Fujitsu ScanSnap N1800 Network Scanner "Spec Review"

Fujitsu launched the ScanSnap N1800 Network Scanner offering:

o 20ipm top speed

o Scans both sides of original at same time

o 200spi or 300dpi

o b/w and color scanning

o 8.4” color touchscreen LCD display

 Preview of scanned images

 Zoom, pan, rotate images

 Can delete or scan more pages to a batch

o Holds up to 50 originals

o Scan to email/folder/network/FTP/MS SharePoint

 Scan to fax or printer

o Automatic blank page deletion

o 11.8”W x 8.9”D x 6.8”H

o Base MSRP of $1895

-=Good Selling=-

MFP Weekend Industry Notes 4/26/10

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

- More proof of economic recovery for copiers. The Copier Network of San Leandro, CA has noticed an increasing trend for copier repossessions and other general office equipment in the United States due to the tough economic times. As a nationally established asset recovery company The Copier Network has the privilege of foresight to predict the economy’s coming up’s and down’s. However, recently, Copier Network has noticed a slight decrease in the number of repossession assignments, which may suggest the economy is recovering. (Preliminary forecast for Repo assignments in 2010 is to be about 15% less than 2009.)

- Fujitsu battle with its former president, Kuniaki Nozoe, continues. The latest allegation is that Fujitsu’s board allegedly offered the president “hush money” of $2.9 million, if he would resign quietly.

- Fujitsu launched a computer keyboard that is made with biodegradable plastics, called the KBPC PX ECO keyboard.

- Fujitsu announced it will spend $537.3 million to upgrade its data centers to offer cloud computing (possible price of 30 cents per hour)

- Fujitsu hired John Hanley as Application Division Managing Director, who will be tasked with 3 year plan to double revenue from custom customer applications.

- Pitney Bowes announced it will expand its relationship with Riso to sell the Riso ComColor color inkjet systems. These Olympus made models will be marketed through Pitney Bowes offices nationwide (which may be why Riso is apparently closing its own branches in the U.S.)
- Some customers still prefer the TIFF format for scanning instead of PDF:
o TIFF stands for “Tagged Image File Format”
o works well with CAD programs, and geographic info systems
o file structure is simpler
o originally developed by Aldus Corp, in 1986 (which sold out to Adobe)
o bitmap format
o files are very difficult to alter
o suitable for storing many pages of a single fax in a single file
o better compression algorithms to make files smaller

- Clearwell Systems announced it sold an eDiscovery software package to Wyatt Tarrant & Combs, a 200 attorney law firm with 7 offices in South Central U.S. and Colorado.

- Kodak’s CEO, Antonio Perez, stated that he plans on Kodak generating $250 million to $350 million per year in patent licensing revenue. Details:
o Program actually started during tenure of former Kodak CEO, Dan Carp.
o Kodak invented the digital camera in 1975
o Kodak has reported only one full year of profit since 2004 (in 2007)
o Kodak filed lawsuits against Apple Computer and Research in Motion Ltd. (makers of Blackberry) for patent infringement.
o Apple countersued claiming that Kodak is using its digital processing technologies
o Received $550 million from Samsung to settle lawsuit
o Received $400 million from LG Electronics to settle lawsuit
o Has 30 licensing agreements now in place, including Nokia, Sony, Motorola, etc.

- In the court case “Ghods versus Citicorp”, the judge ruled that just because a copier experienced service problem, the customer (Ghods) is still responsible for making lease payments.

- Nuance announced new features for eCopy ShareScan:
o Document Conversion Extender which enables customers to turn paper documents into fully-formatted Microsoft Word, Excel and RTF (rich text format) files
o The OCR (optical character recognition) engine has been improved to offer 50% more accuracy
o The OCR engine is now 30% more accurate than other middleware solutions
o Forms Processing Extender enables customer to route and process paper forms, including ability to extract data and perform automated database look-ups ($995 per MFP)
o Available OCR SDK (software developer kit) & API (application program interface) making it easier for other software vendors to connect to eCopy
o Support for 3D capture for book scanning
o Export to over 100 formats, including eBook and audio book
o Scan-to-redaction allows keywords or phrases to automatically remove sensitive information with results printed to redacted copy or sent to user as redacted PDF file
o Scan-to-highlight results in a paper-search feature that finds and highlights info hidden within stacks of paper, with highlighted document either printed or sent as PDF

- Zoran Corp. of Sunnyvale, CA, which makes print controllers for many MFP manufacturers, announced a new controller called the “Inferno” offering:
o Uses Linux with Quatro RISC processor
o 10/100/1000BaseT ports
o Zoran also makes controllers for DVD players, digital cameras, cell phones and cable TV boxes.
- Toshiba announced it is launching a new series of hands-on workshops to teach its dealers how to sell Managed Print Services and Professional Services. Details:
o Classes held in Washington DC, Dallas, Irvine & Chicago
o Speakers include employees of Toshiba, HP, Lexmark and Strategy Development
o Launched by Toshiba’s VP of Marketing, Bill Melo
o There is no charge to attend

- Toshiba announced that it won four awards in the 2010 BERTL Readers’ Choice Awards:
o Total Solution Provider in the Overall Manufacturer Award Division
o Environment Sustainability
o Workflow Integration
o Output Quality for the Toshiba e-STUDIO5520c/6520c/6530c series.

- Toshiba expects to report a big loss in the financial year just ended:
o expects a net loss of ¥20 billion (US$215 million) for the fiscal year that ended in March
o Sales are expected to come in at ¥6.38 trillion, which is a slight drop from the ¥6.4 trillion that was predicted in January

- Microsoft released results of a survey that showed:
o Most small and midsize businesses (SMB) will be spending more on IT in 2010
o 64% stated that they will spend more, compared with 23% in 2009
o Overall spending expected to increase 16% over 2009 levels
o 19% expect to use cloud based services
o 74% will use more remote workers
o 52% admitted to storing a document on a company server and never finding it again
o 39% state that their company does not have any guidelines for storing documents

- Copier data security in the news. CBS network TV affiliates across the U.S. are airing investigative reports reporting to the general public that many copiers with hard drives that companies have traded in, still have confidential information stored on the hard drive, that may wind up in the wrong hands when the copiers are remarketed to new customers. Sample of customers that inadvertently exposed data when they traded in their copiers:
o Buffalo, NY Police Department (Toshiba copiers)
o Tommy Bahama stores
o Affinity Health Plan of New York
o The copiers involved were all made prior to 2008, which means they were made before most vendors introduced hard drive encryption or disk overwrite features

- Rochester Software Associates (RSA) won “Best of Show” awards during the current OnDemand trade show in Philadelphia:
o RSA WebCRD Web-to-Print software
o RSA KDKPrint SMARTBOARD conversion software (converts Kodak proprietary format to PS or PDF)
o RSA SurePreview previewsa job onscreen as a finishied product using WebCRD

- Cason Research predicts that digital color page volume in North America will grow from 10% of all digital pages in 2008 to almost 50%, more than 325 billion pages, by 2017.

- According to BuyerZone, here is average street pricing of document management software systems:
o $3,000 for entry level system with less than 10 users
o $6000 for small system with 10+ users
o $25,000 to $80,000 for mid-sized system with up to 100 users
o $500,000 for enterprise level (hundreds of users)

- United Stationers Supply Co., a large nationwide office supply distributor headquartered in Illinois, announced it has made a minority investment in NER Data Corp., which refills toner cartridges, offers generic printer parts, and provides a Managed Print Services program.

- Apple Computer has filed a patent application for a color computer monitor that will use special filters to display CMYK, instead of traditional RGB. Unknown when and if product will actually be launched.

- Rosetta Technologies announced it will sell MICR (magnetic image character recognition) toner that supposedly will work in 90, 110 & 135ppm Ricoh production print b/w copiers.

- Ricoh announced that in Australia, it will resell EFI PrintSmith MIS software, which is used by printshops to manage their business. EFI normally sells this product directly to printshop owners, so Ricoh is testing this in one country, and may offer it in the future in the U.S.

- Ricoh gave out some details about its last fiscal year end performance:
o operating profit is 44% larger than originally forecast due to cost cutting measures (massive layoffs)
o operating profit of $697 million

- Equitrac announced it has hired Eric Rodriquez as its VP of Direct Professional Sales, focusing on selling to the legal vertical market. Details:
o Eric started his career at IKON in Chicago
o Then worked as sales manager for C2 Legal
o Founded and become CEO of Ribstone Systems (since he now left Ribstone, some are reporting that Ribstone is going out of business, which would be bad news for all the law firms in the U.S. that bought Canon imageRUNNERs with Ribstone/MEAP embedded)

- Carlson Marketing reported results of a survey regarding building relationships with customers:
o Average company loses 10-30% of its customers every year
o Average company loses 50% of its customers every 5 years
o 50% of buyers claim they’d never do business with a company again if it took more than one day to resolve one of their customer service issues (i.e. billing, etc.)
o Proactively soliciting feedback from customers provides 15-20% more cross-selling and upselling opportunities
o More than 66% of companies that communicate with their buyers via weekly or monthly newsletters increase loyalty
o Buyers who receive regular contact are 4 times more likely to recommend a business to a friend or collegue

- Samsung puts convict back in his job. Even though he was convicted of criminal tax evasion charges in connection with massive slush fund and bribery network scandal, South Korean President lee Myung-bak pardoned Lee Kun-hee, former Samsung chairman. Samsung announced that he was rehired and given his title back.

- Kyocera has hired Peter Cybuck, formerly of Ricoh and Sharp, to lead new data security initiative for future MFPs.

- Kyocera’s president and CEO, Mike Pietrunti, announced that the company is looking to add dealers in Salt Lake City, Denver, Phoenix and Houston. (it lost dealers it had in last couple of years due to acquisitions)

- More data security issues. A vendor survey of more than 200 hospital executives finds instances of health information data breaches and medical identity theft continue to increase despite new federal regulations like the breach notification rule and the Red Flag rules

o Identity Force, a Framingham, Mass.-based vendor of identity theft prevention services, conducted the survey between March 30 and April 13 among members of the American Hospital Association. The company received e-mail outreach assistance from the AHA, which previously endorsed its services. Survey findings include:
 Some 41.5 percent of responding hospitals have 10 or more data breaches annually, up 121 percent from a similar survey done in 2009. Twenty percent of respondents have at least 20 breaches annually.
 Fifty-six percent of respondents believe the health reform law either will not change or will increase instances of medical identity theft. Yet, 71 percent of the hospitals, on average, investigate fewer than 50 possible cases of misuse of identity each year and 34 percent don't keep good patient ID records.
 Only 15.7 percent of respondents believe they are in good compliance with security provisions of the HITECH Act; 48 percent don't know if their vendors and business associates are in compliance.

-=Good Selling=-

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.