem OPC drum design

o Canon pQ polymerized toner

o Auto duplex standard

o Built-in print controller with Windows GDI printing only

 MF9280C model offers PCL & PostScript print drivers for $2295 MSRP

o Scan/fax/print/copy standard

- Canon announced it will be official office equipment vendor for New York Islanders hockey team.

- Canon reported that its dealer’s sales are up 10%, but its branches are up only 2%.

- More details on new b/w laser A4 MFP from Canon:

o 40ppm and 50ppm models

o Tentative launch in summer of 2011

o Will not use Canon imageCHIP print controllers

o Will not support MEAP embedded application platform

o 4” monochrome LCD panel

o Optional hanging corner staple finisher

o Will not have cartridge based supplies (like its printers)

o Color version in late 2011

- Canon announced that it is collaborating with Accenture to expand its managed print services business, initially in Europe. Accenture details:

o headquarters in Ireland

o U.S. headquarters in New York

o Was originally a division of Arthur Anderson

o Split away and was called Anderson Consulting

o Renamed Accenture in 2001

o Has 204,000 employees

o 200 locations in 120 countries

o World’s largest outsourcing firm

o Has 96 of Fortune Global 100 as customers

o Last fiscal year revenue of $21.6 billion

o Is largest competitor to the ACS division of Xerox

o Signed 4 year partnership contract with Canon

o In past, Canon has been customer of Accenture for finance and accounting

Note from Art:  Well it seems A4 is here to stay whether we like it or not, a 50ppm unit from Canon, whew that will be awesome, we'll have to wait and see where the cost per page falls.

-=Good Selling=-

What's Your Average MFP Copier Lease Sale?

We posted this poll on the Print4Pay Hotel foums a few months ago. 

I know what my average lease sale is however wanted to hear from others.  I recently had exchanged a few emails with a leasing company that I wanted to do business with, however they made a statement that the lowest amount they would fund is $20 or $25K, I can't remember which it was. Any how their (leasing companies) statement was that $22,500 (I'll meet them halfway) was the number that they found to be the average copier/mfp lease sale and would they would not take a deal for less than that.  Funny, if the $22,500 was the average should there have been deals under that????

Ah, enough said on that, here's how our Print4Pay Hotel members responded when posed with:

What's Your Average Lease Sale?


$1,000 - 2,900   =  0%
$2,901-  6,900   =  18%
$6.901 - 9,900   =  53%
$9,901 - 14,900 =  12%
$14.901 - 19,900 =  0%
$19,901 plus        =  18%

So, 71% all all leases were under $9,900 and a whopping 83% were under $14,900.  Not sure why the total come up with 101%, and I'm not even going to try to figure that out.  We're going to continue to keep this poll open on the Print4Pay Hotel forums and we'll come back to this in a few months to see where the numbers are then.  I'm betting Dollars to Doughnuts that findings will be similar.

What was that leasing company thinking about? 

-=Good Selling=-

Recent MPF & Copier Polls on the Print4Pay Hotel Forums

Ricoh MP C3001 & MP C3501 "Spec Review"

It seems Ricoh hit another home run and put additional runs against the competition when it comes to color multifunctional devices!  Check out these features and what's included in the base system!

What's New!!

2-ppm increase in output speeds


􀂙 Faster warm-up/recovery times

􀂙 Faster original scanning speeds

􀂙 Greater amount of std./max. RAM

􀂙 Larger Hard Disk Drive

􀂙 300 g/m2 paper support & Duplexing via Bypass Tray

􀂙 Envelope Feeding from internal tray (Opt)

􀂙 Side Tray

􀂙 Improved environmental specifications


􀂙 Induction Heating (IH) Fusing

􀂙 Improved High Compression PDF

􀂙 Quota Setting mode

􀂙 App2Me, PPDM Standard

􀂙 Print From USB/SD (Optional)

􀂙 Scan-To-Web Mail (SSL over SMTP)

􀂙 Standard HDD encryption & DOSS

General Capabilities:

Output Speed (LTR) (FC/BW)


MP C3001: 30/30-ppm

MP C3501: 35/35-ppm

Warm-up Time: 23 seconds

Recovery From Sleep: Mode 13 seconds

Scanning Speed:  51-ipm (FC/BW @ 200 dpi)

Fusing: Technology Induction Heating

Typical Electricity:  MP C3001: 1.62 kW/hour*


Consumption (TEC):   MP C3501: 1.83 kW/hour*

*Lowest in industry (as of September, 2010)

Need more?  We've got the rest of the specs, brochures and CPP on the Print4Pay Hotel forums, go here and become a member of the largest social network group of copier/mfp professionals in the world!!

-=Good Selling=-





-=Good Selling=-

This Week in Canon "TWIC Notes"

Special thanx to Print4Pay Hotel Members from around the world and a few moles in very good places for posting these great threads

Canon announced a new option for its imageRUNNER MFPs that have the MEAP platform for embedded applications.

Details:
o FACSys Connector from emFAST Inc.
o Works with FACSys fax servers
o Can route content either to fax numbers or to many popular content management systems
o Ensures that all fax transmissions are captured and recorded with audit logs and images stored for retrieval

- Canon announced it won a “Center of Excellence” award for customer service from PC Magazine, related to its consumer digital cameras and desktop printers.

-=Good Selling=-

ComCOLOR Where are You!

It's been over a year since I've seen Riso's ComCOLOR devices. At first I was skeptical of the quality and thought with that type of quality and the MSRP there’s no way this system can make a dent in the office equipment industry.


In late November of 2009 I was shown samples of the output from the ComCOLOR; basically it was Riso’s test sample file field kit. The images were awesome and I was blown away. With the quality I saw and the MSRP I figured there was a place for this system.

Thus out with my sample packs I went, I picked up a few accounts that were highly interested and two actually came in for a demo. I almost sold a ComCOLOR in December of 2009, however it never got delivered (that’s another story to tell, thanx RISO), and I’m kind of glad it didn’t. I had secured another demo prior to the Print On Demand Show in Phili of 2010. My client loved the speed and the output was acceptable for the end product he needed to produce except for one tiny thing…….. bleed thru of the image on two sided documents were not acceptable. Well, back to the drawing board, off to the Print On-Demand Show to look for the Holy Grail, I was sure I’d find the right paper at one of the largest shows on the East Coast. As I went from paper vendor to paper vendor, all had nothing to offer, ohhhh bother…….., this was not good. I then went to the small booth where Riso was showing the ComCOLOR and they sighed and exclaimed as of right now there was no paper that would limit the bleed through, however we have this awesome inkjet paper (11x17) but….it’s a little high with a cost per sheet of .12 cents (this is from memory now and at my age it’s a little tougher and tougher every day), ooohhh bother, .12 cents won’t cut it either.

So as the hours turned to days, the show was over and the days turned to weeks and the weeks went to months there was no Holy Grail for the paper. What I did realize after the show is that all of the print samples that I was showing was printed on premium ink jet paper that had a cost of .12 cents a page, don’t ya think there should have been a label or something, maybe a disclaimer??? Ooohhh bother, I should have been more diligent in asking about the media.

We’re now almost a year later and I have to tell you, I haven’t sold a ComCOLOR and haven’t seen one in the field, your guess is as good as mine to where they are hiding. I’m still trying to pitch the quality and speed however the MSRP price of these units are way over priced and probably the reason why you don’t seem em in every CRD or Print Shop. Now with Memjet heads finally coming to market in various systems like the Astro1, I think we can count the days of the demise of the ComCOLOR and possibly RISO.

Since August 9th there's been seven blogs on their www.risoprinter.com site, last year at this time before Murphy left they had a few blogs posting every week, plus they were tweeting the heck out of the product. It seems the ComCOLOR is grasping at straws; one blog based on MPS, another for single pass promo and secure MICR. In their latest blog they tout that Imaging Channel (not sure who they are, will research) had taken a  “fresh look” at Riso’s Youtube video, if you ask me, maybe Imaging Channel should have tried one of these and then asked themselves if they would fork out 40K-70K for so so color.

Riso, I’d love to sell your product, however maybe it’s not ready for me or I’m not ready for it, or maybe we’ll never understand each other.

-=Good Selling=-

Ricoh's Zeus "Father of Gods and Copiers"

Hesiod's Theogony  labeled Zeus as "Father of Gods and men".  Ricoh Corporation is set to launch "Zeus" (engineering name) their first (home grown, one member of the P4P'er is claiming Lexmark, I'm thinking no to the Lexmark thingy) color A4 multifunctional device within weeks.  Over at the Print4Pay Hotel forums there's been quite a bit of talk about these new systems.  Word at the Hotel is that there will be four different models.  The Aficio MPC300 and the MPC300SR (Finisher) will be 30 page a minute color A4 devices, and then the MPC400, and the MPC400SR (Finisher) will be 40 page a minute color devices. 

It's been a few years since I attended a meeting at Ricoh to discuss the emergence of A4 devices and what type of effect they were having on the market place. Almost three years from the anniversary of that meeting Ricoh will officially enter the color A4 market with a Segment Two and Three system.

I'm hoping that Ricoh does not follow the likes of Sharp, Samsung and KonicaMinolta when it comes to cost per page pricing.  For years I've been touting that what we (Sales) need in the field is an A4 device whether color or monochrome that has an A3 cost per page model.  If this goal is to capture additional clicks then why even lower cost A4's to market with higher cost per pages than A3 models.  The one downfall of the A4 MFP's is the lower hardware cost, which means lower profits (hey, I thought no one made a profit on the box and it was the supply revenue), which in turn means everyone will have to sell more boxes to maintain current profit levels!  We'll see, I'm hoping for a kick butt Cost Per Page, but I'm not betting the ranch here.

A few questions about the new Zeus:

• Where will the cost per page be for color and monochrome?
• Will it be manufactured in China or elsewhere?
• Will it have an ARDF and not and not an ADF?
• Will it have additional Paper Feed Units?
• Will it work with APP2ME?
• Will it have a Document Server?
• Will it print from an SD Card or USB?

Really, I can't wait for this system to hit the streets!!!  Zeus could really be the "Father of all Copiers" and be an exciting new product that will increase sales, in a industry that really needs a shot in the arm! 

-=Good Selling=-

Print4Pay Hotel Weekend Copier & MFP Updates! 11/15/10

Print4Pay Hotel Weekend Updates!

Here's some of serious content from the last few days that's been posted on the Print4Pay Hotel's forums in recent weeks. It has been busy with over 37,000 page views, and 39 new members for the month of October.

Most Viewed Threads:

How Much do National Copiers Vendors Charge to Decommission a HDD?
Rumor has it.....
These CPP Pricing Documents were just uploaded
Total Cost of Ownership
Does any National Copier Vendor still have their own in house leasing service?
OMG! Copier Rep Turned into POS! Read this!

Most Interesting Threads:

New Samsung 11 x 17" Colour MFPs due Oct 01 USA
What is "Workflow"???
Most Prevalent Third Party MPS Providers
New Ricoh Link
The Effect Currency Evaluations have on the MFP industry

Posted Price Quotes:
KonicaMinolta bizhubc280 cpp pricing
Canon iRC 2550_3080_3080i cpp pricing
KonicaMinolta bizhub PRO 950-PRO 1050 cpp pricing

Leads, RFP's & RFQ's:

RFP for 2 50ppm (one color) for Northeast US
RFP for one 50ppm mfp in Ohio
RFP for 8 MFP's in the North East "Expires 12/8/10"
RFP for 31 MFP Copiers "Expires 12/13/10"
Lead for 70ppm is South Dakota


The Print4Pay Hotel 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=-

Last Week in Copier "Industry Notes" 11/7/10

Special thanx to Print4Pay Hotel Members from around the world and a few moles in very good places for posting these great threads!

Take a moment and join the largest group of copier professionals in the world. Here's the link for the P4P Hotel forums!

-The Secret Service claims that it has pulled $182 million in fake bills from circulation in 2009, more than double the $79 million it pulled in 2008. Almost 62% of this counterfeit U.S. currency was made using color MFPs

- Okidata now shipping new desktop A4 b/w MFPs that it is sourcing from Lexmark. The new B700 series are actually based on the Lexmark X650 series, which offer a large 9” touch screen color LCD control panel.
o Speeds range from 42ppm to 52ppm
o Base MSRPs range form $625 to $1249
o (so while Okidata touts its own LED technology in its color engines as superior to laser, it uses Lexmark laser engines for its b/w products)

- The Flagstaff, AZ fire department reported that a fire in the University of Northern Arizona Student Union was caused by an overheating copier.
- Fuji announced it has opened a new research and development lab for printing technology, called the R&D Square in Yokohama, Japan. Other details mentioned:
o In 1985 is made its first laser printer for relabeling by other vendors
o In 1986, launched first printer that it marketed on its own, called the Fuji Xerox 4105
o In 2001, purchased laser printer business from NEC Corp.
o Its other R&D lab for printers is the Ebina Center in Kanagawa, Japan
o Tadahito Yamamoto is President and Representative Director
o Has developed new technology called “SLED”
o SLED is “Self-scanning Light Emitting Device”
 features an electronic pulse each time the opening is only one point of light-emitting LED light, LED light points, one by one, move to the front.
 A line of LED light-emitting operations signal to control an input.
 Each SLED chip has a total of 57 LEDs
 In conventional LED printer, to offer up to 1200dpi, it needs to double the drive chip and twice the signal line, but the multi-chip Fuji ASIC drive can operate 14, 592 light points
 Traditional LED technology print images with color transitions that are not natural

- FMAudit of Jefferson City, Missouri, announced version 3.2 of its managed print services software, that it claims has 180 new features.

- Sharp announced it paid $305 million to complete acquisition of Recurrent Energy of San Francisco, which develops solar projects. (however, the company apparently still has not yet spend any R&D for production print products for its copier dealers and branches to sell)

- Sharp’s VP of Marketing, Mike Marusic, gave out more details on the design of the document feeders on its new Frontier “Scan-Centric” series of color and b/w A4 MFPs:
o Color version has base MSRP of $8945
o b/w version has base MSRP of $5695
o Top print speed of 40ppm
o Ruggedized rubber feed tires that can handle thicker card stock
o Rollers can also handle the raised letter of plastic credit cards or ID cards
o Cards pass straight through to the other side of the document feeder (unlike when feeding normal paper originals) so the cards are not bent or damaged
o Viable alternative to production scanners

- Sharp gave out details of its last quarter’s financials:
o Company slashed its full year profit projection by 20%
o Warned of “increasingly severe business condition”
o Net profit of $175.2 million for last 6 months
o Revenue up 16.7% to 1.5 trillion yen
o For full fiscal year expects net profit of 30 billion yen
o Big decline in demand for large size color LCDs
o No mention made of its office equipment division

- Digitex Corp, a Canon/Ricoh dealer owned by Mark Kinley in Houston, has purchased Capco Systems, another Canon dealer in Houston. Capco was previously owned by Constantine Pontikes, and was originally named Houston Typewriter.

- According to some authors, Google Docs will soon have a new feature that will allow users to print documents to any Internet-connected printer, anywhere in the world. For it to work, users will have to install small piece of software on a computer that’s on the same network as the printer. The computer has to be turned on and connected to the Internet for the print service to work.

- Microsoft launched a beta version of Microsoft Office 365, which is a cloud based package that offers a complete set of business functions.

- Artifex Software Corp., maker of print drivers, announced version 9.0 of its Ghostscript drivers featuring:
o PostScript Level 3 compatibility
o PDF 1.7
o PCL 5e, 5c & XL
o Microsoft XPS
o PostScript to PDF conversion
o XPS to PDF conversion
o ICC based color rendering workflow
o Stores two separate color space settings
o Support for optional content to the PDF interpreter
o Claims to have 100 OEM customers

- Scan capture software maker, Kofax, reported that last quarter it had revenue of $216 million, which was up 27%. (Kofax is very popular in the healthcare market, and its leading reseller is IKON/Ricoh)

- Kodak was ordered by government in England to pull its TV ads claiming that its color inkjet printers would save end users money as compared with using other brands. The agency claims that the Kodak ads were misleading.

- eCareme Technologies Inc. announced it will launch a cloud printing service that will allow end users to send their print jobs to any 7-ELEVEN store in Taiwan that has a connected MFP. Pricing not announced.

- Ricoh announced it will provide 32 MFPs and printers for the upcoming Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Yokohama, Japan.

- Ricoh announced the launch of “Ricoh intelligent invoicing” or i-invoicing, which allows customers to outsource the receipt and production of all invoices to Ricoh. Ricoh claims that this will save customers 70-90% using the system. The initial launch will only be in Europe.

- Ricoh announced it is the “Official Document Solutions Partner” for the Philadelphia Eagles football team.

- Lexmark, whose CEO last week announced his is departing, now announced that it is combining its laser and inkjet divisions into one, called Imaging Solutions and Services or ISS, led by Executive VP, Marty Canning, reporting to new CEO, Paul Rooke.

- Business Research & Testing Laboratories (BERTL) gave out Fall 2010 Best Awards to:
o HP LaserJet PRO P1606dn b/w laser printer
o Ricoh InfoPrint 1357EX b/w production print system
o Sharp MX-M753N b/w laser MFP
o Kyocera Copystar FS2026/C2126/FS3040/3140 MFPs
o Konica Minolta bizhub C35 A4 color MFP
o Ricoh Aficio MP 4001/5001 b/w MFPs
o Xerox 7755/7775 MFPs

- Former IKON executive, Jim Gallagher, was hired as VP of Sales for McGrath Systems, a human capital management firm.

- Hewlett Packard sold an Indigo 7500 production color system to Group Momentum, a printshop in Sydney, Australia. It also sold an Indigo 5500 to ASAP Digital of Sheffield, England.

- Apple sued Motorola, alleging that the company’s smartphone lineup and operating system it sues infringe on iPhone patents.

- Kyocera (aka Kyoto Ceramic Company) announced it will buy the Software Engineering division of Epson in the Philippines. This office employs 70, and currently writes software for Epson printers and MFPs.

- Hitachi announced it has developed a new continuous inkjet print head technology, called “RX”

-=Good Selling=-

This Week in Toshiba "TWIT Notes"

- Toshiba announced that it has submitted an application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to certify its Advanced Boiling Water Reactor design.

- Toshiba announced a reorganization:
o Peter Davey is now Director of Professional Services and Advanced Technical Support
o Chris Applegate is Director of Client Services
o Sally Anderson is Director of Marketing and Communications
o Make Briante is Director of Service Operations

- Toshiba was awarded the “First In Class For Dealer Support” award from Marketing Research Consultants.

- In an interview, Toshiba’s VP of Marketing, Bill Melo said that its Professional Services Group focuses on:
o Document Output Management
 Optimization of customer’s fleet of printing devices and their document workflow
 Assessment conducted
 Consolidation of hardware
 Move customer to managed print services instead of traditional copier lease
 Reduce total customer spend
 Minimize customer disruption
 Solve needs of security and compliance
o Managing Print Infrastructure
 Pull printing (aka “follow you” printing)
 Reduce waste
 Claim that 30% of print jobs in typical office are abandoned on exit tray
o Document Capture and Workflow
 Digital storage
 Archival and records management
 Fujitsu scanners
 Solutions from Nuance eCopy, Docuware and Drivve
o Security
 Fastest growing area
 Securing documents
 Hard drive encryption
 Securing sent documents

-=Good Selling=-

Veterans Day is Tomorrow!

“ I do not intend for 'honor, courage, and commitment' to be just words; I expect them to frame the way that we live and act. ”

Charles C. Krulak (1942 – )

31st Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps

Happy 235th Birthday, U.S. Marine Corps!






Thank you veterans of all branches

This Week in Canon "TWIC Notes"

Special thanx to Print4Pay Hotel Members from around the world and a few moles in very good places for posting these great threads!

Take a moment and join the largest group of copier professionals in the world. Here's the link for the P4P Hotel forums!


- Canon announced that in India, it will open up a store called “Canon Image Square”, which will showcase all of its imaging products, similar to Apple’s retail store concept.

- Canon will spend $184 million to build a new inkjet printer plant in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand. It will employ 5,000 workers, and make 5.5 million units per year.

- Canon launched the imageRUNNER C1030 desktop A4 color MFP featuring:
o 22ppm color and 30ppm b/w print speeds
o Base MSRP of $2595 (the “iF” model is $500 more, and provides PCL print driver and fax board)
o 600x600dpi (advertised as offering 2400dpi with interpolation)
o Document feeder scan speed of 20opm
o 3.5” color LCD display that tilts (not touchscreen, instead uses scroll dial)
o 100 sheet stack bypass
o 250 sheet paper drawer
o Can add two more 250 sheet paper drawers
o Built-in print controller
 Actual maker unknown (most likely NetSilicon)
 UFR II LT printing standard (similar to Windows GDI)
 PCL print driver optional
 PostScript print driver optional
 768MB RAM standard
 10/100BaseT & USB ports (no 1000BaseT Gigabit available)
 Windows LDAP authentication standard for scanning
o Optional uniFLOW v5.0 for server-based authentication, cost tracking and print release
o Fax board optional

- Canon has announced its “Power of Five” to highlight 4 of its solutions partners:
o Therefore Corp., a provider of document management system that integrates with Canon MFPs
o Nuance eCopy
o IRIS of Belgium, which Canon owns 17%, for OCR
o NT Ware, which apparently is the supplier of uniFLOW

-=Good Selling=-

This Week in Xerox "TWIX Notes"

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According to security vendor, MS Lab Inc., the company is still detecting malware distribution related to Xerox MFPs. The trojan poses as an automatic message from Xerox WorkCentre Pro MFPs, to look like a scan to email. Cybercriminals are behind this attack, and hope end users are tricked into opening up the email message and clicking on the attachment labeled; “Scan from Xerox WorkCentre P9275821”, which would then launch an executable file to steal data from end user’s computer. Since this is not the first time that this has been attempted, it would indicate that it must have a high rate of success.

- Xerox announced it sold an iGen4 production color system and two 700 Digital Color systems to Scottish Police Services Authority of Scotland.

- Xerox’s ACS division announced it has purchased Spur Information Solutions of England, which makes software for parking enforcement.

- Mr. Copy, a Xerox owned dealer in San Diego, CA, announced it will offer DocuShare on Demand, which is a hosted document management solution, connected to its customer’s Xerox MFPs. Pricing starts at $39.95 per year for 5 users.

- Xerox announced that its research & development spending is now only 3.5% of revenue, or $189 million per quarter.

-=Good Selling=-

Xerox ColorQube 8570 "What's the Total Cost of Operation?"

I really enjoy writing the "What's the Total Cost of Operation?" for printers.  What amazes me most is the recommended monthly volumes and the monthly duty cycle claims from the manufacturers. 

Alright, before we move forward let's get the monthly duty cycle thingy out of the way.  All manufacturers will advertise a Monthly Duty Cycle, most when reading this will not interpret this correctly, some may even think that a Monthly Duty Cycle of 85,000 pages per month means that this printer can and will print 85,000 pages each and every month!  That statement is not correct and as far as I'm concerned Manufacturers should get out of the habit of reporting a Monthly Duty Cycle.  What is actually meant is that the printer may be able to achieve that volume per month on occasions.

But, let me give you a small scenario with the occasional duty cycle of 85,000 pages per month on the Xerox ColorQube 8570DN.  First, the printer is rated at a speed of up to 40 pages per minute in color.  In a recent report from PC Advisor they stated the the speed for a full page 22mb full page color photo exited at 2.1 ppm (pages per minute).  Let's use this scenario with a print speed of 2.1 pages per minute.  In one hour we would have 126 pages printed.  Now we'll take 85,000 pages and divide by the hourly speed of 126 pages. It would take roughly 674 hours to reach the 85,000 page mark. Considering there is 160 work hours per month, it would take 4.2 months to run the 85,000 pages. :(

Remember we're having fun with this, different files will produce different print speeds.  One of the keywords in how manufacturers rate print speeds is the word "upto", in the case of the Xerox ColorQube it's "upto" 40 pages per minute. Now, if the printer was capable of 40 pages per minute in color, it would take 35.4 hours to run the 85,000 pages and that's not counting the time to replace the paper. The ColorQube has a 525 sheet paper tray, thus you'd need to fill the paper tray almost 162 times! 

To be fair, the ColorQubes recommended monthly volume is 8,000 pages per month per Xerox web page. Additional items that I find annoying is that there is no clarification if the 8,000 recommended or the 85,000 monthly duty cycle is a combination of monochrome (black) and color. I would assume by reading the brochure that I could run all color through the unit. Well, I went and read the brochure and it's amazing that there is no recommended monthly volume on the brochure, however what's mentioned twice is the Monthly Duty Cycle of 85,000 pages! :(

To the cost per page:

The 8,000 color pages per month based on a 20% coverage of the document means the consumable (solid ink and solid ink maintenance kit) cost per page will be .1230 cents for color and .0208 for monochrome (black). Your monthly cost for consumables not including parts or service for color will cost you a whopping $984.00 per month. Over the course of 60 months, you'll spend an estimated $59,040!!!!

Well, what happens when if my documents average 40% coverage? 

The 8,000 color pages per month based on a 40% coverage of the document means the consumable (solid ink and solid ink maintenance kit) cost per page will be .2427 cents for color and .0208 for monochrome (black). Your monthly cost for consumables not including parts or service for color will cost you a whopping $1,941.60 per month. Over the course of 60 months, you'll spend an estimated $116,496!


Take a peak here for some page coverage examples.

End result is if you are need of reproducing 8,000 color pages per month, there are many alternatives that will save thousands of dollars such as a true Color Multifunctional Copier/Printer. These types of machines can have a color cost per page of under .10 cents per page which includes all consumables, on-site maintenance, labor and parts!  You can take the extra money that you saved by reading this and send me the difference! :)  If you are interested in a Color Multifunctional Copier/Printer check out our other site and we'll get you hooked up with a Print4Pay Hotel Cost per Page expert that would be more than happy to prepare a cost savings scenario for you!

-=Good Selling=-

This Week in Canon "TWIC MFP Notes"

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Canon announced that an increase in sales of MFPs worldwide resulted in a 30% increase in earnings from that division.

- Canon’s CEO, Fujio Mitarai, announced that it won’t make a higher offer for the Oce’ shares that it does not already own. 10% of the shares are still held by investment firms that are hoping for a better offer.

- Canon announced the winner of its Business Leap competition.

o The contest was for the printshop with the best business plan to move into corporate and marketing communications (marcomm) sectors.

o Winners was Nassjotryckeriet of Sweden

o Prize was a free Canon imageRUNNER Advance C9070 production color system

- Canon has filed a complaint alleging that the government of Guam illegally awarded a copier bid to Xerox:

o Contract was given to Guam’s Department of Education

o Canon claims that contract was awarded without going out to competitive bid

o Claims that competitive bid would have saved $4 million

o Canon’s dealer in Guam is Island Business Systems and Suppliers

o Xerox is charging $133,000 per month

-=Good Selling=-

Copier Dealers and the Copier Factory!

We (Dealers) all hear about, and see it on the Print4Pay Hotel forums , along with quotes from the field.

We ask ourselves how the hell can Direct MFP Manufacturers continue to offer cost per page contracts that are lower or equal to the cost fact sheets that they give to MFP Dealers, plus dump product that is below dealer cost in most cases? When will the madness end?

For example: Recently a Ricoh 907EX Pro with Bookletmaker, Print and Scan Controller, 3 Hole Punch, Postscript and LCT sold for $27,000.  The MSRP for this base system and the accessories is $68,600. The discount from MSRP is almost 61%!!! What I can tell you is this happens with all of the Direct Branches and not just Ricoh equipment.  I see the quotes come across the forums and we see the same for Canon, Xerox, KonicaMinolta, and others.  Who can sell at a 61% discount and make a profit, especially when you price service at .0042 per click for 11x17, that means you're getting .0021 for letter and the smart CRD, Repro shop is running most jobs 2 up and then cutting them in half.  How foolish are you?

The answer is........no one can sell at this price and make a profit, or not a profit on "that sale" or the service on "that sale".  Years ago I was at a meeting and I remember it clearly because the VP (not dropping names) told me to make sure I spelled his name right when I posted items on the Print4Pay Hotel forums. His statement to those of us in the room is that the US companies like Canon, Kyocera, Ricoh, KonicaMinolta and others were nothing more than a "mega dealer", they get their pricing from Corporate and then marked up the equipment for US distribution. Gee, that's a real surprise.

Moving on, each Direct Manufacturer here in the US has different divisions (now called Channels) of distribution.  We all know they have a Direct Channel aka always in ending in BS, then there's the Dealer Channel and some even have other levels for Printers, Scanners and Internet Distribution.
At the end of the year, we all have to state our profit and loss right, we're all good on this.  The Dealer Channel is a money maker for the US Manufacturer, probably giving them their largest percentage of profit (this is guess, but it's an educated one on every thing I hear from the field, please prove me wrong).  You then have the other Channels to report profit and loss such as the channel that end in you know what _BS. Now, we don't get to see these reports and alas I don't even think it's possible to see the profit level of the Manufacturer's for the America's, wait let me check for ya.................it seems the posted P & L's is listed for the Americas and but there is no break down provided for each Channel.

Alas, at the end of the year as long as the Direct Manufacturer reports a profit, I'm thinking so what if the Direct Channel lost 8%, the Dealer side made us 12% and we posted a 4% profit.  We can report back to Corporate with a profit.  Profit is what it's all about right? 
So, can Direct Manufactures continue to lose money on their Direct Channel's?  Yes sir, as long as the Dealer Channel comes through with sustainable profits. Funny, I hear from many P4P'ers and read all of the "MFP News" and I always hear the same message from the Direct Manufacturers, and it kinda goes like this "We're very concerned about our Dealers", "Our Dealers are our Top Priority", "Dealers got us to where we are today".  Got me thinking, do they love us because they like us, or we're making em boat loads of cash!

-=Good Selling=-