Daily Managed Print Industry Notes from Around the World!

Calgary, Alberta - October 19, 2011 – With nearly 7,000 employees and a new facility being built, NHS Hospital’s IT Management team was tasked with developing a plan to move the entire IT infrastructure to the new location in a timely and efficient manner. However, the team had little visibility and understanding of the print environment as its current print tracking tool only provided a high level overview of network printing.  “Looking at the overall IT requirements of the move, it was important we understood the printing behaviour of both users and departments, a more powerful and robust tool was required,” recalls Mohandeep Randhawa, Technical Services Officer,...read more

After looking at the aspects of cost, security and control, the IT team decided that it was more feasible to opt for a Managed Print Services (MPS) model, and outsourced these services to Canon. Canon evaluated the printer landscape at MindTree, ...read more

Is Dell making another move to enter the managed print services market? Several announcements made today indicate that Dell is certainly taking on a more solutions focus with their new product lineup. Dell announced version 2 of OpenManage Print Manager (OPMP), a printer fleet management tool to monitor, manage and report on the status of networked printers. The tool is available online and can be accessed from any Windows-based PC.  Updates in version 2 include an easier-to-use interface, increased security; expanded functionality in regards to bowser and OS support and optimized discovery performance. OPMP is a no-cost, brand agnostic tool available for download online....read more

A report published by research firm IDC in November 2010 predicted that companies the world over will spend more than £2.5bn a year on managed print services (MPS) by 2014, with 20 per cent of UK companies employing 500 or more staff already using MPS. While those figures imply growing interest in outsourced printing services, it is important to remember the model does not fit every firm’s requirements: plenty of IT departments still either prefer to keep control of their own print environment, or just do not print enough pages to justify outsourcing management and maintenance to a third party....read more

-=Good Selling=-

MFP Weekend Industry Notes from 3/6/2011

Special thanx to Print4Pay Hotel members and our moles from across the globe for posting these updates on the P4P Hotel forums!



- Hewlett Packard announced that over 2,000 printshop personnel attended the Dscoop Annual Conference in Orlando, FL, which is a gathering of HP Indigo production color users.
- Hewlett Packard gave out details of its Imaging & Printing Group’s (IPG) last quarter’s financials:

o revenue up 7%

o 17% operating margin

o 33% increase in commercial printer hardware units placed

- Hewlett Packard announced it sold an HP T350 production color inkjet system to Griffin Press of Australia.

- Lexmark announced a new option for some of its desktop color printers and MFPs called SmartSolution Weather App, which lets users check weather forecasts directly on the color LCD panels of the devices, and print out weather reports for selected zip codes.

- Oce’, a division of Canon, announced it won a world-wide managed print services contract from GDF SUEZ:

o 9,000 devices

o Offices in more than 20 countries

o Contract worth 55 million euros

- UDOCX, a company in the Netherlands, announced that its new product will extend any browser-embedded MFP with mail, print, store and fax features without need to install any additional software or hardware:

o Cloud-based document processing service

o Direct access to MS Outlook Contacts stored in MS Exchange

o Documents stored in predefined places

o No unauthorized access

o Printing of stored document initiated from MFP

o Fax with fax board

o No software maintenance

o Administrative control from web interface

o Pay as you go subscription fee

- After a year of speculation, Heidelberg finally announced which company it decided to partner with to sell digital production color systems.

o The company chosen was Ricoh

o Will develop a connector to the Ricoh Aficio Pro C901 production color system for its digital offset press Prinect workflow

o Will resell the Ricoh Pro C901 Graphic Arts Edition

 90ppm unit with PxP polymerized toner and 2 bits per pixel output

 Ricoh will provide service via IKON or dealers

- Ricoh announced that its planned launch of a new 47ppm and 52ppm b/w A4 MFPs has been delayed until 7/1/2011.

- Cornell University’s Hoe Lipson and colleagues are working on “bio-printing” technology, using a converted inkjet printer to grow human tissue, such as skin, bone and cartilage.

- Intel announced it is pushing to sell its Atom processor to printer and MFP makers for their print controllers, as it is now available with a built-in high speed PCI Express Interface, meaning devices can connect directly to the chip without a separate I/O controller.

- The Canadian federal government awarded its printer contract to:

o Hewlett Packard

o Okidata

o Kyocera

o Xerox

o Dell

o Vendors on contract last year that did make cut were Lexmark, Samsung, Sharp and Ricoh

- A report issued by Morgan Stanley predicts:

o sales of tablet computers will cause 1-2% decline in spending on toner and ink due to less printing in 2011

o will decline 2.4% in 2012

o tablet users print 20-35% less inkjet pages and 8-15% less laser pages

- A report by GAP Intelligence states:

o In last 2 years, the average color click charge for office-class color A3 MFPs has dropped by over 10% to $0.0658 in government contracts

- Toshiba announced it will provide turbines for a geothermal plant in New Zealand.

- Toshiba announced that it is now selling used/refurbished HP LaserJet printers that it sources from Global Printer Services of Wisconsin.

- In a study conducted by the Columbia Journalism Review gives more proof of value of printed page:

o Reader of printed version of the New York Times newspaper spend on average 30 minutes per day reading newspaper

o Reader of on-line version spend only average of 14 minutes and 29 seconds reading

- Sharp launched the PN-L601B-PKG, which includes:

o 60” color LED backlit touch panel display

o Compact PN-TPC1W whiteboard PC

o SR-560M rolling cart floor stand

o “a well designed, comprehensive and highly performing interactive whiteboard solution” said Steve Brauner, Senior Product Planning Manager

- Sharp gave out details on 4 future b/w A3 laser MFPs, called the MX-M282N, 362N, 452N and 502N featuring:

o Top speeds of 28, 36, 45 & 50ppm respectively

o All made by Sharp

o Based on “Jupiter III” platform

o 7” color touchscreen LCD display

 Do not have retractable keyboard

o Optional document feeder holds up to 100 originals, but does NOT scan both sides of original at same time

o Comes standard with two 500 sheet paper drawers and 100 sheet bypass

o 500 sheet internal exit tray with offset stacking

o Optional internal stapling finisher

 Optional external stapling finisher or bookletmaking finisher

• Requires bridge unit

• Optional hole punching

o Built-in print controller

 Actual maker unknown (most likely Zoran)

 576MB RAM for copier memory and 1GB RAM for printer memory

 Optional data security kit (but it is not Common Criteria certified)

 800MHz processor

 80GB hard drive

 10/100/1000BaseT & USB ports

 PCL print driver standard

- Kodak announced that its NexPress production color system won 8 awards for Superb Printing from the International Association of Printing House Craftsmen (IAPHC)

- President Obama announced the appointment of Kodak CEO, Antonio Perez, to the President’s Council of Jobs and Competitiveness, along with Xerox CEO, Ursula Burns, and GE CEO, Jeffrey Inmelt.

- Secret Service agents arrested Paul Rickett of Mountain View, California for filling a minivan with $30,000 worth of fake cash, made with a color copier.
- Okidata announced it will use environmentally-friendly bioplastics for some of the parts in its LED color printers and MFPs. The bioplastics will contain 25% plant material.
- Zoran, maker of print controllers, announced it is being acquired by CSR, maker of wireless chips, for $679 million

- Conexant Sytems, maker of print controllers, announced it is being acquired by SMSC (Standard Microsystems Corporation) of Long Island, NY for $284 million. (this company has technology from former companies; Rockwell Semiconductor, Oasis Semiconductor & SigmaTel)

-=Good Selling=-

MFP Weekend Industry Notes

- Dell Computer reported its last quarter’s financials:
- Revenue down 15% to $12.9 billion
- Income down 54% to $337 million
- Large enterprise business revenue fell 23%
- SMB (small to medium size businesses) revenue fell 19%
- Consumer revenue down 10$
- Public sector revenue down 7%
- Perot Systems division revenue fell 12% to $629 million
- Desktop PC revenue fell 26%
- Desktop PC units fell 15%
- Mobile PC revenue fell 14%
- Server sales fell 6%, units down 7%

- Premier Purchasing Partners, which is a healthcare alliance of more than 2200 hospitals and 63,000 healthcare sites, announced that it will now offer Konica Minolta, Ricoh & Xerox products to its membership. The new contract, with these offerings, will be launched 1/1/2010.

- ABBYY Software Ltd., the OCR manufacturer headquartered in Russia, announced that Ingram Micro will distribute its products to resellers (VARs & dealers) in the U.S.

- Secunia, a network security alert firm, announced that denial of service network attacks could be carried out using a vulnerability found in some Hewlett Packard Color LaserJet models.

- Hewlett Packard announced that it won bid to supply Kmart locations with a version of its Edgeline color inkjet MFPs. The HP Photosmart ML1000 Minilab will allow Kmart stores to sell digital photo printing. (OMG, did Kmart not read about the edgelines??)

- Okidata announced that it will relabel Nuance document management software (PaperPort) as an option for its MFPs and call it the Okidata Desktop Capture Solution.

- IKON, a division of Ricoh, announced that it will resell software from KnowledgeLake, which offers viewing and retrieval technology for Microsoft Sharepoint.


- Ricoh’s factory direct branches will now offer the ability for their sales reps to:
- bundle in software and computer hardware into a lease
- bundle in professional services/network service, by a pass thru approach on a lease, so end users can pay for the service monthly

- In Japan, Ricoh launched the MP-C1800 A3 color laser MFP offering:
- 18ppm top speed
- Slower, less expensive version of existing MP-C2200
- Will replace the C1600/615C, which is a color inkjet copier, based on Ricoh GelSprint technology
- 4 tandem OPC drum design
- Optional fax board

- The U.S. Postal Service announced it will end 2009 with a $.38 billion loss.

- Sharp now shipping new low end b/w laser MFPs, the MX-M200D, MX-M260 & MX-M310 offering:
- MX-M200D offers 20ppm top speed
- Replaces AR-M207e
- Based on Pegasus A3 engine design, first launched in 2003
- Base MSRP of $4090
- Comes standard with 40 sheet document feeder
- Unlike other Sharp models, does not offer the textured plastic exterior
- Small, non-touch screen monochrome LCD panel
- Toner yield of 16K based on 5% coverage per page
- Developer and drum yield of 50K
- Comes standard with USB port and 48MB RAM
- Scans in color and b/w, but only TWAIN scan standard
- Optional network printing and scanning for $750 with PCL print driver
- PostScript print driver for $395
- Fax board for $660
- 10MB fax memory for $195
- Comes standard with two 250 sheet paper drawers and 100 sheet stack bypass
- Auto duplex standard
- Additional 250 sheet drawers are $450 each
- No finishing options
- MX-M260 and MX-M310 offer 26ppm and 31ppm respectively
- Based on Andromeda A3 engine launched in 2003
- Replace the AR-M257 & AR-M317
- Base MSRPs of $5650 and $6995 respectively
- Come standard with USB port and 32MB RAM
- Optional 1GB RAM
- No scanning standard
- Optional print controller for $1195
- PCL print driver
- PostScript print driver for $395
- 300MHz processor
- 64MB RAM (can upgrade to 320MB)
- $395 for data security kit
- No hard drive option for spooling or storage
- Network scanning is additional $1095
- Scan to email/FTP/desktop in b/w only
- Application Integration Module allows end users to enter data at control panel for their scans for $349
- Fax board is $1195
- No second fax line option
- Toner yield of 25K based on 5% coverage per page
- Developer and drum yields of 75K
- Come standard with two 250 sheet paper drawers and 100 sheet stack bypass
- 8.1” monochrome LCD touch screen
- 100 sheet document feeder with top scan speed of 39opm
- Can add two 500 sheet drawers for $795
- Optional internal stapling finisher for $1795

- Lexmark now shipping a floor standing A3 b/w laser MFPs, the X860 series offering:
- Are actually made by Fuji of Japan
- Similar versions are also sold with Xerox DocuCentre name on them
- X860de is 35ppm for base MSRP of $5989
- X862dte is 45ppm for base MSRP of $8249
- X864dhe is 55ppm for base MSRP of $10,799
- Will be sold by 150 Lexmark dealers in the U.S.
- Will also be sold with Ricoh will also sell under the InfoPrint name
- Large full color touch screen color LCD control panel
- Built-in print controller
- Embedded Solutions Framework (eSF) allows for embedded applications
- 800MHz processor
- 80GB hard drive and 256MB RAM
- Can upgrade to 1.28GB RAM
- 10/100/1000BaseT & USB ports
- PCL, PostScript & XPS print drivers
- Network scanning in b/w or color
- Fax board for $300 more
- Toner yield of 35K based on 5% coverage per page
- Comes standard with two 500 sheet paper drawers and 100 sheet stack bypass
- Auto duplex standard
- 75 sheet document feeder, with 55opm top scan speed for b/w and 27opm for color
- Add two more 500 sheet paper drawers for $899 or 2,000 LCT fo $1399
- Optional side mount 2000 LCT for $1249
- Stapling, hole-punching finisher for $1375
- Booklet making finisher for $2699

- Lexmark announced it will now offer Ringdale’s FollowMe for its printers and MFPs that allow for an embedded application. FollowMe enables end users to enter a PIN code, Windows login, ID card reader or biometric reader to authenticate and track usage.

- Due to downsizing, Lexmark is now trying to lease 135,000 square feet of office space in Lexington, Kentucky.

- Another imaging software company plans on entering the market in the U.S. to compete with Nuance eCopy and NSI’s AutoStore:
- New Dynamic Solutions (NDS) is based in Brugge, Belgium and is now selling products in Europe
- Will enter U.S. in early 2010
- In Europe is now selling its “ScanFlow Suite” to work with Ricoh (ScannerVision),
Konica Minolta (Document Navigator) and Toshiba (eBRIDGE Capture & Store)
- Founded in 1983
- CEO is Rene Brunt, who formerly worked for Ricoh
- Is a C++ based application
- Employs 25 people
- Software is embedded in the MFP, and uses color LCD touch screen control panel
- Approximately $223 for entry level “Express” version
- $748 for “Office” version
- Each additional MFP licensse is $148
- Optional modules for OCR/ICR, forms recognition, barcode recognition ($298 to $1497 each)
- Customizable control panel
- Has two dozen connectors to third party applications

- Quark of Denver, makers of QuarkXPress desktop publishing software, announced it is launching a web-to-print website, so it can better compete with Adobe InDesign. The website, QuarkPromote.com, allows end users to use a free design tool, and choose from hundreds of templates, and then order prints from a Sir Speedy, PIP or Signal Graphics printshop.

- Since Xerox bought ACS, HP bought EDS and Dell bought Perot Systems, many have speculated if Computer Sciences Corp. is also up for sale. According to company president, David Booth; “We like our position. We truly believe that there’s a role for companies like ours in the market”

- Samsung of Korea now shipping the CLX-8540ND color laser A4 MFP featuring:
- base MSRP of $8249
- 40ppm top speed
- 100K/month max monthly duty cycle
- Built-in print controller with 800MHz processor
- 1GB RAM
- 160GB hard drive
- 10/100/1000BaseT ports
- Maximum paper capacity of 2,720 sheets
- 600x600dpi (9600dpi with interpolation)
- Optional hanging stapling finisher
- Color touch screen LCD control panel
- 20K black toner yield
- Color toners yield 15K

- According to a Chinese newspaper, Toshiba is considering selling off its notebook computer manufacturing division to Asustek of China. Asustek makes computer motherboards, and its own PCs, selling in the U.S. through Best Buy and other retailers.

- According to survey conducted by the Photizo Group, half of the companies that are using a managed print services program, have done so by partnering directly with an equipment manufacturer.

-=Good Selling=-

MFP Weekend Industry Notes 11/19/09

Gathered from Print4Pay Hotel Members from around the world and a few moles in very good places!

- Hewlett Packard reported info on its fourth quarter financials:
- Revenue down 8%
- Revenue estimate for fiscal year of $119 billion
- MFP/printer division revenue dropped 20% to $5.7 billion
- Printer shipments dropped 23%

- Hewlett Packard has agreed to reduce its claim against bankrupt Circuit City to only $70.5 million.
- Hewlett Packard announced it will spend $2.7 billion to acquire 3Com Corp. Details:
- will now compete head to head with Cisco for network switching and routing equipment
- 3Com was founded in 1979 by Bob Metcalfe, and retired in 1990
- Bob Metcalfe invented Ethernet, while working for Xerox
- ship the first Ethernet adaptor in 1981
- 3Com sold its first PC Ethernet in 1982
- becomes world’s largest manufacturer of network interface cards (NICs)

- Hewlett Packard announced it won a managed print services contract from Leighton Contractors of Australia. Leighton employs 9,000 people in Australia and New Zealand. HP will reduce the fleet from a seven-to-one user to printer ratio to 10-to-one.

- Kyocera apparently has chosen to use PrintFleet software for its KYOfleetmanager managed print services program.

- Intel agreed to pay AMD a whopping $1.25 billion to settle an anti-trust lawsuit filed against the company by AMD.

- Kodak announced it is reducing its staff in British Columbia and shifting work to Israel. This will reduce the Canadian staff from 1265 to 500. The Canadian office was part of the $980 million acquisition of Creo in 2005. Also, Kodak sold some of its office space in the area for $43 million.

- Ricoh announced that it has sold an Aficio C900 production color system to GAM Printers, a print shop in Sterling, Virginia.

- Ricoh announced it is forming a Business Process Automation Group, as part of its Document Solutions & Services Division. “BPA is a true value-add for Ricoh customers because we’re able to offer a suite of services from consultation to sales to implementation under one roof” said Mark Miller, Senior VP & Deputy General Manager at Ricoh. Ricoh’s BPA consultants will “assist customers in turning their current processes into turnkey solutions to fit their workflow requirements”

- X-Rite, maker of color measuring devices, and Pantone color systems, announced its last quarter’s financials:
- net loss of $9 million
- net sales down 25.6% to $45.6 million
- operating income of $1.6 million

- X-Rite, which recently launched Pantone color software for the Apple iPhone, called “myPANTONE”, had the software tested by the Flemish Center for Graphic Communication. The research firm found that when it viewed certain Pantone colors on several iPhones, that each one had a different shade of color. (there is currently no way to calibrate the screen of an iPhone)

- After being acquired by Nuance Corp. last week, eCopy has laid off a portion of its staff.

Details:
- Richard Mack, VP of Corp. Communications, stated that less then one-third of staff was affected.
- Any layoff larger than that would have triggered the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which requires companies to provide advance notice of a mass layoff.
- Before layoffs, eCopy had 220 employees
- some of jobs will be transferred to Budapest, Hungary, where Nuance has office
- Nuance has 6,000 employees worldwide in 30 offices
- eCopy was started by a handful of people working out of Edward Schmid’s condominium in 1990, and was originally called Simplify Development Corp.
- Nuance, through its OmniPage division, provides OCR software to OmTool

- Tech Data Corp., a leading IT products distributor, announced a new Healthcare Specialized Business Unit to assist its computer resellers (VARs) meet growing demand in this vertical market:
- healthcare industry will spend $81 billion on IT in 2010, according to Gartner
- $22.8 billion will be spent on healthcare IT over next 6 years according to INPUT Research using federal funds from American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA)
- Department of Veterans Affairs has 2010 budget of $3.3 billion in IT spending

- American TonerServ, provider of generic laser print cartridges in Santa Rosa, CA, reported a 192% increase in last quarter’s revenue.

- Dell launched three new printers, with the following features:
- All are made by Fuji of Japan (which makes most Xerox copiers and printers)
- Dell 5130cdn is 47ppm A4 top speed full color laser printer for $1549 base MSRP
- 4 tandem OPC drum design
- polymerized toner
- optional paper drawers can make unit floor standing
- optional hanging stapler finisher
- unit’s exterior is dark grey plastic
- 8.5 second first print out time
- 1200x1200dpi
- 800MHz processor
- PCL and PostScript print drivers
- supports up to 216gsm paper weight
- auto duplex up to 163gsm
- Dell 7130cdn is A3 speed LED color printer for $2700 base MSRP (Xerox sells an MFP version)
- Dell 3330dn is 40ppm A4 b/w laser printer for $599 base MSRP

- In an effort to reduce costs, Colorado State University in Boulder, CO, announced it is closing its central reproduction department or campus printshop.

- Adobe Systems announced that it will layoff 9% of its workforce to cut costs. This will amount roughly 600 of its current 7,000 workers.

- Sun Microsystems announced it will layoff 128 workers at its Broomfield, Colorado campus. Oracle Corp. is attempting to buy Sun, but acquisition is being held up by European Union over antitrust concerns.

- Samsung of Korea lost a lawsuit to Sharp. Sharp’s lawsuit claimed that Samsung violated 4 of Sharp’s color LCD manufacturing patents.

- A report released by Samsung reveals that 83% of companies surveyed are not implementing basic technologies to reduce the volume of printed materials. Other findings:
- only 11% use a solution to track amount of pages printed
- over half of all document output costs are associated with purchasing paper and toner
- 69% of workers still prefer paper printouts

- A consortium of inkjet manufacturers have donated money to Cambridge University of London, England, to pursue development of a robust single pass production color printing system.

- Duplo, maker of duplicators, and finishing systems, announced it will create a sub brand, called Duplo Digital, to emphasize its finishing systems that are fully digital. (the company also sells relabeled Sharp digital b/w copiers)

- Two men were arrested in Eugene, Oregon for making counterfeit money with a color copier. Nicholas Pisciotta and Joseph Ulchinsky are facing forgery charges after police found a stash of fake $20 bills.

- According to survey, the average selling price of a b/w copy in a printshop is now 4.5 cents.

- EFI lost a lawsuit it filed against Leggett & Platt over supposed patent infringement regarding wide format color inkjet printers. EFI claimed that the company’s patent on UV ink curing was invalid.

- Canon announced it has hired John Hamm, former owner of Balmar Printing of Washington, to develop content for Canon’s imagePRESS Essential Business Builder Program. This is Canon’s option that can be sold to customers of Canon production color system to assist them in marketing and selling the output.

MFP Weekend Industry Notes from 8/3/09

Special thanx to the Print4Pay Hotel members for this!

According to MAIT’s Performance Review, unit sales of computer printers and MFPs, are up 1% over last year worldwide.

Nuance Communications purchased X-Solutions of the Netherlands. Details:
- Xerox was the catalyst in the formation of both companies
- History of Nuance:
- Xerox purchases Kurzweil Computer Products, an early developer of OCR technology, in 1980
- In 1988, Xerox acquired scanner make, Datacopy
- Xerox combines Kurzweil and Datacopy to Form Xerox Imaging Systems (XIS)
- In 1998, XIS sold to Visioneer
- Visioneer renames itself ScanSoft
- In 2000, ScanSoft purchased Caere, maker of OmniPage OCR
- ScanSoft dumps its TextBridge OCR engine for OmniPage
- In 2005, ScanSoft merges with Nuance Communications
- In 2006, it paid $357 million for Dictaphone
- In January, 2008, it filed a patent infringement lawsuit against ABBYY, maker of FineReader OCR engine. It also sued ABBYY’s largest customer, Lexmark.
- In September 2008, it filed a patent infringement lawsuit against eCopy
- In October 2008, IRIS, who OCR engine is part of eCopy, filed a suit of its own against Nuance.
- Nuance claims to have 70% marketshare of OCR software in the U.S.
- X-Solutions is the maker of ScanFlowStore, an OCR scan embedded application sold with Xerox MFPs.
- Also makes DigiDocFlow for Ricoh, SmartOfficeScan for HP and SimplifyScan for Sharp

Kofax, maker of high end production scanning systems and software, announced it is going downmarket. Its new Kofax Desktop, can be downloaded from their website for only $29. The company hopes to compete against eCopy Desktop or Nuance PaperPort with this new product. It adds a scan tab to MS Office, and works with any TWAIN scanning device, but only offers pull scanning, and not push scanning.

Oce’ has renegotiated its debt covenants, as the company struggles financially, to prevent the banks from taking over company. The new covenants now call for:
- a net debt to EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) ratio of under 3.5
- an EDITDA to net interest ratio of over 3.5
- the banks charged Oce’ 12 million Euros for this covenant restatement

The City of New York just signed a 3 year, $1 million contract to supply typewriters to the New York City Police Department, according to CIO magazine. I quess they don't have forms software, I haven't seen a typewriter in an office in years!

A worker for the State of California reported that budget cuts are so deep, that his department, the Osteopathic Medical Board in Sacramento, is being prevented from buying toner cartridges for its Kyocera KM-3035 digital copier.

Dell Computer agreed to pay out $9.1 million to settle a class action alleging that the company discriminated against women in its methods of compensating and promoting its employees.

Samsung’s North American headquarters won a temporary restraining order against its former chief managing officer in a suit alleging that his accepting the same position at rival Motorola Inc. will illegally pass to Motorola, some of Samsung intellectual property.

Samsung owner and former group chairman, Lee Kun-hee, has been cleared of all legal charges, with the exception of tax evasion, by Korea’s Supreme County after a 13 year court battle. Lee led Samsung for 20 years before quitting after being indicted on charges in April of 2008.

InfoTrends expects desktop scanner sales to increase by 2013, even though sales this year are down as compared to a year ago.

Lexmark reported its last quarter’s financials:
- earnings down 80%
- stock shares fell $1.27 to $17.50
- profit down to $17 million from $83.7 million a year earlier

Police in Utica, NY have arrested Ngoc Nguyen on July 16th, after he allegedly destroyed a copier at an office at 901 Park Avenue.

According to the Printing Industries of America, digital print accounts for 12% of printers’ shipments, or about $36.7 billion. By 2020, the growth in digital print could add $13-$20 billion.

Industry analyst, Gartner, predicts that printer/MFP manufacturers will lose more than $13 billion in revenue to companies that make unauthorized generic toner and ink cartridges, due to the rising popularity of managed print services programs.

Interesting statistics from U.S. Postal Service:
- 86% of domestic mail is generated by business
- 14% of mail is from households
- In 1995, 20% of world communications was mail
- 99% of companies worldwide use email
- 86% of companies have a website
- 78% of companies have an intranet
- 72% of companies plan to process transactions over the Internet
- 45% of all print is distributed via the Postal Service

Kodak reported its last quarter’s financials:
- sales down 29%
- reported a loss of $191 million
- revenue from digital business down 28%
- gross profit was 18.5% of sales, a decline from 23.6% a year ago
- SG&A expenses were down 26%
- R&D expenses down 38%
- Current debt is $1.311 billion
- Graphic Communications Group sales were down 24% (this is division that makes controllers and product print systems)

Pitney Bowes reported its last quarter’s financials:
- revenue was $1.38 billion compared with $1.59 billion a year ago
- reduced its debt by $179 million
- U.S. Mailing revenue declined 8%
- Equipment sales declined 7%
- Software revenue declined 12%

EFI announced results of its last quarter’s financials:
- revenues were $90 million compared with $186 million a year ago
- a net loss of $13.3 million
- CEO, Guy Gecht, stated “main disappointment for the quarter was the delay in shipping the Vutek GS3200” (this is a $600,000 high speed wide format color inkjet system)
- Reduced operating expenses by 22%

EFI announced it had won its legal battle against Zurich American Insurance Co. and Old Republic Insurance Corp. The two companies claimed that they were not obligated to cover a $19 million settlement in a shareholder derivative class action

PrintWeek magazine reports that Heidelberg and Manroland are considering a merger. Both are large offset press makers, who are suffering due to the slow economy. However, the German government may not approve this supposed merger, due to antitrust concerns.

Lexmark launched a new option for some of its printers, which will allow the devices to print on RFID material. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Ultra High Frequency (UHF) technology is used in tags that allow companies to track their assets. RFID tags can be placed into a special $2499 drawer option, so that the Lexmark printer can print an ID number on the tag.

In his memoir, Bob Metcalfe, inventor of Ethernet networking, gave some history on how he first tried marketing his new product:
- DEC said; “Yes, but we’re gonna have to be sure that you know how to build stuff because we wouldn’t want to buy junk. We’re a serious computer maker. We need to check all your
manufacturing processes”
- IBM said; “Get the hell out of here. We’re not doing business with you. We think Ethernet is junk. We’re gonna do the token ring. We were selling millions of Ethernet cards to buyers of IBM PCs without IBM’s permission.” (IBM eventually discontinued Token Ring in favor of Ethernet)
- Apple ordered 300 units, but required that they be external boxes made with lots of metal. “I believe that all 300 of them are out there in the San Francisco Bay right now, serving as boat anchors,
holding yachts in place”

Kyocera announced a connector to allow its MFPs to work with CutCom’s SentryFile document management software.

Kyocera announced that it would relabel a product from Ricoh. The new Kyocera FS-C1020MFP, a desktop color laser MFP, is actually the Ricoh Aficio SP C232SF. (since it is made by Ricoh, it uses organic drum, and not Kyocera’s amorphous ceramic silicon drum)

Kyocera now shipping its new color laser MFPs, the TASKalfa 750C, 650C & 550C offering:
- 750C offers 75ppm b/w & 65ppm color
- 650C offers 65ppm b/w & color
- 550C offers 55pm b/w & color
- All three are actually relabeled Toshiba color laser MFPs (and therefore do not use Kyocera’s amorphous ceramic silicon long life drums, but instead use organic drums which Kyocera normally says is inferior technology)
- product marketing manager for the new products is Danielle Wolowitz
- all come with 10.4” touch screen color LCD display
- optional EFI Fiery print controller (this is unusual, as in the past Kyocera did not offer Fiery)
- Standard built-in print controller (Peerless technology), has 80GB hard drive, and 1.2GHz processor
- 100 sheet document feeder


A company that sells generic toner and ink, announced that it has created a free website for end users to solve their printer problems. PrintCountry.com launched a new site on YouTube with videos showing printer users how to solve common print driver issues, which they hope will drive more traffic to their consumables website.

Sharp reported details on its past financial quarter’s performance:
- reported a 20% drop in sales, down to $6.32 billion
- reported a loss of $266 million, as compared to a profit of $262 million a year ago
- Office technology sales down 14%
- announced a joint venture with Sony to sell large sized color LCDs

Sharp launched the FO-2080 desktop A4 b/w system featuring:
- 20ppm top speed
- Copy/fax/print/scan
- Two paper drawers
- Letter/legal size only
- 50 sheet bypass
- Auto duplex standard
- Button Manager is a built-in utility which offers scan to OCR

MFP Weekend Industry Notes 6/14/09

Special thanx to the P4P member that supplied me with this.

Densigraphix, a Buffalo, NY company that makes generic toner cartridges, announced it has joined the Business Technology Association (BTA), which most copier dealers in the U.S. belong to.

BTA (Business Technology Association) announced the results of a survey of copier dealers in the U.S.:
- Superior Performance as a Primary Product Line Provider = Toshiba
- Corporate Support = Toshiba
- Inventory = Toshiba
- Distribution = Kyocera
- Product Line = Kyocera
- Outstanding Performance As a Secondary Product Line = Muratec
- Availability of Sales Training = Kyocera

BTA is hosting an educational event for copier dealers on September 24th & 25th:
- At the Ritz Carlton Hotel in White Plains, NY
- Presenters are Frank Cannata, John Hey, Kate Kingston, Mitch Morgan, & Mike Woodard.
- Event concludes with attendance at Yankee Stadium with Yankees and Boston Redsox
.
Kyocera announced it has hired Print Management Solutions of Ormond Beach, FL to provide training to its dealers on the Kyocera FASTrack managed print services program.

Kyocera launches a new color laser desktop A4 MFP, the FS-C1020mfp offering:
- 21ppm top speed color or b/w
- 35 sheet document feeder
- 250 sheet paper drawer
- 256MB RAM
- Copy/print/scan/fax
- 400MHz processor
- 600x600dpi
- PCL & PostScript print drivers
- Optional 500 sheet second paper drawer
- Base MSRP of $1220 (Check out the review here)

Buyers Labs Inc.(BLI) gave out a “Outstanding Document Management Solution” award to docSTAR.

BLI gave out its spring 2009, “Pick” awards for MFPs. Winners included:
- Sharp MX-2600N
- Sharp MX-3100N
- Xerox WorkCentre 7425, 7428 & 7435
- Canon imageRUNNER 5050N
- Konica Minolta bizhub 601 & 751
- Sharp MX-4101N & MX-5001N
- Toshiba eSTUDIO 6530CT

Katun of Minneapolis, MN announced it now offers lower cost, generic color toners for the Canon imageRUNNER C3200, C2880 and C3380 color laser MFPs.

Canon announced it would restart the construction of a digital camera factory in Nagasaki, Japan. It will open in 2010 and employ 1,000 workers.

Samsung announced it is offering a zero percent lease promo for its printers and MFPs. Leasing provided by DeLage Landen (DLL).

IDC announced that in the first quarter of 2009, the new Sharp Frontier series of color laser A4 MFPs were the most popular product in the 31ppm to 44ppm category of color MFPs. Unknown if this means more company were downgrading from A3 (ledger size) to A4 (letter/legal size), or if they were replacing desktop color laser printers and bringing more sales into the MFP market.

Sharp announced it was headed for its first ever operating loss and would cut 1,500 jobs to save money.

Ricoh announced a new promo to increase sales of its new Ricoh PRO C900 production color system:
- End user gets 300,000 clicks/pages for free (color or b/w)
- Offers ends 7/31/09
- Customer must sign up for a minimum of a 2 year service/supply contract

Ricoh sent out a press release announced that its IKON San Diego branch sold a PRO C900 production color system to a print shop named; “Print & Letter Company”. (is this device such a poor seller that they have to send out a press release every time they sell one to boost interest?)

Ricoh launched Print Copy Scan (PCS) Director 6, featuring:
- Print management software package
- Includes PCS Assessor, which is a sales tool that allows a full version to run at customer site for 60 days, providing ability to analyze volumes and survey equipment. Rep can use to create MPS proposals.
- Consists of three core modules; Analysis, Rules and Recovery
- makes graphical reports
- users can belong to multiple groups
- can create highly configurable rules to customize how print jobs behave
- can base cost on total pages, color pages and total b/w pages
- restrict MFP access and features per user or groups of user
- tracks all printing including local, networked and direct to IP jobs
- embedded using Ricoh’s Java SDK platform
- PCS Suite pricing details:
- 5 seat pack = $1026
- 10 seat pack = $1944
- 25 seat pack = $4725
- 50 seat pack = $7900
- Up to 20,000 seat pack = $216,000
- PCS Analysis only pricing details:
- 5 seat pack = $257
- 10 seat pack = $486
- 25 seat pack = $1183
- Up to 20,000 seat pack = $54,000
- PCS Director embedded module:
- 1 MFP = $898
- 5 MFPs = $2248
- 25 MFPs = $4948
- Up to 250 MFPs = $21,950
- Professional Services – ½ day = $875
- HID card reader kit = $299
- CASI card reader kit = $299
- NexWatch card reader kit = $299

Dell Computer announced it has so far sold $3 million worth of PCs, printers and accessories using Twitter.

Interesting statistics from Nuance, makers of the popular OmniPage OCR scanning software:
- Average office worker types at 34 words per minute
- Only 58% accurate when typing on computer
- Factoring out the errors, actual average speed is 15 minutes to type one page of text
- OmniPage is up to 99% accurate for OCR

Okidata’s CEO, Stewart Krentzman, was interviewed recently, and made these comments:
- In 2008, business grew by just less than 2%
- Still selling close to 10,000 printers per month
- By 2012, 70% of businesses with 250 employees or more are going to be in a
managed print services environment

Wind River Systems Inc., maker of technology for print controllers and MFPs, announced it has been acquired by Intel for $884 million.

How expensive is ink for a color inkjet printer?
- ink averages $60.88 per ounce
- Chanel #5 perfume is $44.11 per ounce
- Don Perignon Champaign $4.53 per ounce
- Milk is $0.03 per ounce

Hewlett Packard and IDC announced survey of office workers and usage of copy machines:
- Average salary of knowledge workers = $60,000/year or $28.25 per hour
- Average salary of administrative assistants = $36,822 or $16.21 per hour
- Estimated annual labor cost of one 8 minute trip per day to a copy machine = $961.30 per year for knowledge workers, and $540.20 per year for admin worker

Fuji, maker of most Xerox products, had its president, Tadahito, make comments during an interview about is business in Asia, where it markets the products under its own name:
- 22% of its revenue was from facilities management
- Has been making Xerox products for 47 years
- Is in charge of East Asia, Pacific and Australia (Xerox has rest of world)
- Operating profit margin dropped 42.7% over past year
- Will reduce total employees by 7%

Bowe Bell & Howell announced new high speed scanners, the Ngenuity series:
- can scan originals from rice paper to plastic cards to stuffed envelopes
- top speed of 150opm at 200dpi for b/w or color
- uses SharpShooter Trilinear CCD camera
- white LED illumination
- Up to 600dpi at slower speeds
- Steel paper path
- Rubber rollers last up to 600,000 scans
- MSRPs range from $18,000 to $35,000.

-=Good Selling=-

MFP Weekend Indsutry Notes from 4/26/09

The following is a quick review of copier/MFP industry news from various trade publications.

Hewlett Packard wins a $245 million bid from the California Department of Corrections.
- Won by the EDS division (EDS was acquired last year by HP)
- Length of contract is 4.5 years
- Included MFPs, printers and scanners on MPS agreement
- Document management software

4 executives announced their departures from EDS, now that HP has acquired the company. The following left to pursue other opportunities:
- Mike Koehler
- Bobby Grisham
- Tom Haubenstricker
- Mike Paolucci

SpencerLab, a division of Spencer & Associates Publishing, Ltd. conducted tests on color printing technology to determine the highest quality and accuracy.
- For photographic output, conventional silver halide processing won out over the
Fuji Frontier 570 digital system
- For digital toner based output from high-end systems, the Xerox iGen4 narrowly beat the Hewlett Packard Indigo Press 5500.

Canon launched “eProactive Service” which is advertised as a web-based solution allowing its dealers to communicate with customer’s Canon MFPs, for automatic service call placement and remote monitoring.

Canon, in an effort to grow distribution from loss of IKON and DANKA, announced it will open up new factory direct branches:
- Albany, NY run by Don Foley
- Boston, MA run by Chris Foley
- Harrisburg, PA run by Richard Fleck
- Hartford, CT run by Janet Cain
- Honolulu, HI run by Gerald Shioji
- Jacksonville, FL run by Ken Jones
- Richmond, VA run by John Whitehead
- Sarasota, FL run by Lisa Beebe

Canon announced it has signed a distribution agreement with Agfa, which will market the Canon imagePRESS production color systems to graphic arts community.

After first announcing it was being acquired by IBM, Sun Microsystems instead is being acquired by Oracle Corp. for $7.4 billion.

Ricoh claims that according to Gartner Corp, it sold more MFPs in the U.S. than any other manufacturer.

eCopy announced that is has reached a total of 100 connectors to connect its ScanStation to popular document management programs. This is a far larger offering than any other vendor in its class.

Toshiba’s stock price dropped 6% when reports surfaced stating that the company was planning on raising $5 billion by selling stock, thus diminishing the value of existing shares.

Toshiba president, Atsutoshi Nishida, announced that the company is in talks to buy nuclear fuel rod assemblies from Kazakhstan.

Toshiba’s Director of Product & Solutions Marketing, Joe Contreras, announced that its MFPs will now offer Ringdale FollowMe as an option. This allows end users to send print jobs, and retrieve them from any properly equipped Toshiba MFP, when they authenticate at the device.

Lexmark announced that its revenues fell 20% during last quarter, due to declining sales of printers and MFPs. It also announced that it will close a plant in Juarez, Mexico to reduce costs. This will eliminate 360 jobs.

Lexmark launched its X460 series of desktop A4 b/w laser MFPs offering:
- offers embedded Solutions Framework (eSF)
- requires extra RAM and HDD options
- MyMFP option gives a remote control panel feature to PC
- Can create personal settings and save them to USB
- 7” full color touchscreen LCD control panel
- Base MSRP starts at $999, up to $1679
- 40ppm top print speed
- 35opm top scan speed
- 1200x1200dpi
- 19,200dpi color scan resolution
- 300 sheet standard paper supply
- 50 sheet capacity document feeder
- Auto duplex standard
- NO finishing options
- Letter/legal size only
- Built-in print controller
- USB, 10/100BaseT ports
- 500MHz processor
- 256MB RAM standard (up to 640MB with options)
- Optional 80GB hard drive
- PCL and PostScript print drivers
- Optional fax board
- Three toner cartridge choices (3K, 9K or 15K yield, based on 5% coverage)
- OPC drum yield of 30K pages
- 80K/month maximum duty cycle
- Advertised cost per page of $0.0177 (for toner only)

Oce’ reported a 60% increase in sales for refurbished equipment. It sold 5,000 units in the past 12 months.

The Printing Industries of America stated that the winner of the Sutherland Ink Rub Test was the Oce’ CS650 (a relabeled Konica Minolta bizhub PRO C6501). This tests the durability of postcards made by the MFPs and how they survive the U.S. Postal system.

Oce’ CEO, Rokus Van Iperen announced:
- Frank de Wit & Jan Dix has resigned from the board
- “Oce’ will continue to explore all realistic options to improve economies of scale, without excluding strategic alternatives, if beneficial for Oce’ and all stakeholders.”
- year on year revenue fell 6%
- operating income declined 29%
- 74% of its business is aftermarket supplies and service
- service/supply revenue declined 5.2%
- hardware sales declined 15.9%
- wide format printer sales fell 17.6%
- FM revenue grew 6.4%
- will lay off an additional 250 workers at its Poing, Germany plant

The National Resources Defense Council is pushing the paperless office by stating:
- The U.S. using 3.7 million tons of paper annually
- The average office worker print more than 1,000 pages per month
- 900 million trees are cut down each year for paper
- 40% of the waste in the U.S. is paper
- Record keeping constitutes more than 90% of office activity
- Over 80% of paper that is filed is never referenced again
- Over 45% of the office prints that are discarded, are discarded on the day that they are printed
- 89% of the time that an office worker edits a document on their computer screen, they reference a printed piece of paper

A man in Dublin arrested, thanks to a copier. Joe Sullivan, a bank worker, was caught transferring money illegally into his account, when he accidentally left the evidence of the transfer on the platen glass of a copier he was using.

The U.S. Patent office listed the total number of INKJET patents issued to the industry heavyweights:
- Silverbrook (maker of future Memjet high speed color inkjet printer) = 501
- Seiko Epson = 468
- Canon = 339
- Hewlett Packard = 322
- Brother = 282
- Fuji (provider of equipment to Xerox) = 184
- Samsung = 161
- Xerox = 136
- Kodak = 118
- Lexmark = 113
- Ricoh = 109
- Konica Minolta = 91
- Toshiba = 33



Dell launched the 1235cn and 2145cn desktop A4 color laser MFPs featuring:
- Both are actually made by Samsung of Korea
- 1235cn is actually the Samsung CLX-3175FN
- 2145cn is actually the Samsung CLX-6210FX
- 1235cn has MSRP of $399
- 17ppm b/w and 4ppm color
- Single drum design
- Advertised color toner cost per page of $0.21
- Advertised b/w toner cost per page of $0.045
- 2145cn has MSRP of $749
- 21ppm color or b/w speed
- 4 OPC tandem drum design
- Advertised color toner cost per page of $0.129
- Advertised b/w toner cost per page of $0.027

Sharp launched the MX-B401 b/w laser MFP featuring:
- Part of the “Frontier Series”
- Letter/legal only as it is an A4 design
- 40ppm top speed
- Optional fax board
- 8.5” full color touchscreen LCD control panel
- Base MSRP of $4995
- 35ppm scan speed
- 600x600dpi copy
- 600x600dpi scan
- 1200x1200dpi print
- 600 sheet standard paper supply
- Maximum paper supply of 2100 sheets with options
- 50 sheet document feeder
- Optional internal stapling finisher
- Built-in print/scan controller standard
- 800MHz processor
- 10/100/1000BaseT & USB ports
- 512MB RAM
- 80GB hard drive
- PCL & PostScript print drivers

The poor economy was reason cited for Sharp cancelling the launch of 5 different models in the Frontier A4 series, including print-only color models, and a 50ppm b/w MFP model.

MFP Weekend Industry Notes 11-23-08

Special thanx to the person who complies this!

A copier dealer in Dallas launches a website to sell printers nationwide. David Gu, who founded Meridian Office Systems Inc. in 1994, announced the new portal www.printerdallas.com featuring:
Supplies for most brands of printers
Desktop machines from Okidata, Panasonic, Xerox & Muratec.

Kyocera launched three new desktop A4 color laser printers, the FS-5100DN, FS-5200DN and FS-5300DN featuring:
4 tandem amorphous silicon ceramic drum design
Does not offer 8 bits per pixel
Advertised as offering 9600dpi (actual is 600dpi)
Engine design is very similar to Xerox Phaser models (but apparently is not made by Fuji)
FS-5100DN offers 21ppm b/w or color w/533MHz for base MSRP of $899
FS-5200DN offers 21ppm b/w or color w/667MHz for base MSRP of $1399
FS-5300DN offers 26ppm b/w or color w/667MHz for base MSRP of $1699
Auto duplex
Polymerized toner technology
256MB RAM
Up to 4 paper sources for up to 2,150 sheets of paper capacity
Need option to be able to handle thick or glossy paper

Kyocera announced plans to acquire Triumph-Adler of Germany from Volkswagon AG for $133 million. Triumph-Adler, which got is start making and selling manual typewriters, will give Kyocera a number of factory direct copier selling locations in Europe.

According to research conducted by Bureau of Labor Statistics, here is projected status of print worker types in the U.S.:
Graphic Designers = 286,424, up 9.8%
Desktop Publishers = 32,137 up 1%
Bookbinders – 5,995, down 16.9%
Bindery Workers = 50,697, down 21.8%
Job Printers = 43,749, down 9.3%
PrePress Technicians = 55,959, down 21.1%
Printing Machine Operators = 186,337, down 5.7%
SUMMARY = Not enough young people going to school to become print shop workers

Zoran Corp. of Sunnyvale, CA, which normally gets its revenue from making generic print controllers, announced it is now offering components for digital flat screen TV’s. (for instance Sharp has used Zoran to make its generic print controllers)

A Sharp copier dealer, New Smart Office Automation, announced it will host a quiz show at a local auditorium and give a new Sharp MFP as the grand prize. The quiz topics will be about information technology, printing, and document solutions.

Lanier, a division of Ricoh, announced that its largest dealer in the U.S. is TGI Office Automation of Brooklyn, New York. TGI employs 300 people in branches in New York, New Jersey and Florida. Owner is Frank Grasso.

Rosetta Technologies of Tampa, FL announced it will sell a modified version of a 50ppm Ricoh b/w laser printer so that it will use MICR (magnetic ink character recognition) toner for check printing. It will be called SP 8200DN MICR.

Ricoh announced it has hired former EFI executive, Kathy Wilson, to run its operations in Australia.

Ricoh announced it won a bid with City of Camden, NJ that bundled in docSTAR document management software with its MFPs.

Once Ricoh completed its acquisition of IKON, it supposedly sent folks to IKON’s headquarters in Malvern, PA and removed every piece of equipment inside that did not carry the Ricoh badge.

Ricoh announced it will spend $3 million to install a billboard in Time Square, New York City, that uses wind and solar to power the lighting.

The City of Salem, MA awarded a copier bid to Ricoh. A Ricoh Aficio 6000MP copier was chosen for $227 per month on a 48 month lease. Service/supplies are an additional $87 per month.

After Ricoh bought the printer division (InfoPrint) of IBM, which is headquartered in Boulder, CO, it has begun moving executives from Japan to run the company. Katsuya Ochiai is now the VP of Strategy & Business Development. The existing 550 employees in Boulder will be joined by three other executives who are moving from Japan.

Street pricing seen in the print for pay market:
Xerox 700 Digital Color Press w/Creo/Booklet-maker/fold-unit/LCT for $72,400. Color clicks @ $0.049 and b/w clicks @ $0.0129. 11”x17” billed as one click.
Xerox DocuColor 252/embedded Fiery/LCT for $31,100. Color clicks @ $0.049 and b/w clicks @ $0.0129. 11”x17” billed as one click.
Canon imageRUNNER C5185 w/Fiery/RADF/booklet-maker for $20,300. Color clicks @ $0.055 and b/w clicks @ $0.01. 11”x17” billed as one click.
Xerox 4112 w/Fiery/booklet-maker for $39,400 with b/w clicks @ $0.005 up to 200K/month, with overages @ $0.0039. 11”x17” billed as one click.

Toshiba announced that it now has available connectors for its MFPs for Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint.

A three decade ban on nuclear technology in country of India has ended, and Toshiba announced it will send nuclear engineers to the country to develop relations.

JBM Office Systems, a Toshiba dealer in Ontario, Canada, announced it will hold a “Printer Cost Reduction” conference at its office.

Canon announced that it will move is desktop inkjet printer manufacturing to Thailand in 2010 from Japan to cut costs.

Possibly due to the loss of IKON’s business, Canon announced that it has halted construction of a toner plant in western Japan, that would have cost $1 billion. A company spokesperson said it hoped to start construction of the plant perhaps in late 2009 if business improves.

Canon announced it sold an imagePRESS C7000VP production color system to Printing & Publications of Langhorne, PA.

Konica Minolta’s Planetarium division announced it has sold a GEMINISTAR system to the Gwasheon National Science Museum in Korea. Audiences will now be able to enjoy a real star-field with dome imaging.

Konica Minolta announced it is developing a portable projector that is only 1.6” long, .79” wide, and only 3” thick, roughly the size of a thumbdrive. It will show 20” wide images from 24” away from a screen or wall.

Police in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, are on the lookout for someone passing color copier-made fake $20 bills at local taverns.

Xerox installed six 25,000 gallon tanks as it works to complete a new polymerization toner plant in Webster, New York.

IBM won a bid from the State of Georgia for information technology. The 8 year contract is worth $873 million, and includes IBM sourcing computers from Dell and copiers from Xerox.

Xerox announced it will partner with a software company in India to expand managed print services. HCL, run by Vineet Nayar, will “open new opportunities for Xerox in the high-growth market while bringing sustainable business benefits to more customers worldwide”

When competing against Xerox, remember that if customer chooses NOT to use the preferred Xerox Leasing, the Xerox sales rep will normally charge a higher cost per copy service rate.

Xerox announced new paper products for production color laser systems:
Everflat paper, allows pages in an open book to lay completely flat, rather than bowing or arcing up towards the spine. Available in 80lb. cover weight. Actually made by Fuji Film of Japan.
PhotoPix, a pre-cut tabloid sheet, that pulls apart to yield one 8”x10”, one 5”x7” and 4 wallet size photos.
SportsPix, a letter-sized sheets that is precut to yield trading cards when pulled apart
FunFlip, a letter-size pre-cut sheet , that folds into a 3”x3” cube.
AccordianPix, a letter-size pre-cut sheet that folds into a free-standing panorama of eight images.

According to an article in ProPrint magazine, interesting info on the new Xerox 700 Digital Color Press:
That it is based on the same Fuji-made engine in the DocuColor 260 (also 242 and 252 models)
Sheet to sheet and front to back registration during auto duplex improved from 3mm (in 260) to 1mm
Improved laser assembly to provide more accurate laser dot placement
Runs at 70ppm for uncoated stocks up to 176gsm stocks, slows to 51ppm for 177-256gsm and slows to 35ppm for 300gsm stocks
Coated stocks of 106-176gsm run at 51ppm and 35ppm for heavier than 177gsm
Meant for 20K/month to 75K/month
Decurler added which makes unit 150mm longer than 242/252/260 engine

Hewlett Packard announced it has now placed 130 each of the Indigo 7000 production color systems worldwide which runs at a top speed of 120ppm.

Troy Group Inc. announced it will make a version of the Hewlett Packard LaserJet 3035 MFP that will use MICR toner, and call it the Troy 3035.

Hewlett Packard announced it will resell Readsoft accounts payable software as an option for its printers and MFPs.

The most popular magazine covering the computer industry, PC Magazine, announced it will cease printing the publication. The magazine, which started in 1982, will now only be available on-line.

XMPie, maker of popular high end variable data software, will conduct a video demonstration during the Print World 2008 show in Toronto on 11/22-24/08.

Smart Papers announced a new high gloss stock for production color laser systems. The new KromeKote True-Photo papers, use 30% recycled product, and are available in both 10point and 12point, 12”x18” sheets.

Dell launched new desktop color models:
New series of inkjet printers that are made by Kodak. Previously, all Dell models were sourced from Lexmark.
New color laser models include:
1320C offering A4 color speed of 12ppm for $299
1230C offering A4 color speed of 4ppm for $229
2130CN offers A4 color speed of 16ppm for $349
2135cn MFP offers copy/print/scan/fax and A4 color speed of 12ppm for $549
3130CN offer A4 color speed of 26ppm for $549
3115CN MFP offers A4 copy/print/scan/fax and color speed of 17ppm for $899
5110CN offers A4 color speed of 35ppm for $1349
Extended warranties do NOT includes supplies

Common electronic document search methods:
Boolean – in this type of search, words are placed in between the words to be searched, for example, if you search for “Black and White”, it will find documents with both words.
Fuzzy – retrieves pages that have the word searched both on its own or part of another word, for example, searching for “Key” will yield both “Key” and “Keystone”
Wildcard – allows you to use an asterisk in place of a word or phrase
Relational – finds the words and words that relate to the original search term
Context – can link like subjects based on context of the document

Buyers Labs Inc. gave its pick of the year award in the scanner category to:
Epson GT-1500
Fujitsu fi-6130
Fujitsu fi-6230
Visioneer 480
Fujitsu fi-6670
Fujitsu fi-6770
Panasonic KV-S4085CW/CL

Kodak filed a lawsuit against Samsung and LG over their cell phones. The company claims that they are infringing on Kodak patents through the use of the built-in cameras in their new cell phone models.

According to a report released by Nemertes Research, user demand for the internet will exceed its network capacity in 2 to 4 years. It predicts internet brownouts by 2012.

Okidata announced it will expand its plant in Dalian, China and move production there from Japan.

Lexmark announced that some of its sales and marketing staff will be let go at the end of the calendar year to cut costs.

MFP Industry Updates for 9/29/08

MFP INDUSTRY NOTES 9-28-08

The following is a quick review of copier/MFP industry news from industry publications.

Getting college professors to go “green” is a challenge, according to Dr. Sam Levy, Vice President of Information Resources & Technology at University of St. Thomas, MN. Apparently, many professors still judge their students essay paper by the number of sheets of paper they turn in, rather than the amount of pages that are typed. In other words, some are forcing students to print single sided, instead of duplexed, thus wasting paper and energy.

Ricoh fired its Senior Vice President of printing solutions, Ann Moser. She joined the company in 2001, and implemented a managed services program, as well as launched several new desktop models. Under her tenure, she increased the amount of dealers carrying Ricoh printers by 30%, and increased Ricoh’s market share. Ms. Moser also won numerous awards, such as:

• Everything Channel’s Chief


• Everything Channel Most Powerful Woman of the Channel

Ricoh announced it will spend a huge sum on advertising for its new Aficio PRO C900 production color device. The slogan it will use is “Think Production. Think Ricoh”. This will include advertising that customers can service this product themselves, using TCRU technology (trained customer replaceable units)

Information Week magazine announced it placed Ricoh on its Top 500 list for users of information technology. Ricoh won the recognition when it successfully implemented wireless dispatch systems to its 1,800 technicians in the U.S. that work for its branches.

Pitney Bowes had a court throw out a lawsuit filed against it by Ricoh. The copier maker made the claim that Pitney Bowes had infringed on 5 patents it had related to mailing systems. The U.S. Court of Appeals found that the patents did not apply. (Was Ricoh going to use the money it hoped to win from PB to help pay for IKON?)

Oce’ introduced a new desktop color laser MFP, called the cx2100 offering:

• Not made by Oce’, actual manufacturer unknown


• 17ppm color
• 21ppm b/w


• 4 tandem OPC drum designo A4 model, meaning letter/legal size paper only Copy/scan/fax/print


• Optional extended warranties do not include supplies

Contex of Denmark, maker of large format scanners (usually bundled with a large format color inkjet printer) announced it has purchased one of its distributors in the U.S. Ideal Scanners & Systems of the U.S., will be folded into Contex, and the company will now use only Tekgraf to distribute its products to dealers.

MWAi’s CEO, Mike Stramaglio, announced expansion in a recent interview:

• is now a premier partner with Sharp, meaning its technology can be embedded into Sharp MFPs.


• provides remote asset management and remote service solutions.


• Ramiro Trevino is Senior VP of Engineering and Engineering Engagements.


• Opened an office in Tokyo, Japan to be closer to copier makers.


• Also opened office in the Netherlands for more global reach.


• Is considering making acquisitions to expand business.


• Is dismissing rumors that ECi (provider of OMD, Lacross & NextGen software for copier dealers) is considering buying the company.


• Claims that it helped a dealer on the East Coast win a 10,000 unit bid.

In an effort to grow its business in Europe, Samsung hired an HP executive, Graham Long, and made him Director of European MFP & Printer Sales. Mr. Long has built a team of 43, by hiring from other vendors like Canon, Xerox, Lexmark & Epson. The company hopes to grow its business 52%.

The first duplicator was invented in the late 19th century by David Gestetner. His technology used wax paper as a master, where a stylus broke through the paper, and ink seeped through the paper to create the image. Current duplicator technology was modernized by Riso, Inc. in the 1980s. Gestetner Corp. also got into the copier business, and was later acquired by Ricoh Corp.

Canon won the latest round of a legal battle in its tussle with a Texas company over its plans to enter the HDTV market. Nano Proprietary Inc. may now take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court in its attempt to thwart Canon’s effort to launch SED technology (surface conduction electron emitter display). Canon apparently is betting billions that it can succeed in this market, and would reduce its dependence on office equipment revenue.

Canon also now shipping the imagePRESS C6000, a 60ppm production color system.
Features:

• unlike the imagePRESS C6000VP and imagePRESS C7000VP, this model only has one fuser section, so it slows down when running thicker stocks.


• according to Canon’s general manager of business imaging solutions group, it has duty cycle of 50,000 to 150,000 impressions per month, roughly half that of the C7000VP.
  

Canon announced it has acquired one of its own copier dealers in the San Francisco area, named NewCal Industries. This may the first of a long list of acquisitions by Canon, as it looks to diminish the impact of its largest distributor, IKON, selling out to Ricoh.

Details on NewCal:

• Founded by former Kodak copier technicians, Steve Tarpley & Ken Wilkens in 1991.


• Won award from Canon for service excellence in western region.


• also sold and serviced computer networks.


• Ha FM division.
• According to one industry author, Canon may consider buying Oce’ to make up for the impending loss of IKON.
  
  Media Sciences Inc.(maker of generic color wax and toner that works in Xerox printers and MFPs) admitted in its recent financial statement that it has spent $1.6 million so far to defend itself against patent infringement lawsuit filed against it by Xerox.
  
  Another company is offering “free” Xerox color printers. Cartridges Plus promises a free desktop color laser or color wax printer, however, it also requires the end user to buy very expensive color supplies.
  
  Details:
  Xerox Phaser 6360 program
  
   24 month lease
   End user must spend at least $189 per month in toner
   Printer offers letter/legal printing onlyo Xerox Phaser 8560 program
   24 month lease
   End user must spend at least $99 per month in wax sticks
   Printer offers letter/legal printing only
   both require a $50 application fee.
  
  Xerox launched a new line of recycled paper for its copiers that is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI). Xerox claims that is uses half as many trees were used to make the new paper.
  
  Xerox launched the WorkCentre 4260 offering:
  
  made by Samsung of Korea
• 55ppm b/w only.
• Copy/print/scan/fax
• A4 or letter/legal size only
• Base MSRP of $2999.
• Auto duplex
  

After a legal protest from Xerox, the Chatham City Council reversed its decision and awarded its copier bid to Xerox. While Xerox was originally the lowest bidder, the council gave the award to current vendor, and local business, Maple City Office Equipment. It made that decision to show loyalty to a local business, however, “We learned about the need to adhere absolutely to our RFP protocol” said Bill Weaver.

Xerox’s Mark Bernstein, head of its famous Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), detailed new projects his group is working on:

• disappearing ink.
• sticker that has computer chip embedded in it, which when placed on a box, can alert buyers if contents suffered damage due to concussive forces
• content-centric networking, to allow a wireless user to stay connected to a website, even if connection is temporarily lost.
• spiral concentrator technology to cheaply purify water
  

A chain of print shops, headquartered in Denver, sold out. Franchise Services, Inc. (Sir Speedy, PiP, Copies Now, etc.) has acquired Signal Graphics, which has 34 locations. Former founder and current president, Steve Morris, will retire.-

More details on the Detroit copier scam.

The City of Detroit began process to rescind a $10 million dollar contract:

Was originally awarded to Olive Delivery Service, owned by former Michigan state representative Ken Daniels.
Award given in June, 2007o Mayor of Detroit, Kwame Kilpatrick, is a former colleague, and was sentenced on unrelated charges and removed from office.

• Bid award was a six year contract for Kyocera products.
• Olive Delivery Services is not a Kyocera dealer, and work was actually being performed by A-1 Leader Business Systems.
• A-1 Leader Business Systems is a Canon & Kyocera dealer.
• Unknown when city will go back out to bid.
• Councilman Kwame Kenyatta stated; “This was a bogus contract from the very beginning”.
• The toll-free number for service that Olive put on the copiers was disconnected.
• The address listed by Olive is an unoccupied building.

EFI won a lawsuit against Leggett & Platt (L&P). The company claimed that EFI was infringing on its patent for ultra-violet light curing technology in regards to drying prints from large format color inkjet printers. EFI acquired this technology, when it bought VUTek, a large format printer maker.

Paul Rubillo announced he will put up for bid, the rights to the website; http://www.copies.com/. He hopes to sell it to a large firm, like Fedex Kinko’s, or a copier manufacturer. (the site http://www.computer.com/ sold for $2.1 million)
American Reprographics Company, which owns a chain of print for pay shops in the U.S., announced it is downgrading its revenue forecast for 2008 from $760 million to $700 million.

Kodak announced a new software option for its Creo print servers. The new software, called “Photo Touch-up”, allows end users to:o enhances content of images.

• optimizing quality of photo books, calendars, yearbooks, postcards, etc.
• automatically evaluates digital photos.
• make adjustments only to precise areas within the image.
• correction done in batches rather than one at a time.

Hewlett Packard, even though is not experiencing success with current 60ppm Edgeline color inkjet MFP, apparently plans to launch a 100ppm version.

Duplo announced a new duplicator, called the DX4640PD featuring:

• prints on both sides of paper at same time
• top speed of 240ppm
• uses water based ink
• (unknown how successful this product will be as auto duplexing with wet ink has proven in the past to be unreliable due to ink not drying fast enough).

After being fired from his job, 25 year old, Daniel Whetsell, was charged for breaking into a business, and destroying its $14,000 copier in West Virginia.-

Sharp is now shipping two new color laser MFPs, the MX-2600N and MX-3100N featuring:

• Code-named “Pastel II” platformo A3 models (meaning handles 11”x17” paper).
• Based on existing “Pastel” print engine used in other Sharp-made color copiers.
• 26ppm and 31ppm speeds respectively for b/w or color.
• Replaces the existing MX-2300N and MX-2700N models.
• 4 bits per pixel imaging (does not offer 8 bits per pixel).

Base MSRPs of $11,595 and $13,195o Includes ability to embed software applications into its control panel via Sharp OSA.

 End user must buy $349 Application Integration Module and $349 Application Communication Module.

Later this year will launch a 31ppm and 40ppm versions, code-named “Frontier” platform.
Also will launch 41ppm and 50ppm color models, code-named “C-Jupiter II” platform,
Still uses pulverized toner (grinding method) infused with wax.

 Black toner yield of 18,000 pages based on 5% coverage per page
 Color toners yield 15,000 pages each based on 5% coverage
 Black developer yield of 100,000 pages Color developers yield 60,000 pages each
 4 tandem OPC drum design, with each drum yielding 60,000 pages
 Uses two mylar film transfer belts, one with 200K yield, other with 300K yield Fuser yield of 400,000 pages (based on plain paper usage).

Document feeder holds up to 100 originals, and operates at top speed of 50opm for b/wo 13.5 second first color copy time.

Built-in retractable QWERTY style keyboard for data entry

 8.5” color LCD display shows thumbnail views of stored jobs.

New outside look includes textured off-white plastic with dark gray plastic around control panel, and dark grey plastic accent line down side of machine.

Optional $1295 fax board

 No second line option
 $549 for Internet faxo Document feeder holds up to 100 originals (unlike Sharp b/w models, this document feeder apparently does NOT scan both sides of original at same time).

Comes standard with 100 sheet stack bypass and two 500 sheet paper drawers
 500 sheet drawer for $845
 Dual 500 sheet drawers for $1075
 3,500 sheet paper deck for $1495
 Paper drawers can handle up to 110lb. index maximum
 Bypass can handle up to 140lb. index and 12”x18” paper.

Auto duplex standard, but only up to 110lb. index (can not auto duplex 10pt).

Finishing options include:
 $1795 for 50 sheet stapling
 $698 hole punch option
 $2895 for booklet maker finisher, up to 15 sheet booklets, but also requires $425 relay unit

Optional print controller
 Actual maker unknown (but most likely is Zoran)
 800MHz processor (Freescale PowerQUICC III)
 1GB RAM copier memory
 512MB RAM for print/scan operations
 80GB hard drive
 10/100/1000BaseT & USB ports
 HP PCL print driver standard
 PostScript print driver is a $745 option
 Windows Vista support for $625 (plus must also buy $500 1GB RAM upgrade)
 Unlike other Sharp color models, you can NOT upgrade to an EFI Fiery print servero $595 for data security kito Scan to e-mail/FTP/SMB/TWAIN standard with LDAP.

Optional Sharpdesk PC OCR software ($233 for one user, $3650 for 100 users)

Dell launched a new desktop color laser MFP, called the 2135cn offering:

• Actually made by Fuji of Japan
• 16ppm b/w and 12ppm color speedo A4 model, meaning letter/legal size paper only.
• Uses 4 tandem OPC drum design.
• Xerox plans on launching their own version of this Fuji product.
• Base MSRP of $599.
• Weighs 66lbs.
• Uses a 4-line LCD display (but it is not a touch screen)
• 250 sheet paper drawer standard with single sheet bypass.
• Auto duplex is not available.
• Optional extended warranties do NOT include supplies:

 Uses polymerized toner technology
 Black toner yield of 2,500 pages for $70
 Color toners yield 1,000 pages for $60 each
 Max duty cycle of 40,000 pages per month.

Built-in print controller with 400MHz processor with 128MB RAM made by Zoran, has PCL print driver only.

Toshiba about to launch new high speed color workgroup MFPs, the eSTUDIO 5520C, 6520cand 6530C featuring:

• 55ppm color and b/w speed for 5520C and 65ppm color and b/w speed for 6520Co 6530c offers 65ppm color and 75ppm b/w.
• All three offer 77opm top scan speed.
• Toshiba’s new “Hi Image” toner particles as small as 6.8 microns.
• Uses pulverized (grinding) toner infused with wax.
• Uses a four beam lasero 4 tandem OPC drum design.
• Has two print modes, one is 600x600 dpi with 8 bits per pixel, the other is 1200x1200dpi with 4 bits per pixel. The 1200dpi mode only works with PostScript print drivero 10.4” full color LCD touch screen control panel on an armature.
• The scanner and document feeder is not directly on top of the engine and paper drawers. Instead, it is shifted to the right, to make room for the control panel armature.
• Optional fax board

Comes standard with four 540 sheet paper drawers and 100 sheet stack bypass
 Optional side-mounted 2,500 sheet large capacity paper deck (holds letter size paper only)
 Bypass can handle banner paper
 Paper drawers support up to 256gsm
 Bypass supports up to 300gsm
 System slows down when running thick stock
 Auto duplex supports up to 256gsmo Built-in eBRIDGE print controller
 Actual maker unknown (most likely Wind River)
 80GB hard drive (comes standard with data encryption)• Optional data overwrite enables
 1GB RAM main memory
 512MB RAM page memory
 PCL, XPS and PostScript print drivers
 GE-1170 PDF scan accelerator
 GS-1020 Open Platform option (to allow software to be embedded)

Finishing options include:
 MJ-1104 booklet maker finisher
 MJ-6002 hole punch unit
 MJ-7003 post process cover inserter
 MJ-1102 50 sheet stapling finisher
 KN-1102 guide rail for finishers (attached to bottom of finisher)