TWIX “this week in Xerox”

Xerox announced that its desktop printer sales fell 22% during last quarter, and will lay off 50 people from its Phaser printer facility in Wilsonville, OR. The company's total revenue last quarter fell from $4.3 billion to $3.6 billion.

Copier dealers in New York are complaining over the Buffalo public school district's decision to renew its contract with Xerox, rather than going out to bid. The district's CFO, Gary Crosby claims that because Xerox offered a discount off the current state contract, this allowed the school to order 300 new copiers from Xerox and avoid a bid process.

Xerox launched a managed print services program for its agents and VARs. Xerox Print Services provides its channel partners with access to training, services, supplies, software and equipment backed by Xerox.

Xerox, through its FM division, is now offering Xerox Litigation Services Processing and Review Dashboard, to enhance search of cases from document management systems.

TWIT "This Week In Toshiba"

- In order to prop up its capital base, Toshiba announced that it plans on raising $300 billion dollars by selling more stock. This undoubtedly will reduce the value of its current stock, and upset its current shareholders. Its capital adequacy ratio, which measures its financial health, dwindled from 17.2% to 11.9%. This low rating causes financial institutions to raise the interest rates it charges for loans to these companies.

- Toshiba, at the Yokohama Flat Panel Display International show in Japan, showed a prototype of HDTV wallpaper, where television images were displayed on an entire wall. The wall was covered with OLED (organic light emitting diode) technology. Toshiba said the technology could also be used just for lighting, negating the need for overhead fluorescent fixtures to provide lighting at work. Unknown when Toshiba will actually start selling these products.

- Toshiba announced two new color MFPs, the eSTUDIO 5530C and 7030C. Details:
- These units are actually made by Ricoh (are relabeled Aficio color MFPs)(this is odd as Toshiba just introduced three new color MFPs in the same speed range that they actually make), but more surprising is why Ricoh would let this happen when Ricoh products are over distribted as it is. Could be there was an OEM agreement in place for "x" amount of years and "x" amount of boxes.

- Replace the existing Toshiba eSTUDIO 4500C & 5500C models (which were also made by Ricoh)
- 5530C offers 55ppm color and 60ppm b/w
- 7030C offers 70ppm color and 75ppm b/w
- Configuration and pricing info same as what Ricoh offers

- Toshiba announced it won a bid to build two different nuclear reactors in the state of Texas. Expected completion in the year 2016.

- Toshiba settled a class action lawsuit that was brought by 265,000 end users who purchased a Toshiba HDTV set. The suit charged that the DLP bulbs failed prematurely, forcing customers to spend hundreds of dollars to repair.

This information was gathered from various trade publications