- Sharp announced it has acquired a large independent Ricoh copier dealer in England, named IOT Holdings. Details:
o IOT was originally founded in 1964
o Was not a Sharp dealer, so MIF will be converted
o Offices covered entire country
o Specialized in managed print services
o For CEO, Martin McCarney, will remain on board reporting to Paul Molyneux, Managing Director of Sharp UK
o Purchase price not announced
- Sharp just held its annual dealer meeting in Las Vegas, and main attraction to its dealers was the new 10.1” color touchscreen LCD on new MFPs that works similar to an Apple iPhone with its multi-touch functions. The theme for meeting was the new “UI” which stands for User Interface.
- The G-7 group of countries decided to take action to weaken the value of the Japanese yen. The recent earthquake, tsunami and nuclear plant problems caused the yen to rise, impacting the profits when Japanese goods are sold overseas. In addition:
o The Bank of Japan pumped an additional 3 trillion yen into money markets Friday to keep financial markets stable, the fifth straight day of action.
- Xerox announced it sold an iGen4 110 production color system to the University of South Africa printshop.
- Xerox announced it won a managed print services contract from the City of Rochester, New York:
o Claims it will save city more than $2 million
o 5 year contract
o Reduced total number of devices from 459 to 168
o Contract included 24 of the ColorQube color wax copiers
- RISO announced that its high-speed ComColor color inkjet printers (which are actually made by Olympus), are now compatible with transpromo and forms solutions from Solimar. It also announced availability of MICR (magnetic image character recognition) ink for check printing applications.
- InfoTrends estimates that over 10,000 lawsuits have been filed against desktop printer manufacturers in regards to alleged premature replacement of supplies. Customers are claiming that the printer forces them to change out the cartridge, even though the cartridge is not completely empty. Companies named in the lawsuits are Brother, Canon, Epson, HP, Lexmark and Samsung.
- The supply of ink and toner cartridges for devices made by Canon (which HP relabels), Epson and Kyocera may be impacted by the temporary closure of plants in Japan.
- Canon announced the following plants in Japan are temporarily closed:
o Utsunomiya = optics
o Oita = compact printers
o Toride
o Ami in Inashiki-gun
o Hirosaki
o Yuki
o Tsukuba – chemicals
o Fukushima
o Kasama – plastic molding
o According to the BBC (British Broadcasting Company), three of the above plants suffered serious damage
- Former IKON executive, Steven Yeffa, was hired as a CFO for Solar Universe, of Livermore, California.
- MGI announced it sold a MGI Meteor DP60 Pro production color system (based on engine from Konica Minolta) to Alphagraphics printshop of Macon, Georgia.
- Equitrac announced that it won contract from its 25,000th customer, with the inking of a deal with John Moores University of Liverpool, England:
o reduced printing by more than 4 million pages per year
o supposedly will save $250,000 per year
o cutting paper usage by 23 tons
- Gartner released its finding of U.S. MFP sales during last quarter of 2010:
o claims that Canon had most marketshare with 18.6% of sales (even though Canon does not certify its numbers)
o totals include low end products sold through websites and office supply/computer superstores
- Hewlett Packard’s Ann Livermore, Executive VP of Technology Solutions Group, stated “HP is particularly interested in acquiring intellectual property to support vertical markets…”, thus implying that HP is going to buying up software companies
- A Delaware judge late Thursday ordered that the letter that led to former Hewlett-Packard Chief Executive Mark Hurd's August resignation be unsealed.
o A lawyer for Mr. Hurd, Amy Wintersheimer, said in a statement that she planned to appeal the decision, meaning that the letter won't be made public anytime soon.
o The letter detailed his alleged improper relationship with a female employee
- Balboa Capital of Irvine, California, announced it is expanding its copier lease division, by hiring former employees of Great America Leasing.
-=Good Selling=-
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