Ricoh A4 MFP or Canon A4 MFP "That is the Question"

It doesn't happen that often....that you'll have two major manufacturing going to market with the same type of devices within a month or two of each other.  Canon is set to launch their  Black A4 MFP on or around 11/7/2011 and Ricoh is set to launch their Black A4 MFP in November also. 

The Canon 1700 series will have six different models ranging in speed from 32 pages per minute to 52 pages per minute.  These six models will be the 1750/1750if, 1740/1740if, and the 1730/if.  The if version comes with  standard PCL 5e/6 and PostScript 3 drivers, the ability to create searchable PDFs, along with a fax module. Color Send, is included with the imageRUNNER 1700 but you'll have to pay more for the better featured Universal Send.

The BIG deal with the Canon, it seems Canon 1700 will be the first to follow the A3 model cost per page in an A4 device.  For those of you that are not familiar with this, the A3 model cost per page model is when you do not have an AIO (All in cartridge) that houses the toner, the drum, the cleaning blade and the waste toner hopper.  The Canon 1700 will have a separate toner and drum cartridge that should support a low TCO (Total Cost of Ownership).  I haven't seen the cost per page yet, however I'm hoping this is the case.

The market is ripe for the picking if the cost per page is in line with Canon A3 MFP devices.  I don't think the imageRUNNER 1750 (52 ppm) will have the same cost per page as it's bigger brother Canon A4 MFP's that are 50 pages per minute.  I thinking it may be close, and if it is I see Canon with the ability to capture and take away clicks from the likes of Ricoh, Toshiba, HP, Sharp Konica Minolta, Kyocera and Xerox.

Some initial drawbacks for the Canon imageRUNNER if would be Postscript emulation, a non color GUI (Graphical User Interface) and only one paper tray and one by-pass tray is standard. 

Make no bones about it this system will be a force to be reckoned with, especially if TCO comes into play.

Right, this is a blog and I can't get too lengthy, so off we go with Ricoh....

"Copy Machine Sales" Copier Manufacturers Confuse Me

Question: How do copier companies make money? Answer: By putting ink or toner on paper. Very simple right?

In a recent press release by Xerox, "more than 70 percent of Xerox total revenue comes from sales of supplies and services -- also known as "post-sale."


A recent press release by Ricoh in Europe made this statement: Chief executive Nigel Palmer revealed that printers now account for about half of Ricoh’s revenue and he told resellers that a move towards selling them should be a priority.“If you are not already doing it, please do it quickly. Within two years, three quarters of sales will be printers,” he said.





The Big Lie?


I have an issue here, I keep reading all of the hype about "Going Green" saving paper, do more scanning, print two sided more often and the latest craze is "Print Management Solutions"

Hey, if you're in the business of putting ink or toner on paper then why are manufacturers such as Xerox, Ricoh, Canon, KonicaMinolta, Sharp, Kyocera, Oce and Toshiba pushing scanning solutions such as Document Management Software? Scanning documents and not copying them should decrease paper usage, save trees, save oil, and other resources right??? Well, not entirely true from what I've heard, in fact scanning solutions may actually increase the amount of paper you use! Fact is most people who need to review a document will print it first and then make notes or markups on the document.


Most of these pages will be printed to low cost printers that are located next to the user and have a higher cost per page than multifunctional copiers and almost all of the low end printers use AIO cartridges (All in One, toner, drum, developer unit), its estimated that half of these end up in the landfills. So, if we're using more paper, more ink and toner, and more cartridges how the heck are we "Going Green" and how are we saving resources?


I have a current customer that scans every document they receive, they then index and archive the documents. Before they started scanning their monthly volume of copies and prints was about 25,000 pages. One year later, their volume is now 34,000 pages per month!





"Going Green"


Here's a thought, most manufacturers have reclamation facilities that will accept spent cartridges. You can ship the empties back at no charge, why not implement some type of credit to the end user for returning all of the spent cartridges, the drum kits, and fuser kits. Once at the reclamation center, they can be rebuilt or recycled! Manufacturers may be able to capture more of these cartridge's and decrease the amount going to landfills.

Remember the first two statements? 70% of Xerox revenue if from supplies and service, Ricoh states that three quarters of sales will be printers.

Scanned documents migrate to lower end printers with a high cost per page. Whats the answer, Print Management software can re-direct print jobs to more efficient printers that have a lower TCO, and paper will never go away!





-=Good Selling=-

Why are MFP manufacturers not GREEN!

You've hear it over and over, it's all about capturing pages, especially in the SMB market place. So, why do MFP manufacturers like Canon, Xerox, Ricoh and Konica Minolta continue to manufacture stand alone laser printers that have a high per page cost with thier AIO cartdiges (All In One) and are not good for the environment?

Since I have sold Ricoh for so long, I'll start with a Ricoh MFP161, this unit can be purchased as just a copier, or fax/copier or a copier/printer/scanner/fax. This system also prints at 16 page per minute and can up to three paper source trays. Whats great about the MP161? The low cost of toner! The toner cost is .004 per page at retail. An Image Drum for the Ricoh MP161 is around $160 and has a yield of 45,000 pages which has a per page cost of .00355. Total per page cost at retail is around .00755. Oh, and by the way the toner cartridge is rated at 6% coverage.

Ricoh also sells the BP20 laser printer, which prints at 22 pages per minute, and can also have upto three paper sources. The Ricoh BP20 uses a AIO (All In One) cartridge that houses the toner and the drum. Retail cost for the cartridge is $124 and the yield is 5,000 pages based on 5% coverage. The retail cost per page is .0248 per page.

These numbers represent a savings of .01725 per page.

I realize that these per page costs do not include the fuser units, however I am going to give them a bye, because I think each one will negate the other. If the BP20 needs a fuser most customers will throw it (this really helps us GO GREEN) out because of the price and buy another printer, representing an increased cost to almost as much as the cost of the fuser replacement on the MP161.

Here's my spin for all of the MFP manufacturers, lets assume they all have the technology to implement a World Wide "GO GREEN" strategy. Take the existing MPF engine of the MP161 and sell it with out the scanning attachment (top part of the unit). Increase the print speed to 20 pages per minute or better. Hey, I'll be the first one to admit I have no clue what it costs to manufacture the MP161 engine or the BP20 laser printer. However if all of the manufacturers took the time to educate the buyers on Total Document Volume, Total Life Cycle Cost and the detrement to the enviroment from laser printers and AIO cartridges being discarded, they may have something.

I don't mean to rip one manufacturer with this, they all have the same philosphy in place when it comes to stand alone printers. I choose Ricoh products, becuase Ricoh is what I know best and believe they have excellent products. Canon, Xerox, Konica Minolta, Kyocera, anyone that is using AIO cartridges in stand alone laser printers is not helping us "Go GREEN", yes they all have recycling for the AIO cartidges, however at this time I do not believe any of them have a recycling for the laser printers nor their MFP's.

Will MFP's ever outsell standalone printers in this market?