1.2 Trillion Printed Pages Equals Good Times for all!

1,000,000,000,000, do what this number is?  If you guessed a billion, well you're wrong. It's one trillion and in 2015 IDC predicts the US printed page volume will reach 1.2 trillion pages! IDC also stated that growth is small at about 0.1%.

The IDC report also stated that MFP's are winning the print volume race, and total pages on MFP's are predicted to exceed 857 billion pages by 2015. 

Here's an paragraph with link so you can read the entire report:

Overall, printed page volume will remain steady despite a myriad of obstacles, including the introduction of green initiatives within a growing number of enterprise organisations; more widespread managed print services engagements; changing end-user behaviour patterns from young, digitally oriented workers; and a weak economy. The IDC report was published in September of 2011.

I've been one of those naysayers who don't think printed pages is going away anytime soon.  Especially not after I read a recent Press Release from Vista Partners stating that they had initiated coverage (have no clue what that means) Auxilio.  I know of Auxilio they are a public corporation that specializes in losing money with Managed Print Services for the health care industry.  I stated specializing in losing money because I had a short elevator talk with one of the execs of Auxilio.  A few months ago  I asked "When is Auxilio going to start turning a profit"?  He stated "We don't have to turn a profit because...", again it was a short elevator talk and all I can remember is the part "We don't have to turn a profit". WTF!

I'm under the impression that printed pages are moving, less pages may (I'm not so sure of this, due to I'm still a sales guy on the street and I'm in tune with my customers page volumes and I'm just not seeing any significant drops) be printed in the corporate office however more pages may come from print production systems, smaller MFP's in smaller offices and home offices and the recent introduction of some niche printing systems.  10 years ago it was almost impossible to find a copier/mfp or laser printer that could print on 80lb cover, gloss, coated or even textured stock.  Today most higher end MFP's can do this with ease, so you tend to think where did the pages come from.  Most likely they came from the decreasing page volumes of off-set presses. More companies are producing a print a wider variety of media than they ever did before!

What got me onto this kinda rant, is that I read an article today from the MFP report that stated "We’re seeing a new reality emerge in office imaging. There’s no need to agree on the exact downward slope of the curve or to highlight all the component trends beneath the surface. The bottom line is that office print volumes are fall- ing and will continue to do so. What matters now is how the MFP industry responds".

I'm thinking the reality is most people have no clue about page volumes, even the end users, talk to them at a meeting and ask them how many pages they print on their MFP's and laser printers on an annual basis and they'll shrug their shoulders and admit that they have no clue. 

Printed pages are not going away, they may be moving and your job is to find where they are moving and to provide the right solution.  To boot I could think of several cool features on MFP's that would actually increase page volumes (maybe someone needs to call me one time, right).  Seriously, we need to remember that the Apple or the IPAD WILL NOT BE responsible for the extinction of paper.

-=Good Selling=-