New Jersey Gives Copiers a Bad Name

Deleting data from the hard drive
And you're to blame
New Jersey
You give copiers a bad name

Just a little rearranged lyrics from "You Gave Love a Bad Name" by New Jersey artist BonJovi. 

Just a few days ago the New Jersey Assembly voted in favor of Bill A1238 which basically states that the owner (business) or the lessor or the lessee of Digital Multifunctional Copy Machine "shall destroy, or arrange for the destruction of, all records (means any material recorded or preserved by any means) stored on a digital copy machine which was purchased by that business, and which is no longer to be retained by that business, by erasing or otherwise modifying those records to make the records unreadable, undecipherable, or nonreconstructive through generally available means". 

I believe A1238 still needs to be voted on by the NJ Senate in order to become law, the bill would take effect on the 60th day following the enactment.

Here we go, this new law does not cover any systems that were sold prior to the enactment and would only affect those systems that were sold or leased on or after the date of enactment.  New Jersey law makers have nothing else to do than to create a bill that was based on an expose from CBS news more than two years ago on multifunctional copiers that were already 5 years old?  In short that means these copiers were manufactured in 2005.  Since that expose from CBS news, all copier manufacturers have stepped up to the plate and offered new advanced security measures like overwriting the hard drive up to 9 times or event driven data destruction to destroy the data on the hard drives.

Do we really need a law for this?  Did NJ lawmakers not do their research on all of the new multifunctional copier offerings from copier manufacturers and see that they have addressed the issue?  Did they not think about protecting the data on the existing systems that are in the field? Did they forget about the tens of thousands of computer servers that are also owned or leased by businesses, and how a million or more pc's also.  Most of the computers and pc's are not resold and carted off to the land fill (sneak in at night, grab a few servers or pc's and you'll never know what you'll find).  Data is data whether the images are stored on a copier hard drive, a pc, server, removal drives, back up drives and cell phones.   BTW, shouldn't this law also pertain to laser printers that have a hard drive?

Top 7 Solutions @ Transform 2012 PretonSaver @ #2

Big isn't always better right?  While on the Exhibitor Floor I came across PretonSaver. PretonSaver is a SaaS software solution that offers an innovative way to lower your fixed toner costs with toner optimization. 

Here's a quote from the brochure I picked up "Pixel Optimization is Preton's patent-pending technology that optimizes toner consumption by identifying and deleting overlapping pixels. By intelligently removing unnecessary pixels. Pixel Optimizer saves as much as 35% in toner and ink without visibly impacting quality"

At the booth Preton had sample books printing with using their toner optimization software, so far I've only had the chance to review the 10% toner optimization.  The booklet showed the print with zero optimization and then 10% optimization.  Hey, 10% seemed darn good.  The PretonSaver will allow MPS vendors or end users to extend the life of the toner cartridges. Thus creating additional profit for the MPS provider or additional savings for the end user.
As a subscription service, PretonSaver can comfortably fit into the pay-as-you-print pricing schemes of MPSs. The pricing for the PretonSaver service is based on the same chargeable clicks that an MPS is charging to customers.

Features at a Glance:

• Toner and ink optimization
• Print reports and statistics
• Print rules and policies
• Page coverage reporting
• Remote meter collection
• Real-time device service alerts
• Supplies level information
• Automated reports

I was also able to get some additional information about PretonSaver.  PretonSaver installs on the server, and the individual users can control the amount of of savings they desire.  Quality won't be degraded with up to 30% text and 10% photo (variable).   All in all, the samples in the book were greatly appreciated since anyone can claim a savings, with the book I was able to see the changes with the print optimizer software.  Preton also has a pretty cool ROI calculator, you'll need to give them your email address however I think that's a fair trade off for the value of the report.  Here's the link PretonSaver ROI Calculator.

If you're looking for a way to increase profits and or extend the life of your consumables I would definitely check out PretonSaver and see what they have to offer. You can also download a FREE trial here.

BTW, PretonSaver is not an advertiser for the Print4Pay Hotel, just a really cool solution that sets you apart from your compeititors.

-=Good Selling=-

Top 7 Solutions @ Transform 2012 Conference "Intellinetics @ #1"

Cost Per Page Billing for Document Management Services

Photiizo’s Global Transform has concluded for 2012.  I'll be attending the conference in Scottsdale for 2013. 

About two months ago I wrote a blog about "Managed Documents the Next Big Thing" which I related to Managed Print.  The thought was to have an MFP connect to the cloud, and then scan documents directly to a cloud based document management system or a folder in the cloud.  After the documents were there the dealer would then manage the documents to have them indexed, OCR’d.  The dealer could then charge either a monthly fee for the service or a click charge that could be added to the existing maintenance agreement.  The benefit to the customer would be no upfront cost, no training (except to retrieve the documents), no internal IT support, and no maintenance fees.  The dealer could then remain “more sticky” in the account and offer the value added service.

While at the Transform Conference I ran across an Enterprise Content Management solution that was right up my alley.  The Intellivue ECM platform from Intellenetics is available as a cost- per-page model where you pay a low monthly fee based on the number of pages you use to the software to manage.  There is no upfront cost!  Billing would be enabled on a cost per page model, there would be one cost per page for a black scan and one cost per page (higher than the black cost) for a color scan, the reasoning for the higher cost for the color is that the color scan created a larger file size. With this SaaS solution a company can realize and immediate return on investment from the first month Intellivue is deployed.

Another excellent benefit to the dealer is that they can charge professional services for the installation and training to the end user. I’m more of a fan of the dealer performing the indexing of the documents for the end user and I’m not entirely sure this can be accomplished with Intellivue.  I will be making a call to them to see if there is a way this can be done.

The concept is for the user to scan2file from the MFP, the user would then index the file and submit to the ECM on the cloud (this is the part I’d like to see the dealer do so you it could be a seem less solution for the customer and you would be able to bill professional services).  Intellivue then retains the document for Archival in the Cloud or Premise Solution.  Intellivue would then create a monthly total of Pages in the Archival tabulate the monthly bill based on the cost per page.  Intellivue can then feed the monthly page totals and cost to the MPS billing software (I’m hoping that this will also work with MFP billing software).  You MPS software would then generate the total bill including line items for hardware, supplies, services and Intellivue.  Royalties are paid to the reseller from the ECM revenues collected.

The power of this solution is that there is no upfront cost and I see Intellivue as a tremendous value for the SMB customer.  For too long the SMB customer has shied away from content management due to the upfront cost, the training, the IT infrastructure and the thought that they would have to dedicate and employee to operate the software.

BTW, this is the first blog in a series of 7 for the top 7 solutions at Transform 2012 Conference.

-=Good Selling=-

Transform 2012 Conference "Hotter Than Ever"

Day one had passed and then day two, and overall, I'm impressed with the event. I actually ran into a few Print4Pay Hotel members and finally after all of these years got to meet Lee Rummage from RJ Young. When I tell you the Transform Conference was HOT, well it was that and then some, just about 1PM there was a huge brush file that developed only a mile away on Route 4.  Traffic is bad enough in the Orlando area and this fire had four or five choppers in the sky and flames that were reaching 30 feet high (I'll be posting the video on the p4p forums in the next few days).

On Wednesday evening Oki hosted the evening reception @ Hiltons Signature Island. Food, drinks and networking, at this time I also had to the chance to meet Greg Walters (Death of the Copier) and now the newly elected President of the MPSA. I also ran across many new contacts and believe it or not many readers of the mfpsolutions blog.

I also had the chance to speak with Tim Brien from Oki, Lou Stricklin, Carl Mica and Jim D'emidio (President) all from Muratec. On another note representatives from Ricoh, Canon, Xerox, Oki, Lexmark and KonicaMinolta were in attendance. however there were no shows from Sharp and Toshiba....think about it.

On Thursday morning Ken Schmidt (Former Director of Harley-Davidson) presented and engaging keynote address about customers and how you need to break the mold and have them start talking about your company. Thursday evening we were rounded up and attended an event at the Orlando Harley Davidson dealership. Boy did that bring back memories of my 1980 Harley Roadster/Sportster.

There were also 16 different talk track seminars slated for Thursday and another 13 for Friday. I didn't have the chance to attend any of these because I was busy on the show floor along with a Press Luncheon/Press Tour and still had to close my month since we close on the 24th of the month.

I was also able to talk with Adobe about Leanprint (if your a Print4Pay Hotel member we have something special from Adobe in the next week or so), Preton about their SaaS toner optimazation software, Great America with Collabrance, Print Audit with their Premier program, ESP with an awesome new product that will allow you to do an enery assessment for all devices that are plugged in (even water coolers and refridgerators), Falcon Technologies with an awesome Cloud Ipad Sales Software app, BEI Service Providers, Oki and their Total Managed Print Solution and Intellenetics which has an awesome Cloud Based Document Management System that is......so unique that I'll have a blog dedicated to the solution.

Other partners in attendance American PrinterWare, BTA, ChannelEyes, CompTia, Digital Gateway, DocSolid, ENX Magazine, FMAudit, HP, In-Map, Intel, Intronics, Genius Bytes, Global Printer Services, LMI, Lexmark, Mirrored Image, MPSA, MWAi, N-Able, Newfield IT, Nuance, ODC, Parts Now, PREO, PrintFleet, PowerSource, Ricoh, Supplies Network, Synnex, The Imaging Channel, Xerox and YSoft.

I'm a copier guy, never really got into MPS (cause my dealership only dabbled in it), but like everyone else I know what MPS is about. MPS is facing the same set of issues as the MFP industry, so called declining page volumes, lower profits and how can we change in order to be prepared for the future.

I can see the convergence of elite/hybrid MFP and MPS dealers/companies that are or will make the transformation to MSP (Managed Service Provider). So while a lot of the talk track seminars were centered around MPS there were also a few that centered around MSP.

So, far I've enjoyed every minute of this show, I also wondered why there were not more MFP dealers here. We all put toner on paper right?

Forget about ITEX, forget about the Dealer shows, if you want the real spin on what's going on with the imaging industry (remember we put toner on paper) you all need to make the trip to Scottsdale, AZ next year. Whether your engaged with MPS, or MFP's we all put toner on paper. Photizo is committed to helping those that put toner on paper to become more successful, more profitable and enlightening us on the latest trends and technologies that affect our business model.

If you're considering going to a show next year I would highly recommend the Transform 2013 which will be held in Scottsdale, AZ next year.

By the numbers from Photizo:

Global Imaging Market:

$120B global hardware market revenue predicted in 2015 (forecast 360, June 2011)
1% rate of global hardware market revenue decline between 2010 and 2015 (forecast 360, June 2011)
$118B size of global supplies market in 2015 (forecast 360, December 2012)
2% growth rate of global supplies market between 2010 and 2015 (forecast 360, December 2012)
$78B global MPS market revenue in 2015 (2011 MPS Market Size, Share and Forecast Report)
20% rate of global MPS Market revenue growth between 2010 and 2015 (2011 MPS Market Size, Share and Forecast Report)
9 out of 10 most rapid MPS expansions are taking place in less developed regions like Asia Pacific, and Latin America.

More MPS:
$725 average cost per year, per employee to print (pre-MPS)
30% average percent of savings after implementing an MPS program
60% average reduction of hardcopy fleet carbon emissions after implementing MPS
50% percentage of office printing revenue expected to be under MPS contract by 2014
3rd rank of MPS engagements in relation to other IT projects
12% amount of IT budget represented by printing

Stay tuned for my top 7 solutions I liked from the Transform 2012 show.

-=Good Selling=-

10 Phone Cold Calling Tips for Copiers & MFP's

It's getting late and I need to get though this for everyone.  After 30 years of calling for appointments some would say I'm an expert and just like in the other blog I wrote, naw I'm no expert I've just gotten beat up so many times that I've learned well.... a lot.  Below are the tips and I hope they work for everyone too.

1. Don't slouch when you're on the phone,  keep a good posture and good position to the phone so your voice is clean.

2. Have a great attitude even if your dog got run over in the morning by a bus, just kidding attitude is so important, enthusiasm is contagious and by being upbeat you'll come across as a pro.

3.  Get rid of the ums and ahs, have planned script and memorize it so you don't studder.

4. Always be prepared to talk to Mr. or Mrs. Right, it's not often that we get through however if you do, you'll want to put your best foot forward!

5.  Break the ice with the gate keeper, remember you're not the only one making sales calls, and the gate keepers job is not to let you through, however you can break the ice by mentione what a nice or lousy day it is and make sure you get the name of the gate keeper for future calls. If the company has a long name you can also state "Wow, that's a lot to get through and it was a great job".  More often than not over time you maybe able to develop a rapport with the gate keeper.

6. We all know this one, calling before the gate keeper gets in the office (meaning before 8AM or after 5PM).

7. If you're stuck in address book and you're tried to get to Mr. or Mrs. Right and it's gotten you no where, then dial any extension and when someone picks up tell them you dialed the wring extension and ask to be transferred to the Mr. or Mrs. Right, in some cases the call looks like an internal call and can get answered by you know who!

8. Pick up the phone on Saturday (OMG, did I say Saturday), yup Saturday and sometimes you'll get lucky and have Mr. or Mrs Right answer the phone. Remember "The hardier you work the luckier you get".

9. In some cases I will send a mailer first, and then an email (if I can get it) and then I'll make the call.  Kinda prepares Mr. or Mrs. Right and if interested they will take your call.

10. Making 50 calls a week is a hobby (wonder where I hear that), we need to make as many as we can. This is not easy but we need to remember that ours is a numbers game and we need to roll through the dials. If you can get em done 100 calls a week or more should be the norm.

Bonus! 11. Don't BS the gate keeper always remain courteous and thoughtful of their job, on a few occasions gate keepers have actually stated that my call was the most polite sales call they have had in awhile!

It's not easy, but it's not that hard either, yes there is a lot rejection, voice mail, not interested, hang ups, LMTFA but it's part of what we do.  Above all have fun with the calls!! 

-=Good Selling=-

Selling MFP's "Making All the Calls"

Mondays are one of our primary phone days and to tell you the truth I pretty much don't care for calling on Mondays. I'll doddle and procrastinate to about 9:30AM before I pick up the phone.  I've been cold calling on the phone for 30 some years, so I guess I'm an expert at telemarketing right?  No, not really, I've just been beat up enough times to know when to call and when not to call. 

Before I get into my tips (by the way, I'll have the tips in my next blog) I'll tell you about something that happened to me this week on the phones.  There is a certain Direct Mail account in my territory and about 4 years ago I had cold called this company. It wasn't until about a year later that I entered them into my data base and started on a regular call pattern.  I had the name of the "right" person and roughly after 3 calls I go through to "Mr. Right", we had a long conversation probably in the ten minute range.  The potential customer told me about a bad experience and then I asked a few questions about different media that Mr. Right seemed interested in.  Actually I thought he was extremely interested in one of my solutions.  I was not able to set an appointment, but was confident that I would be able to call and schedule and appointment so I could present my solution.  Boy, was I ever wrong....three years later, 7 mailers, and 26 voice mail messages and I had squat! But, you know me, I pretty much don't give up, ever!  This week I called and was prepared to leave a voice mail as usual, however I was surprised because Mr. Right picked up the dam phone!! 

I stated this is Art Post with ......... and asked him if he remembered me?  Mr. Right stated "Yes, I could I not, you call me almost every month". With that I gave a short review of what we spoke about years ago (it's good to keep notes, but at this point I had pretty much memorized the first phone conversation that we had).  I closed for an appointment as was rewarded with one!

Mind you the appointment has come and gone, I didn't sell anything, however I was able to present my services, knowledge and expertise.  Before leaving I had taken a tour of the operation, identified every hardware system by age, lease, own and asked about their needs in the near future. I also closed more importantly how often to follow up.  The last thing I want to do is call every month again for three years.  So, while the appointment didn't out any money in my pocket it did help better understand the customers needs and what he does like and doesn't like with his present equipment.  I fell I'm pretty much on track to at least present a quote in the near future.

The moral of the story, if it's a big enough account that you'd like to get into, don't ever give up. Don't put them off and bury them for 5 or 6 months on your call list.  Make sure you make the dials every month and sooner or later you'll get the appointment.  This is not the first time this has happened to me, however it's been awhile since the last one.  Don't ever give up and remember "Winners Make Things Happen and Losers Wait for Things to Happen" along with "The Hardier I Work the Luckier I Get"!

-=Good Selling=-

Ricoh "Where's the ICE"?

Ice Ice Baby, Ice Ice Baby
All right stop, Collaborate and listen
Ice is back with my brand new invention
Something grabs a hold of me tightly

First four lines of "Ice Ice Baby" by Vanilla Ice, which brings me to Ricoh ICE (Integrated Cloud Environment)  solution or the lack of it. I was floored when I read the first three lines of the lyrics and I was tempted to change the lyrics for this blog.

 Last May 2011 at the Ricoh Vision Dealer Meeting we were told about Ricoh new ICE solution.  The solution in short would consist of three cloud solutions that would have an annual fee (need to make it monthly guys), the three packages were Silver and you get scan2email, scan2evernote (evernote provides it own OCE & searchable pdf), the GOLD packages adds scan2google docs, scan2box of OCR and Excel files (good for only 2 users and 4GB of space, PLATINUM increases users to 20 and adds an additional 16GB of space.

Last May Ricoh gave us a preview of ICE at the 2011 Ricoh Convergence Dealer Show,  I didn't go to the booth and I should have because I'm thinking ICE  was not even running at the time (I could be wrong). If you're going to run ICE or any othr Cloud solutions on a Ricoh MFP you'll need order the browser unit for $170,  I'm thinking that this should be standard with all of the systems, but a recent rumor had told me that the official launch is now slated for November of this year and not a Convergence which is set for the first week of June in Vegas.

I've been told that Ricoh Europe has had the browser units running on the European Ricoh MFP's for over a year now. I had know of one solution provider UDOCX is already supported Ricoh and Xerox systems with a "Cloud Based Document Processing Service" and today I just found Fabasoft which offers Cloud Integration to Ricoh MFP's.

I believe that Cloud Integration of MFP's offers end users a multitude of choices and services that can make companies just as productive as their employees.  While I'm at it I also believe that there needs to be open open operating systems for all MFP's.  Manufacturers needs to adopt the Andriod OS and I think you'll see terrific apps that will be developed for MFP's.

But, what I really wanted to talk about is that there are applications available right now that will allow your MFP to have some sizzle.  Dropbox, it's free, you can get 2GB of storage and guess what?  You can set this up as a scan2dropbox  folder right on the MFP. It's awesome, no more scanning to folder or scanning to email or emailing the document back to myself.  Wait.... Dropbox also has an Android app!  How cool is that, all of my files on my phone!  Walk up to the MFP press my dropbox button and away it goes.  How about adding a PS option to your customers MFP's, include it in the deal and make sure they set it up.  Then you'll be able to print from your dropbox account when you're at the customers office .

How about the UDOCX solution it's available in the US, it's not expensive and you'll have scan2sharepoint, cloud printing and scan2fax!
Point is, for most of us that are selling Ricoh or Savin, we're get our butts kicked with similar solutions that are already in place from other manufacturers.  Take the time to check out Dropbox, UDOCX and Fabasoft you'll be glad you did and you'll be on your way to selling cloud solutions.

Betcha I don't get an invite next year either :)

-=Good Selling=-

10 Tips for Recession Proofing Your Business

I emailed Chris Polek CEO @ Polek & Polek a few weeks ago to see if he would like to be one of our Guest Bloggers and Chris emailed me back with the article below. I can remember doing business with Polek & Polek back in the eighties when I had my own dealership. Polek & Polek is also a long time supporter for the Print4Pay Hotel forums and if you're not familar with them, just click on the banner ad for a trip to their web site.

1)            Always Run Your Company Leaner Than You Would Like Especially during the good times. When The Great Recession hit in 2008 most companies were forced to start running their companies leaner. Downsizing was painful, and as companies emerged from the recession they discovered they were able to still accomplish results with less. Many owners made remorseful comments such as: “I should have been running my company this lean even when times were good!”

 How do you know if you’re running your company too lean? When you start to hear your em-ployees complain (as long as they are focused on doing the right things), then you have probably

hit the point where you can run your company as lean as possible. If you are not hearing any of
your employees complain, that is good sign that you can run your company leaner; start looking
for what resources that you can live without.

What about areas that you don’t want to cut back? Any of the resources that help keep custom-

ers, and grow our customer base. We can grow the share of our customers, or add new ones; I
advocate doing both. Also, your top people who perform well, and are always there through
thick and thin, don’t cut back on that. Support those people, and give them plenty of recogni-
tion; even during the tough times. Everything outside of that should be considered discretionary
costs.

You need to relentlessly run your company lean, even during the good times. This will allow you

to be productive and efficient. You can build reserves to be prepared for the tough times.

2)            Customer Loyalty

Will they continue to do business with you, and do they (not will they) give referrals? If you can
answer yes and yes, that is the definition of a loyal customer, and you need to guard those cus-
tomers with your life! Do you keep track of the customers that you lose versus the ones that you
keep? If not, you need to take immediate action on doing that, and resolve to improve that
number in 2012 from where it is in 2011.

It is not just about finding customers, it is also about keeping them. The more customers that
you can keep improve your chances for overall growth!

3)            Identify Your Company’s Top 3 Goals/Objectives

If you want your people to be accountable, it will never happen unless they are measured against
goals. The goals need to be specific. Increase revenue in 2012 is not a goal. Grow revenue 10%
in 2012 versus 2011 is a goal. You need to identify the Top 3 Critical Goals in your business for
2012, make them specific, and everyone in the organization must know what they are. You want
to do that so your employees won’t spend time working on things that are less important. Al-
ways ask your employees: How is this project helping us achieve our critical objectives?”

4)            Managing Employee Performance

I believe if we were all honest, we would agree that we have a few employees that just can’t
seem to get it done. It is not the most popular problem to deal with, but you have to deal with it
head on. If you don’t, you end up increasing your cost structure because you have people work-
ing for you that are not getting done what you need to get done. When times get tough, you
look at potentially downsizing your work force, and you may not have needed to do that if the
people working for you produced the results that you need. Be tough on performance, and
make sure that you take care of your people along the way.

5)            Sales Productivity

When you break it down, sales is all about the numbers, and you want to be as productive as you
can be. You need to know at a moment’s notice which people on your team are on target for
their quota or not, so that you can work to consistently hit those quotas. Get senior manage-
ment involved to help close important new business. Also, make sure that your people are only
pursuing business that they can win.

Good Copier Gone Bad!

A few weeks ago I came across an article on the web that was titled "TD Bank attorneys blame copier for ‘high risk’ error".

I thought I'd give it a read because after 33 years selling copiers,  and I've never seen a copier make a mistake, or not until I read this article.

Anyway seems TD Bank was being sued by a group of investors because TD Bank had loaned money to some dude in Texas that had perpetrated a Ponzi scheme.  One of the key pieces of evidence was a Bank form called a Customer Due Diligence Form or CDD.  This form would have been generated when the dude from Texas started banking with TD.

During the trial TD Bank had produced a form that had a black bar across the top of the page. The form with the black bar was used to question the witnesses in the case.  After the trial had concluded the attorney for the investors noticed that the same Customer Due Diligence Form had been used in another case, however that form was in color and there was a bright red bar across the top of the page and the words "High Risk" in white (knockout) letters.  The investors attorney wanted TD Bank to be penalized for the error. 

However TD Bank argued that the error was not material to the outcome of the case because the words "High Risk" was used in other parts of the CDD form.

TD also stated “The printing and copying process inadvertently blackened all of the words in all of the colored headers of the CDD, including not only the words "high risk," but also the other words in those headers. We sincerely regret this copying error,”  I'm claiming BS!

WTF, Memjet Partners with Fuji/Xerox, Canon/Oce & Toshiba

I was surprised to say the least!  While reading through the Drupa Press Releases (for those who don't know, DRUPA is the worlds largest print & imaging show. It's held once every four years in beautiful Dusseldorf, Germany.  I like to call it the Olympics of Print & Imaging) I read that Fuji/Xerox, Canon/Oce and Toshiba have partnered with Memjet to produce wide format systems that will incorporate Memjets Waterfall print head.

Fuji Xerox will integrate Memjets Waterfall printhead into a 42 inch roll feed wide format system for printing technical and production graphics.  Up to 1600x1600 dpi resolution. 1600x1600 will print at 150mm per second and lower resolution will print at 300mm per second.  What!  mm per second?  WTF is that?  A quick conversion will tell us that 25.4 mm equals one inch. Dang at 300mm per second you'll get full color output at 11.8 inches per second!  Thats' fast! The video on the left is the Fiji/Xerox unit at Drupa  Awesome!
Not to be outdone, Toshiba has also partnered with Memjet.  Here's a snippet from the Press Release:

Under the partnership, Toshiba TEC Corporation will initially work to integrate Memjet components into a Multi-Function Peripheral (MFP) product targeted for the office market. The MFP will feature a scanner, photocopier and color printer that produces high-quality color pages at 60 pages per minute, thanks to Memjet's revolutionary page-wide print head, controller chip, software and ink. A future MFP product co-developed by both companies is being exhibited at drupa, the world's largest print industry event in Dusseldorf, Germany, in the Memjet booth, Hall 5, E28.

So, while Fuji/Xerox and Canon/Oce are focusing their efforts on wide format, Toshiba will concentrate with incorporating the technology with MFP's.  I haven't heard of anyone writing about or seeing the "future" MFP at Drupa yet.  Wish I was there, maybe in four years, right?

Now Canon/Oce has developed a device called "Project Velocity" and it seems this will be an Oce wide format system that will also use the Memjet Waterfall print head.  In a recent press release it was stated that there would be a working wide format system on preview at Drupa for printing maps and posters at a speed of 500AO format sheets. I'm not even going to look that up. It's fast!  This system is reported to house six rolls of paper.

I've been following Memjet and Silverbrook Technologies for sometime.  Recently some of their print heads have shown up in print devices that were more the size of an A4 printer.  I've only seen one and all I can say is that the user was excited about the speed but..... let me put it this way there was an issue with the color.  However, with partnering with the like of Xerox, Canon and Toshiba and the possibility of having color matching rips, I'm thinking the sky is not the limit any more for Memjet.   

-=Good Selling=-

Xerox ColorQube "Rebuttal"

Can you believe the Xerox ColorQube has been around for almost three years!!!

About three years ago I posted four or five blog about the ColorQube.  For one of the blogs I downloaded the operators manual and with help and notes from other Print4Pay Hotel members I posted Xerox ColorQube "Reveal".   Just the other day I had a response from ANON, I'm not fun of ANONS since they tend to come in all sorts of shapes, sizes and in some cases I believe they were using mind altering drugs when they posted a reply. REALLY, if you're gonna post something log in and don't hide behind ANON! 

Below I posted the comments that ANON left and then I submitted my rebuttal, ENJOY!

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post Xerox ColorQube "Reveal"":

ANON: Fuzzy photos, and difficulty with fine lines and small text – Test your own company samples at your local Xerox demo facility to validate. Our install base since May of 2009 has the Colour Qube in many engineering firms that demand excellence in image quality. Most of their colour drawings have many fine lines and small text and they trust the Color Qube engine for them. If any image quality issues come up you can always place a service call.

Me: This true for any multifunctional system that if you’re having problems with reproducing images to call service. The issues seems to be with very small fonts, check that the holes in the e & a are not filled in or have blasting around them.

ANON: Does NOT support coated stocks of any kind (issue with wax adhering to surface) – The Color Qube can support stocks up to 220 gsm or 80lb cover, which is a media thickness most laser machines are rated up to. Coated stocks are usually only used in print shops for business cards or specialty jobs. Typically customers with laser machines will buy heavy coated stocks to create better colour quality documents. The Color Qube delivers the same high quality image quality on any thickness of stock so using coated stocks to achieve colour quality becomes irrelevant.

Me: It seems you may not know what coated stock is! 80lb cover is NOT coated stock! Coated stocks are used in many corporations, associations and organizations that have graphic arts department not necessarily for business cards. I agree that customers will buy heavy coated stocks for better color quality, the point of the matter is you are stating thickness of stock and have never addressed that the ColorQube will print on coated stock. Address the issue man, don’t dance around the edges!

ANON: Sometimes banding appears in prints, meaning lines of light color or no color, and end user may choose the “Full Banding Fix” on the control panel, which will take 8 minutes to kick out test pages, and waste wax until complete – All machines including laser and solid ink may eventually have some sort of colour issue and instead of placing a service call right away whenever there is a problem and waiting two hours to be fixed, the Color Qube gives users the power to get up and running in 8 minutes – “Full Banding Fix”, 6 minutes – “Ink Smears” or 90 seconds “Light Lines”. No worry of wasting wax because you have an unlimited supply of it included in your service contract. Your trainer will show you these common quick fixes for most issues that come up. You always can just place a service call if any image quality issue comes up.

MFP Wars & The Plain Paper Copier Industry

Most evenings I'll do a little bit of cruising around the web searching for copier information.  I ran across a white paper written by William R. Bolton in 1995 titled "The Plain Paper Copier Industry". 

Basically the paper was an outline of the plain paper copier industry up until 1994 or 95.  I used this paper to research a blog "Top 19 Old Copier Manufacturers That Faded Away".

Just the other day  I had an Anon (Anonymous) response to the blog I wrote for the "final five", it seems I ticked someone off because I projected that Sharp would not be one of the final five left in the industry.  ANON pointed out that although the blog was a nice read, they thought that my projection of Sharp was not correct because Sharp had just started operations of a 2nd manufacturing plant in China that was capable of producing 250,000 MFP's per year.  I responded with the fact that I saw the press release that Sharp is gearing up for the anticipated of more demand, but I think it's more for the Chinese Market Place. Here's the press release.  I'm also taking a guess that since the Great Flood in Thailand and the fact that one of Sharps copier manufacturing plants is located in the area of the Great Flood.  The Sharp factory was not damaged however Sharp had problems with securing parts from other suppliers that were affected.
Which brings me to back to a certain paragraph in the white paper.  History repeats its self right.  The white paper predicted that only 7 to 8 copier manufacturers would be left in the global market place by 1997.  Let's see if we can get this right: 
Xerox, Ricoh, Sharp, Canon, Toshiba, Oce, Mita, Konica, Panasonic and Minolta.  This would be 11 copier manufacturers that were players in 1994.  I did not include Kodak due to the fact that their plain paper copier line was OEM'd by Canon.  I can't remember when but Konica & Minolta merged thus leaving 8 manufacturers somewhere in 2002.