Photizo Transform 2013 Wednesday Roundup

 

Early to Bed and Early to Rise? Not me, I hung around the sports bar Tuesday night and spoke to many P4P members, it was a good time put a face on the member.

I spent most of Wednesday morning after breakfast in the Transform Exhibit area.

Oki with NOC in a box was a really cool spin for dealers that would like to get into MNS, however they lack the resources for a full blown plan.

Muratec, also offering an even better version of MNS at a super price. Their program was extremely interesting

Japanese Printer Companies in WWII

Before OKI data was known as OKI data, it was Oki Electric Works and before that Miekosha. Kibataro Oki founded the company in 1881. By 1890 Oki Electric Works had earned an excellent reputation as a communication equipment manufacturer that specialized in telephone receivers.

After December of 1941 civilian communications dropped off and Oki Electric Works devoted most of its efforts to the war effort. Oki Electric Works then relied on orders from the Japanese Imperial Navy and Army to produce field telephones, aeronautical radios, and hydrophones.

In 1938 Oki Electric Works acquired a site in the Shiba Takahama section of Tokyo, here they were to build their Takahama plant. The plant was finished in 1941 and concentrated manufacturing wireless telegraph equipment, sonar, ammunition, and fuses for the Japanese Imperial Navy. In 1944 Oki was designated by the Munitions Company Act as a “munitions company”, which allowed the Military to take control of the factories and also allowed the government to intervene in personal matters.

March 10, 1945 saw 50 young students and women killed in a bombing raid, they had been held up in an air raid shelter in the Meijiza Theater. When World War II ended in 1945, Oki had 20 plants and nearly 23,000 employees even though its Shibaura, Maebashi and Otsuka Plants had been completed destroyed in an American bombing raids.

To read more http://www.oki.com/en/profile/history/120y.html

-=Good Selling=-

A Few Reasons for Enabling Secure Printing

Lurking in the shadows of your office is a disgruntled employee, he or she has already interviewed for other sales jobs and last week accepted a sales job at a competitor. But this sneaky son of bitch negotiated that he or she can't start for another 30 days. 

Why is that?

Or how about this one, you printed out an account list to work or some additional support documents for accounts you went to the printer and the prints were not there. Where did they go, did they ever print?

Most likely someone has stolen that printed data, account list or intellectual property. In the above case it was the person who is making plans to leave the company and in the mean time is gathering information on as many accounts as possible from as many reps or managers as possible.

Let's not stop there, this employee may also be picking up invoices or information that has personal or business credit card information. 

Everyone has put up such a fuss over the securing their

The Emergence of Utility Printers?

The though of utility printers has been on my mind for quite some time, especially with the recent release of the Memjet C6010 color printer that will print full color at 60 pages per minute with a retail price of about $1,200 or so.

Now, I'm not sure what the wholesale cost of that printer is, however I'm thinking $700-$800 or somewhere around there.  

With the cost being so low isn't now possible to give the printer away, especially since the ink/supplies is controlled by the dealer? You could build in the cost of the printer into the ink cost.  Better yet, if there was a way to have software that would enable a tiered billing system, the system could be placed out there with a cost per page billing.  

Of course the software for tiered billing is not available for this unit, but we're a creative bunch and I'm sure we could figure something out.  Years ago in NJ there was a Canon dealer that sold some of the early analog copier devices, they sold the end user a three pack of toner (toner kit) it also included maintenance, parts and on site service for as long as the toner kit lasted.  A very novel approach and one that was easy for the customer to understand and an absolute win win for the dealer!  As I think more about this toner kit it may have been the beginning of the cost per page agreement.  Of course their were many customers that tried to scam the process and bought toner from another dealer, but the concept was awesome and it worked well for many years.

Lately I heard of a few dealers that will be going to

10 Questions for the Manual MPS Assessment

Recently, I had an appointment with a "net" new account that was interested in our Managed Print Service Program. This was not a large account (about 30 employees).  Of course the first item of business was to close on the assessment. In this particular business there were over 15 assorted printers from Dell, HP & Okidata.

In smaller accounts I'm not a big fan of all the assessment software tools that are available. When doing a manual assessment one of the items of business is to inventory the entire fleet. I'm a big fan of doing a walk through and collecting my data the old fashioned way.

Of course the manual assessments will take time, however I'm introduced to every person in every department that prints. Not only do I get to meet that person, but I also get a few minutes to interview that person about how they use the printer. After I print the configuration sheet from the printer I'll then have a short interview with the main user/users of the printer.

1.  What size of paper do you print onto?

Ricoh Color SPC831DN "Top Ten Features"

In last weeks blog on the Ricoh SP831DN we focused on hardware specs, this week we'll tell you more about some of the awesome print features that come with the Ricoh SP831DN Color Printer.

Printer driver features is not something you can learn from reading the brochure, nor when you are looking the printer up on line to review pricing. Most end users and sales people ignore the awesome printer driver features and options that are included with laser printers. Thus a customer could purchase a laser printer and never be aware of the advanced printer driver features/functionality that are available, and some of these features are capable of improving business process and cutting costs.

Top Ricoh SP831DN Printer Driver Features:

1. Black Over Print: Black over print is available to enhance the quality of  text and black images  printed on colored backgrounds. Think of it this way, the color image is printed first and then the black text and graphics is printed last, thus this will prevent blurred text or haloing with the final rendering.
2. CMYK Simulation Profile: When using the Ricoh Postscript 3 driver, you can turn on US Offset Print CMYK Simulation Profile which enables a color profile that closely reproduces colors that are used with ink based commercial offset printing in the US. Even though this feature will simulate SWOP (Simulated Web Offset Printing) it is genuine SWOP an is not supported.  When I've used this feature with other print devices I've found that it gives you an additional way to reproduce or come close to the colors of your choice.

Ricoh SPC831DN Print Shop in a Box "The Reveal"

A few years ago when Ricoh introduced the Ricoh SPC811DN, I dubbed that printer as a "print shop in a box".

Funny that Xante is now using the same line with the their new color laser envelope press named IMPRESSA which happens to be OEM'd by Ricoh.  I'm guessing Xante may be ending the relationship with Okidata?  If that's the case I can see why, I've seen two placements of Xante's Illumina (Okidata engine) and both print shops abandoned the systems because they couldn't find a reliable service organization to service the product properly. Enough on Xante.

I fell in love with the first generation model which was the Ricoh C811DN and then the second gen which was the Ricoh C821DN and I'm thinking the Ricoh C831DN will be the color laser printer of choice where users need excellent quality, variety of media than can be used, reliability and backed by a powerful dealer service network.

Actually there are two models to choose from, the SPC830DN (45 page per minute print speed) and the SPC831DM (55 page per minute print speed).  To keep this simple we're going to concentrate on the specs for the Ricoh SPC831DN.

The Specs at a Glance:

Ricoh SP8300DN Spec Review "the reveal"

I ask you, when was the last time you hugged your printer? Odds are you haven't just because there's not much too like about laser printers these days.  You know the ones, they have the low purchase price and a very high cost per page for the consumable items.

Lately many manufacturers have lowered their toner cost to lure you in, yet they forget to tell you about the other consumables items that are needed (the manufacturer treats these as parts), fuser, maintenance kits, transfer kit, drum, etc.. So, there's not much to like about these systems especially when you want to print some volume.

At this time Ricoh offers three A3 (printers that will print 11x17 size document), the SP 6330N (35 pages per minute), the SP8300N (50 pages per minute) and the SP9100DN (75 pages per minute).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




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

-=Good Selling=-

Doom and Gloom for the Printed Page or Hogwash!

We had an interesting thread debate on the Print4Pay Hotel forums this past week. 

I posted an article that was titled "Dead-tree format's demise is slow, steady", posted my reply and then asked to hear from other P4P'er for their thoughts in reference to the growth for the printed page or is it really dying a slow death.

The article went on to state that paper demand in 2006 and has declined each year by 3-10 percent year over year and is now down 20% or more since the 2006 peak.

This was my repsonse on the forums:

I read a report the other day that stated the US printed page volume will reach 1.2 trillion pages in 2014 for the FIRST TIME. I think this was from IDC which is well respected.

As I was driving to an appointment today I was thinking about all of these reports and thought that the paper sales would even be a better indicator of what is going on. Wallaa, I had the above article in an email today!

The gist of the report is that cut sheet paper sales continue to lose steam, and has not rebounded to the levels of 2006. The culprint, smart phones and ipads, but......maybe it's still the sign of the piss poor economy. The downturn for my sales (copier, mfp)  and I think others will agree started in 2007 and has continued to this day. So, I'm kinda blaming the world wide recession for the downturn in paper, yes people tell me that they are emailing more, not faxing as much but I'm not seeing the reduction in printed pages from my accounts, yet.  Maybe it's to early to blames the iphone, smartphones and ipads.

Would like to hear comments from others do you agree, disagree?

Response:

I think this can be very easily misleading. The proliferation of duplex printing over the last 5-10 years has increased significantly, even home printers ship with duplex now. This will impact paper sales at least 6% IMHO. Also a 6% revenue drop? I'm pretty sure the market price for cost per pages (on consumer and business alike) has dropped easily 5% per year. Even if you take into account increases through color it still doesn't add up.

So I'm still firmly in the camp that the increased volume and availability of digital content is actually increasing volumes in line with IDC's report - we are just all going to make less money providing each page.

I do however think users are smarter on how they print pages, I have seen a huge trend here of users going to a local store to get photo prints done rather than costly consumer inkjets.

Anyways that's my rant!

Response:

I just billed my largest printer sale ever this week.

People will always need and want paper. The economy has more to do with this than anything. Things are so tight people are squeezing not just pennies but even fractions of pennies.

There's additional responses to the thread, for those of us that sell machines that print on paper we're not sure if print is dead yet, and if it is dying a slow death then most of us are not seeing it yet.  I guess the we'll be able to figure this out if and when the economy picks up and if the economy never picks up then I would tend to think that the article was true that the printed page is declining but not due to the proliferation of ipads, iphones, and smart phones but due to a global recession.

Go here to view to the other comments.

-=Good Selling=-

Dr. Print Offers to Cure Your Print Pain

Who says you can't have fun and offer up FREE print solutions?  We've just landed the guru of print to our Print4Pay Hotel forums!

Just about a week ago me and the wife paid a visit to the boardwalk at Seaside Heights, NJ aka Jersey Shore. The sweet smell of the salt water, the blistering sun, the throngs of people and who the heck do I run into?  The Doctor of Print....aka Dr. Pcl5, it was like old times again!

Geesh, I hadn't seen DP in almost 20 years!  So what do people from Jersey do when they're at the boardwalk, you guessed it we drank together, ate Italian hot dogs, clams, lobster, laughed together and reminisced about the glory days of selling copiers.

But there's more to this than you think,  I took the time to show Dr. Pcl5 the Print4Pay Hotel forums, and convinced him with about 5 beers and 5 shots of tequila (we poured the tequila in the beer) to come on board as our Print Doctor.  After the 5th beer and tequila we were in bad shape, Dr. Pcl5 decided it was time to pack it in the for the night and I had to be driven home by the wife. But, it was an eventful time with an old friend and a new member of the Print4Pay Hotel forums.
Here's a small sampling of Dr. Pcl5 knowledge. In the past has offered up customized print solutions for Fortune 500 companies and is experienced with almost every Operating System and applications being used by some of the largest companies in the world!  Both Dr. Pcl5 and I agree that print is NOT dead, it's just more of a moving target and niche print systems and solutions will continue to grow and provide print stream management opportunities that will increase click, revenue and professional services. 

Think about it, does anyone of your customers or potential customers experiencing pain with their printing? Do they have this pain every day or is it just once in awhile, does the pain subside on different days of the week and increase on other days?  Have you been avoiding your customer because you couldn't offer them a pain free solution or you just couldn't find the right Doctor to collaborate with? 

I say, the wait is over!  Dr. Pcl5 wants you to post your toughest print questions and he promises that he can offer up a customized solution that will cure your customer, earn your respect and win you additional business with new and existing accounts. It's starting to sound like Ron Popiel now right?

What's the cost........, well there is NO cost, all you have to do is be a member of the Print4Pay Hotel forums, post you thread about your print pain and Dr. Pcl5 will analyze and offer up a solution to cure the print pain! Click here to find your pain free print solution!

At this time, I can't tell you who Dr. Pcl5 is, all I can tell you is that Dr. Pcl5 is the Guru of print, the King of SAP, the Duke of ERP, and the Lord of Linux and residing somewhere at the Jersey Shore.
-=Good Selling=-

1.2 Trillion Printed Pages Equals Good Times for all!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-=Good Selling=-

Top 7 Solutions @ Transform 2012 DOCassess @ #5

I've been a little backed up lately with providing the last three "cool" solutions from the Global Transform Photizo show in Orlando last month. But, I'm back on track and the #5 slot goes to DOCassess. Now, while I'm not an expert with MPS, however I've been doing MFP fleet assessments for years many years.  One nice tip when doing assessments is try to visit every printer if you can and find out who uses that printer, and then interview them about the media requirements that they have. This information is very handy if you are upgrading the fleet, and also opens the door for additional print work flow opportunities such as print stream management.

This blogs a little different from the rest,  I actually asked Mike Lamoth to list some bullet points for his solution and I loved the fact that last bullet point addresses work flow so that you may be able to uncover work flow opportunities!

As Managed Print Services gains more momentum globally the need to have reps articulate whats involved with MPS, how it differs from the past "over promos under deliver" and actually perform a professional assessment so they can actually speak more intelligently about the customers environment has become a necessity. Not to mention, the Dealer or OEM is now on the hook because they are telling the customer I will manage your print environment for $$. So they require reliable resources to help them understand the TRUE picture and not pie in the sky.

What was once a nice to have has become a must have and that’s an assessment tool.

One of the biggest complaints I hear from dealer principles is that many of the tools in the market require an analyst to use and the dealer can't afford an analyst for every rep. So we developed a sales aid and an assessment tool for all sales reps to use.

How does DOCassess differ:

• Ease of use
• We have incorporated a Print Environment Balanced Score Card as a sales aid – this allows the rep to meet with the customer and discuss their print environment by asking 22 related questions. At the end the customers score will fall into one of three categories giving them some industry stats and suggesting they move forward with an assessment.
• Two types of assessments – Surface Level for SMB (small to medium business) and Advanced which goes so far as to offer individual device TCO's, a sophisticated carbon calculator, and much more.
• Interview section to asked end users questions that will uncover process and workflow improvements

One of the strongest financial sections in the market providing detailed current vs proposed options, blended service, financial comparison down to a CPC (cost per copy) etc.

 

Take a trip here to find out more about DOCassess.

 

-=Good Selling=-

New Jersey Gives Copiers a Bad Name

Deleting data from the hard drive
And you're to blame
New Jersey
You give copiers a bad name

Just a little rearranged lyrics from "You Gave Love a Bad Name" by New Jersey artist BonJovi. 

Just a few days ago the New Jersey Assembly voted in favor of Bill A1238 which basically states that the owner (business) or the lessor or the lessee of Digital Multifunctional Copy Machine "shall destroy, or arrange for the destruction of, all records (means any material recorded or preserved by any means) stored on a digital copy machine which was purchased by that business, and which is no longer to be retained by that business, by erasing or otherwise modifying those records to make the records unreadable, undecipherable, or nonreconstructive through generally available means". 

I believe A1238 still needs to be voted on by the NJ Senate in order to become law, the bill would take effect on the 60th day following the enactment.

Here we go, this new law does not cover any systems that were sold prior to the enactment and would only affect those systems that were sold or leased on or after the date of enactment.  New Jersey law makers have nothing else to do than to create a bill that was based on an expose from CBS news more than two years ago on multifunctional copiers that were already 5 years old?  In short that means these copiers were manufactured in 2005.  Since that expose from CBS news, all copier manufacturers have stepped up to the plate and offered new advanced security measures like overwriting the hard drive up to 9 times or event driven data destruction to destroy the data on the hard drives.

Do we really need a law for this?  Did NJ lawmakers not do their research on all of the new multifunctional copier offerings from copier manufacturers and see that they have addressed the issue?  Did they not think about protecting the data on the existing systems that are in the field? Did they forget about the tens of thousands of computer servers that are also owned or leased by businesses, and how a million or more pc's also.  Most of the computers and pc's are not resold and carted off to the land fill (sneak in at night, grab a few servers or pc's and you'll never know what you'll find).  Data is data whether the images are stored on a copier hard drive, a pc, server, removal drives, back up drives and cell phones.   BTW, shouldn't this law also pertain to laser printers that have a hard drive?

Copier & MPS Industry Fighting Over the "Last Sheet of Paper"?

The Copier industry continues to evolve, and it seems all of the major manufacturers or at least most of them are making the necessary changes to become more than a "copier manufacturer".  If you're an avid reader of the industry blogs, and articles many pundits are predicting the doom and gloom of ink and paper.  I'm told and I've read that the next generation of office workers won't require paper, copiers, printers, fax machines or scanners. The next generation of office workers will be paperless.....due to Andriod Smart Phones and the proliferation of Apple IPADs and related tablet devices.  There's a great article here from my pals at gap intelligence.

But just recently there seems to be a war of the words, a recent article by Lou Slawetsky, CEO, Industry Analysts, Inc stated this "What happened? Managed print (or, MPS, or MDS, or OPS, or etc.) was to have been the strategy off the millennium. A market with a triple digit growth rate. The ability to lock in your account for three to five years. Gross margins of more than 50%. A natural conduit for the placement of MFPs supplied by your primary vendor. A continuous revenue stream. A stepping stone leading from managed print (or managed printers) to managed IT services. Easy sales, huge upside. Sales reps love the comp plan. MPS is a great plan that benefits both the dealer and the imaging system vendor."  you can read the rest of Lou words of wisdom here.

Personally, we had a poll running on the Print4Pay Hotel forums for about a year.  The Poll asked dealers if  "You're now selling Managed Print Services "Your Thoughts Now".   Almost 70% responded that they were not happy with the profits and or if they had to do it over again, they would not.  I just thought I'd get this out there while we transition to what I read today.

Today, saw a blog post from Ken Stewart titled The Six Promises of MPS on MPS Insights.  Ken states "While I can attest to the fact that the thorns of learning a new business model can be quite painful, all indicators point to one simple truth: MPS is a business model proven to be successful by many providers".  But even more interesting is the statement that "MPS can be used at the core stepping stone to IT related services".  I agree, the company I work although we are not really and MPS provider however we a re making the transition to IT Managed Services.

Here's what I see...paper will not just go away, I do believe that the general office use of bond paper will decline, but I also believe that niche Color Printers/MFP's and Imaging Presses will become more prevalent in the future.  These niche systems will allow for these Color Printers/MFP's to print on a wider variety of media, thus allowing more companies than ever  to be more creative with  printing smaller runs of customized marketing materials. I also believe that there are still many pages/clicks to be captured by Color Printers/MFP's. Take a trip to Relyco's web site and there's a treasure trove of medias that will work with Color Printers/MFp's.

Does it seems like we're all fighting for the last few  sheets of paper? Will paper go away, yup. Are the predictions of doom and gloom for paper premature, yup. 

-=Good Selling=-

What is Jetmobile?

Recently Jetmobile signed on as an annual supporter of the Print4Pay Hotel. I'll admit I knew little about Jetmobile and what they did until I spoke with Stoney Tuckness Director of Business Development. So without further ado, I've posted the first Print4Pay Hotel Interview with Stoney @ Jetmobile. Please go here for online demo.

Stoney what is Jetmobile?

Jetmobile is an ISO 9001 certified company with 17 years of experience developing enterprise-class software solutions for the printing industry. Jean Francois d’Estalenx established Jetmobile in 1994 in Paris but has since grown into a global company with strong representation in all 3 major regions; Americas, EMEA, APJ.  Jetmobile headquarters are located in Nampa, ID, Paris, France & Singapore.  Jetmobile is nearing 70 employees, 45 of which make up our research and development department and quality control. This reach and scope allows Jetmobile to tailor our already flexible software based on regional needs as well as offer technical and sales support 24/6 in local languages.

What type of Jetmobile products are there?

Jetmobile offers 3 major products; SecureJet, MicrDIMM, and BarDIMM. These products are sold as either OEM products from major printing manufactures or through indirect channels.

 What are the benefits of each product?

Jetmobile’s BarDIMM turns your HP LaserJet printer into a barcoding expert. BarDIMM supports over 90 barcoding formats, numerous manufacturing symbols in multiple languages, is fully scalable, and supports color.

Jetmobile’s MicrDIMM allows for ad hoc dynamic check printing including signature lines, logos, and addresses, removes the need for pre printed check stock, and minimizes security risks of pre printed checks or third party check printing services.  Our flagship product is SecureJet. SecureJet is a security, mobility and traceability solution for print devices. SecureJet is a next generation, enterprise-class, fully scalable, security, mobility, and traceability, solution. SecureJet allows customers to minimize printing cost, increase security, and prove utilizations and efficiencies as well as providing knowledge for actionable print environment optimization.

Japanese Printer Companies in WWII "Part II"

Brother during World War II was know as Nippon Sewing Machine Manufacturing Company in 1934. Prior to 1934 they were known as Yasui Sewing Machine Co, and was founded by Kaneschi Yasui.

When the started in 1941 Nippon Sewing Machine Manufacturing Company aka Brother Sales Ltd had to switch from manufacturing commercial sewing machines to industrial sewing machines. Not much information was available if Brother produced any additional products for the war effort. However, it was noted that many of their factories received extensive war damage.

Epson started in 1941 as Daiwa Kogyo LTD and was located in Suwa, Nagano, Japan. Not much information was available for Daiwa Kogyo during the war effort, however Daiwa Kogyo was part of the Sieko conglomerate. Sieko like many other Japanese companies were ordered to produce military items such as timing fuses and ammunition.

Now, here's something I never knew in doing some research on timing fuses.

"From late 1944 until early 1945, the Japanese launched over 9,000 of these fire balloons, of which 300 were found or observed in the U.S. Some guesswork gives the total number that made the trip at about 1,000. Despite the high hopes of their designers, the balloons were relatively ineffective as weapons, causing only six deaths and a small amount of damage, and they survive in memory mostly as an ingenious and dangerous curiosity."

Geez, I wonder if this can still happen today, could these balloons go undetected?? Want to read more about the Fire Balloon!

Hitachi started in 1910 by Namihei Odaira, they specialized in manufacturing small 5 horsepower electric motors. In 1920 the name was changed to Hitachi, LTD.

"The rise of the Japanese military government in the 1930s forced some changes at Hitachi. Although Odaira struggled to maintain corporate independence, his company was nonetheless pressured into manufacturing war material, including radar and sonar equipment for the Imperial Navy. Odaira, however, was successful in preventing Hitachi from manufacturing actual weapons.

World War II and its aftermath devastated the company. Many of its factories were destroyed by Allied bombing raids, and after the war, American occupational forces tried to disband Hitachi altogether. Founder Odaira was removed from the company."

-=Good Selling=-

My 2nd Reason Why Managed Print Services is a Loser

My first reason for Why Managed Print Services is a loser was waste and maybe that was to broad of a reason.  Waste can come in many different forms, such as waste in energy, waste is resources, waste in consumables, waste in landfill, waste of space, and waste of time!

As the second reason, I'd like to focus on waste of energy.  Think about it, 50 lasers printers firing up everyday, heating and cooling all day long. It's gotta take it's toll on energy consumption.  For those of you who are not aware of the laser engine technology, I'll make is real simple for you. Toner is needed to make a print, in most laser printers toner is housed in the print cartridge. Toner is fine plastic resin particles. In order for the toner to adhere to the paper it must be heated and fixed.  All laser printers have a heat roller or heat belt that melts to toner.  In order to have the printer print quickly most of these devices maintain a temperature threshold.

So, lets be bold and say we have 50 laser printers firing up and staying on all day wouldn't it be smarter to have 5 work group Multifunctional Copier Devices that could support every ones printing.  

Gesh, what would it cost on energy to run let's say a certain "Q" color laser printer?

Selling Copiers "Are you Selling the RIGHT Solutions?"

We all know we can't make any money with a box to box situation.  So, where can the profit be made? Usually it's made in non competitive situations that will produce an immediate ROI for the customer.

One of the keys is to know everything about your customer.  You may be able to see the hardware when you do a walk through, however if you don't ask how do you do this or how do you do that, you don't get, get what?  INFORMATION!!!

We need to ask what do you print on that printer or this printer. With this you'll get a better understanding of the media they are using.  Plus, you can then add questions like:

Daily Copier & MFP Industry Notes from around the World

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., Sep 21, 2011 -- Conexant Systems Inc., a leading supplier of innovative semiconductor solutions for imaging, audio, embedded modem, and video surveillance applications, today announced the CX92161, a highly integrated system-on-chip (SoC) optimized for laser...read more

FOSTER CITY, Calif., Sept. 22, 2011  -- EFI™ (Nasdaq:EFII) concluded a very successful GRAPH EXPO 2011 last week, with high visitor attendance, strong orders on the show floor, hundreds of qualified leads, and the most awards won by a single company in the Must See 'em award program's history...read more

The combined serial inkjet and page printer, copier and multifunction product (MFP) market in India totalled 666,859 units in the second quarter of 2011, a 0.8% decline vis-a-vis the same period of the previous calendar year, according to research firm Gartner, Inc. Some of the ripples caused by... need to know more? 

Mayberry R.F.D. (S1E05) - The Copy Machine...watch the video

-=Good Selling=-