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Sunday, March 18, 2012

Toshiba Does its best David Blaine!

Last week we saw two major stories from Toshiba with the press release of copier/MFP that has disappearing toner (erasable), and then a program that will magically reformat your pre-printed pages along with claims to save toner and paper (Adobe Lean Print). Erasable toner, great idea, but who the heck wants to print in blue? Do you get the feeling that this is may be the last hurray for Toshiba?  What happens if Lean Print and Erasable Paper do not increase Toshiba’s MIF (machines in field)?

Existing Toshiba copiers will not be able to erase the toner on the paper, in order to have the erasable toner feature you’ll have to shell out some shekels for a new Toshiba MFP.  Plus, it’s been reported that a latent image will still remain on the page even after the toner has been removed.  Personally, I don’t think the Feds will be buying any of these systems. I’m not sold on either one of these new releases from Toshiba. It seems Toshiba has created some traction in recent weeks, but I doubt either of these new features will increase sales for the long term.  Adobe Lean Print at $99 per user seems a little pricing and what happens if you don’t like the way lean print will magically reformat your pages, you’ll have to print the documents again and again.  Where the heck is the savings now?   One of the videos that show the reformatting of twelve pages to four, Adobe Lean print reformats the single pages to three columns per page looking more like a news paper article.  You can get a better view here of what the pages look like.  I’m finding hard to believe that the font size will not be smaller from the original document.  I going to check give the 30 day trial a shot and see what happens, more importantly I’m trying to think of applications that I would use this for, as of right now I got nothing.
As far as the erasable toner goes, when was the last time you ran the same sheet of paper through a copy machine five times?  The Toshiba MFP system uses heat to remove the toner image, I can only think after using the same sheet of paper times there’s going to be some degrading of the paper. 
 Here's paragraph from House of Japan
"This is a special kind of toner that loses its color when heated, so this technology makes it look as if the printing has disappeared. With this system, one sheet of photocopy paper can be used at least five times, so this product combines economy with ecology."
So back to my initial thoughts, both of these releases have some WOW & Sizzle factor to them.  With Toshiba at a paltry 3% of the US market share I’m thinking it’s more of a flash in the pan and Toshiba may finally wave the white flag when it comes to manufacturing copiers.
-=Good Selling=-

8 comments:

  1. Erasable paper will be big in Schools and offices when printed pages do not contain confidential information.

    I have been using Adobe lean print for about a week now and I like it.

    You are dreaming if you think Toshiba is exiting the copier market in your lifetime.

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  2. SSG:

    Thanx for the reply! What would be the benefit for use in schools?

    Dreaming, it's always good to dream. I can also remember hearing that Ricoh will never buy Ikon.

    Art

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  3. Schools produce 1,000s of pages every day to help students learn info. At the end of each class, the students can hand that same piece of paper back in.

    Those pages where students mark on them, will be sent to the unusable tray.

    Currently Schools throw away a lot of reusable paper every day.

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  4. You're logic is flawed. The U.S. market is only one piece of the puzzle. Toshiba has the largest A3 market share in both India and China. Toshiba's U.S. market share in A3 is significantly higher than 3% anyway. That number is for the total printer/copier market. Toshiba does not manufacture A4 printers.

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  5. Anon:

    Can't see how my logic is flawed with US market. 3% is 3%. My information is from Gartner for 2010 placements in the US copier, market, so I guess you are stating that Gartner is wrong???

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  6. In Canada, Toshiba has just under 10% Market share as confirmed by the only industry source known as Jetro.

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  7. That's a nice Marketshare in Cananda, maybe I need to start thinking globaly about marketshare, wonder if there are published numbers for that.

    SSG, as always thanx for the reply and info!

    Art

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    ReplyDelete