Top 5 Picks from BTA Winter Break "Muratec MFX-3530 Reveal"

With the Northeast be crippled with a snowstorm, I was able to stay in sunny Orlando for an additional day after the BTA Winter Break.

This weekend Office Equipment Dealers flocked to the BTA Winter Break in Orlando for a two day event.  I'd like to thank BTA Southeast for the awesome event they produced. 

At every event I look for a new product or a new software or a service that will spark my interest.  One of these products is the new Muratec MFX-3530 A4 MFP. 

The new MFX-3530 is the flagship of Muratec's A4 MFP devices.  But instead of just writing down the specs of this new MFP, I'd like to point out some of the features that make the MFX-3530 your go to device when competing against other MFP's from the likes of Xerox, Canon, Sharp, Toshiba and Kyocera.

First on my list is the importance of PCL5 printer driver.  It was not until about a year ago that I realized how important it is to have the PCL5 print driver. This is going to be plain and simple,  if your MFP supports PCL5 then you have the ability to add third party solutions like Typehaus, which will give you the ability to create electronic forms.  Some of the other A4 competitors do not offer a pcl5 driver for their systems.

Second on my list is the scanning speed of the Muratec MFX-3530, 40 pages per minute at 300dpi in color.  Many of the other competitors A4 devices state their scan speeds at 200 dpi.  Since scanning is playing an important role in the office now. I will state the scan speed of the system before ever mentioning the print speed.

Third is the 80 pages DADF document feeder that will scan two sided documents in a single pass.  Prospects like this feature because they are always wary of their originals getting jammed or destroyed.

The four item I'd like to point out is ScanTag which allows users to

BTA Winter Break 2013 Reveal

Day one is over and thank you for that!

It all started for me last night wondering if my flight out of Newark, NJ was going to be cancelled due to the snowpocalypse that hit the northeast today. My flight was delayed for about 45 minutes and I arrived in sunny and warm Orlando about 11AM.  A quick ride to the Rosen Shingle Creek Resort and then another ride to Rosen Centre Hotel placed me there is time to catch the keynote speaker.

Our keynote speaker was Martin Brodigan CEO of Ricoh Americas.  Martin spoke for about 45 minutes about a services led approach that our industry has a whole needs to embrace.   A couple of interesting points that Martin pointed out where:

Where the Industry is Going:

• The affect is greater than first predicted, with the firms new "Tablet Demand & Disruption" survey showing that corporate printing has declined by 16% due to both tablet adoption and company measures to curtail printing (Morgan Stanley).

A recent survey of 700 US tablet users reveals 46% now print less and 41% argued that printing less was a "main benefit: of tablet adoption.

• The worldwide mobile worker population is set to increase to 1.19 billion in 2013, accounting for 34.9% of the workforce. The U.S. will remain the most highly concentrated market for mobile workers with 75% of the workforce being mobile for 2013 (IDC)
• The average mobile worker carries 3.5 devices (Forbes)
• Employers are now actively promoting the expansion of their mobile workforce and technology is enabling continuous communication with outside employees outside of the office (Telework Coalition)

Martin also made mention that they (Ricoh) had not seen a decline of 16% in printing.  He also went on to point out that partners like Ricoh were responding by offering programs to dealers like the Ricoh CHAMPS program that would allow dealers to go wider and deeper in their existing accounts with business process solutions. Martin then took the time to answer questions from BTA members.

The BTA format is actually pretty awesome,  BTA members, and sponsors are all in the same room which allows BTA members easy access after every break to go and meet with the sponsors of the show.  The education sessions are maybe 1 hour tops and then a 30 minute break, so there is more than enough time over the two day event to network with other members, and to follow up with any business that needs to be addressed.

I was impressed with the amount of dealers that were not from the Southeast, I'm guessing that there were others that thought a trip to Florida in February is not a bad idea.

Over the next few days, I'll be blogging about the top 5 solutions or products from the BTA sponsors that caught my attention.    BTW, if you're not a BTA member, well....you should be. BTA does an excellent job with these events as well as their support for on going education programs for dealers.

-=Good Selling=-

BTA Winter Break " Office Dealer Retreat to Orlando"

The Business Technology Association's (BTA) Southeast district will host it's annual Winter Break event at the Rosen Centre Hotel in Orlando on February 8th and 9th of this year.

This will be my second BTA district event and I'm looking forward to getting the heck out of New Jersey for a few days and enjoy some decent weather.  Registration starts at Noon on the 8th and at 1PM Martin Brodigan CEO of Ricoh Americas Corp will kick off the even with the keynote presentation.

I'm a big fan of these events, and not just for the networking with other dealers and vendors. I'll also get the chance to sit in on 5 Educational Sessions.

Presenters for this event will be John Hamilton, President of Service Strategies Corp and lead a presentation for "Why is Service Quality Difficult to Manage?

Doug Johnson, Senior VP of Supplies Network will speak about "MPS Operational Excellence-The Key to MPS Profitability"

Milton Bartley, President & CEO of Image Quest will enlighten us with "adapting Leadership to Capitalize with Managed Services"

Sally Brause, Director of Human Resources Consulting of Great America Financial Services will present "You Be the Judge: How Would You Resolve These Challenging Human Resources Issues?"

In addition we'll also be captivated with Greg Walters and Jennifer Shutwell of Walters & Shutwell for "Parlaying MPS & Mobility".

The event will end at 6PM on Satuday and there is also an evening event for the BTA members.  Keep in mind that you don't have to be a BTA member in order to attend, yes it will cost a few extra dollars however it is money well spent.  BTA is your Association that supports Dealer initiatives, education, legal services and much more.  I recommend you take a trip here to learn more about the event and more about how BTA can help your Dealership.

-=Good Selling=-

BTA's Capture the Magic Dealer Event

Top 5 (#1) Products/Solutions A BTA EAST Grand Slam Event

I'm going to go over the first one of my top five picks for the BTA East Grand Slam Event was that was held last week in White Plains, NY. 

I've spoken about it and everyone else is also suggesting the need for office equipment dealers need to diversify from just selling copiers and printers and no one states it better than "Old Glory" from the Print4Pay Hotel forums,  Peter Drucker quote before, "Every company needs to prepare for the total abandonment of everything that it does." This is probably no truer anywhere else than it is with our industry".

Number #1 on my list at the BTA East Grand Slam Event

First off is Universal Laser Systems, in a sea of dealer tables there was "big red", and since I'm a hardware guy at heart,"big red" caught my attention.  At first I thought "big red" (I'm going to call it big red because the system does not have a name just a model number) was some type of futuristic printer.  Even after the first two minutes of the conversation I thought the system would fire a laser beam at a sheet of paper and produce color images on the page without the use of toner.  The Universal Laser System will acts as a big printer, however it's what the print does with the laser beam.  The laser beam is used to cut (die cut). mark,  engrave and create photographic images on virtually any type of media!  

My first thought is that this system would make an awesome on-demand puzzle maker.  But I was then handed a sample of images that were etched on wood, plastic, metal, glass and an ipad.  Think of the possibilities for producing ad specialty products on demand, or even placing a few of these in malls or resort areas!   Now, it's been a few weeks since the show and I'm thinking the system I saw was in the $15-$20k range, and at $300 to $400 per month on a lease, this system has some potential!  I was told you can hold margins, and was also told there are no consumables except for the different types of media. 

So, if you're looking to diversify and you're not sold on Managed Network Services, Business Process Optimization or selling boring on-line back up services you've seriously have got to check out this product!

Universal Laser Systems is looking for office equipment dealers to resell the product and here's another item that's on my wish list to sell, and make no bones about it, I will be able to sell one of these puppies.  Check out the video below.  BTW, this is just one of many videos on YouTube that are located on Universal Laser Systems youtube channel.




look for me to post #2 & #3 later this week or maybe late tonight.

-=Good Selling=-

Muratec MFX-2590 MFP "The Hottest Little MFP from Texas"

On October 2nd & 3rd of this month I was able to travel to White Plains, NY to take part in the BTA East Region "Grand Slam Event".  FYI, I had an awesome time!

I was delighted to see my guys from Muratec at the BTA event.  If you're not familiar with Muratec..., then you haven't been in the copier/printer industry that long. Muratec is based out of Plano, Texas and when it comes to support from a copier/mfp manufacturer...no one does it better than Muratec!

Below I'll touch on some of the knockout/lockout features that the MFX-2590 that makes this system tops on my list of A4 MFPs.

I was able to speak with Greg, Lou and Jim about this really cool Muratec MFX-2590 A4 (does not print/copy 11x17) that will copy (black), network print (black), network color scan, walkup and network fax (black). At first it looked like any other A4 MFP that's on the market today, however the first feature that stood out was the huge color LCD display. I'm thinking it was about as big as the display on my kindle fire, the size of the screen was 8.5 inches and that's awesome for an A4 MFP!  The comparable Ricoh that I sell has a color LCD screen that is so small that you'll need binoculars to see (just a little joke)!  But most important,  it is the size of the screen that matters because a larger LCD color screen will promote ease of use and users will find the system a pleasure to work with.

Ok, so I'm impressed with the size of the screen right, I then start looking at the extended features like scan2email, scan2folder and what do I see?  Scan2print....it's all about the sizzle and the Muratec MFX-2590 is loaded! Scan2print is something that I thought every MFP system should have, think of it like this, you've got a color document in your hand, located on the 1st floor is the MFX-2590, you need to make a color copy but you don't have a color copier, all you got is a color laser printer and it's on the third floor.  The scan2print feature will allow you to scan the color document and send it to color print on your networked color printer (you scan program up to 5 networked print devices)!  Not only that, but you could send the document to print to another printer or MFP on your WAN (wide area network).  Features like scan2print, allows end users to tap into existing hardware resources without the need to get a color printer or MFP for each department or each floor.  When it comes to dealers and sales people the Muratec MFX-2590 allows us to be more creative with our solutions approach and gives us knockout features that aren't available on other similar devices!

Right, at this point I'm thinking I'd really like to be able to sell the Muratec MFX-2590, Greg and I start talking about scanning and again the MFX-2590 was sizzling with a one pass dual scan document feeder! I stated WTF, you're telling me this A4 MFP will scan both sides of document in one pass?  Yup....so when your working with two sided documents the MFX-2590 will scan 40 images per minute for color and a blazing 62 images per minute for black!  Woo Hoo!

So, we've got the awesome 8.5 color screen, the scan2print, the single pass duplex scan, the 80 page document feeder, scan2usb, scan2hardrive on the copier (enables a document library right on the copier), print from USB (awesome for vistors that have to print),  PC faxing (LAN fax), Walkupfax, Shift/Sort output (each set printed or copied set if offset from each other), ID card copy (means you save a lot of aggravation when you copy a health card or license), scan confirmation stamp (puts a little stamp on every scanned document) and this box is screaming with "sizzle" and value!

But we're not done! Now I'm sounding like Ron Popeil.  There was another touch screen button for "Scan Tag", ok well what is that I asked.  Scan Tag is a document imaging tool that enables users to input meta data at the MFP control panel and then automatically scan and index the document without having to return to their PC.  Scan Tag has been integrated to work with document management software applications like Doculex, Docuware, Idatix, SmartSearch, Sentryfile, Rebus, Intact and Computhink.

I've seen a lot of the new A4 devices from the likes of Ricoh, Canon, Xerox, Kyocera, and Sharp and in my opinion the MFX-2590 has awesome features for the end user and for resellers you have a combination lockout features that no other manufacturer can bring to the table.

Kudos to Muratec and the MFX-2590, btw the way I'll be posting on video of the MFX-2590 in action on the Print4Pay Hotel forums, pay us a visit, get registered, it's free!

-=Good Selling=-

PS  Muratec is not a sponsor or advertiser with the Print4Pay Hotel, however the Muratec MFX-2590 is "The Hottest Little MFP from Texas".

Dealer Event of the East for October 2nd & 3rd & AL East Pennant Race

Back in the grand old days of the copier industry, there were no dealer events and shows. 

Once every year a National Office Equipment Show would be held in the US, every other year the show rotated from an eas to west venue,  Back in the day the show was called NOMDA (National Office Machine Dealer Association).  I had the chance to only go to one NOMDA show that was held in Atlanta in the early nineties and it was an awesome experience.  Every copier manufacturer was showing their latest and greatest in copiers, fax machines and duplicators.  The after hour parties were also exceptional.  I can remember crashing a Ricoh party one night were the theme was to something to do with the Wizard of OZ.  Years ago when sellling copiers when someone told me that they were considering a Ricoh my favorite response was "whats a Ricoh"?  My times do change right?

Time changes everything and NOMDA is now known as BTA (Business Technology Association), BTA is the trade organization for Office Equipment Dealers. BTA has a long laundry list of exceptional services that are available to the Office Equipment Dealers such as legal services, advocating for the dealer channel (this would include many new laws that may be coming to states for hard drive data destruction and deletion), monthly webinars, education and a BTA Market Place.  The Print4Pay Hotel is now a BTA member and I'm excited about having access to additional information that can help me grow a bigger and better Print4Pay Hotel.  I've only scratched the surface of the BTA offerings, I recommend you go here and take a tour of their web site and become a BTA member.

With many manufacturers now offering their own dealer shows, the National type show has not been around for sometime, however BTA does a really awesome job of presenting District BTA shows and events.  One such District event is schedule for October (2012) the 2nd and 3rd in Rye, NY.  This event will open at 3:30 PM on the October 2nd with a keynote by Norihiko Ina, President and CEO of Kyocera Document Solutions (I'm going to ask him if they purchased the Sharp MFP division, hehe).  A welcome reception will follow at 5:30PM where attendees will get a chance to network and visit exhibiting sponsors (more than 30). October 3rd will see breakfast from 7AM-8AM, followed by opening comments and three education sessions. Lunch and then another 2 education sessions and then closing comments.

The BTA event is unique in that all of the events, seminars and exhibiting sponsors are all in the same room.  Exhibitors will also have door prizes and you'll need to be present to win, this creates an extremely fun atmosphere at the end of the show. After the show about 5:30PM buses will leave for Yankee Stadium where attendees will be able to take in one of the last ball games of the regular season and by all accounts it could be an awesome experience with the pennant race being so close! If you're interested in signing up, click here.

As we all know, we can never stop learning, knowledge is the key to driving profit and building your business, BTA provides an important service that will help dealers build their business while keeping dealers up to date with the latest trends and market information.  I will be at the show, I'll do some live tweeting, some blogging and an excited to be a part of the BTA experience.  If you're a Print4Pay Hotel Member or a reader of the mfpsolutions blog please make sure you say hello. I'll be looking forward to shooting the breeze with everyone!

-=Good Selling=-

Covering the Copier & MFP Industry One Click at a Time

I thought this would be a great interview for everyone.  Scott Cullen has followed the copier industry since 1986 and has interviewed the who's who of industry professionals through out the years. He's a stand up guy and I've always enjoyed reading his articles. I thought it was time that someone would turn the tables an interview Scott. With out further ado, my interview with Scott Cullen.

When was your first Office Equipment Industry article and what was it about?

In 1986, an article on BIS CAP (Now Info Trends) conference I covered in Boston on small business for Office Systems magazine.

How the heck did a rock n roller like yourself get connected with the Office Equipment Industry?

I had just lost my dream job the previous November where I was writing for a cable TV magazine in Connecticut. The magazine was sold to a competitor and they shut us down. I spent most of November and early December helping a friend in his landscaping business and in January worked as a freelance proofreader for a book publisher. Around that time I saw an ad in the paper from Office Systems magazine looking for an associate editor. I applied, got called for an interview and within in a week was offered the job. Turns out that was the only job I ever had in my life that I didn't get through some sort of networking. I did get a great reference from Peter Funt (Son of Candid Camera's Allen Funt) who was the publisher of the cable TV magazine.

You've been to a lot of dealers events over the years, what two events stands out more than the others?

First is a Canon dealer meeting in Scottdale, Arizona in the eighties. It was my second dealer meeting and even though I was still learning my way around the industry, it was a great time. That's the only dealer meeting where I go to go horseback riding.

The second had to be a NOMDA dealer meeting Las Vegas in the mid nineties. What made that great was the camaraderie I had with my colleagues in the press when there were many more publications covering the industry as well as many PR people for the various manufacturers who to this day remain my friends. What made this one memorable was we all went to dinner at Hugo's Cellar in the Four Queens and then to a show with 60s pop star Johnny Tillotson ("Poetry in Motion"). It was an amazing evening, and yes, a fair amount of alcohol was involved.

What was the worst dealer event you ever covered?