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=-

Digital A3 Envelope Press from Ricoh? I Think....

I've been around this business long enough to know a good thing when I see it.  My roots are in the Print4Pay market of the office equipment business.  My first introduction to the Print4Pay business was when I began selling the Minolta 450Z analog copier to print shops, advertising agencies, newspaper and basically any company that needed to reduce or enlarge a document by 1/10th of 1%. Gosh darn those where the good ole days right?

In the past few years dedicated "digital" envelope presses have emerged from the likes of Xante, Oki and a few other third party suppliers.  If you're not familiar with these devices I'll make it short and sweet, it's a tweaked OKI  Color LED (Laser Emitting Diode) print engine with A3 (up to 11x17 print) print capability.  These LED (technically not laser, but is laser quality or better, depends on who you ask) are then married with an envelope feeder attachment   and then an exit conveyor attachment.  The feeder feeds envelopes into the by-pass area of the paper feed system.  There you have it, a digital press that can produce 4 color envelopes with for consumables of about 2 cents each.

Price...., the systems are pricey, with  most models that will range from $16k-$22k per system.  You have to see a whole lotta envelopes to make up that kinda cash.  If the price was right for these systems, I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that every print shop and CRD would have one.  The fact is the price is not right and not every print shop has one or can afford to have one. 

Daily MFP Industry Notes from around the World

Here's nother interesting note from my drive home today, during a stretch of 15 miles once I gotover the Raritan River, I counted 107 businesses that were related the auto industry such as gas stations, car wash, auto parts, car dealers (new and used) etc.....

A former German investment banker has been accused of insider dealing and encouraging his two associates to invest in shares in Océ prior to its acquisition by Canon in 2010. read more

Convertible Solutions has developed a new double weight postcard stock to enable the printing of 24 point postcards on HP Indigo, Kodak Nexpress, Xerox iGen and other digital presses. The Double Thick Impact Cards are designed for printers and direct ...read more

Working with ACS, A Xerox Company, the county created the Gold Coast Health Plan to help physicians better manage individual patient care and track progress across the local medical community. ...read more

FOSTER CITY, Calif., Aug. 24, 2011 -- As it marks the 20-year anniversary of the first Fiery® digital print server, EFI™ (Nasdaq:EFII) today launched the next-generation Fiery platform. Fiery technology is long recognized in the industry for its blazing speed, color accuracy, image quality, and intuitive user-interface, and with this launch increases operator productivity, produces more..read more

TOKYO, August 24, 2011 -- OKI Data Corporation, an OKI Group company specializing in the printer business, today announced the receipt of HardwareMAG's Silver Award for its A4 color digital LED multifunction printer, MC361dn in Singapore. ...read more

Aug 24, 2011 Ramsey, N.J. – August 24, 2011 – Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc. (Konica Minolta), a leading provider of advanced imaging and networking technologies for the desktop to the print shop, today announced a Speaker Series in the Konica Minolta Booth #2227 at GRAPH EXPO 2011 from September 11-13 at McCormick Place South in Chicago. read more

-=Good Selling=-