MFP Solutions Top Ten Copier & MFP Blogs for May 2013

MPF Solutions Top Ten Copier and MFP Blogs for April 2013  still tops the list every month for the last three months. That one blog now has close to 10,000 page views! 

Here's an note for all of you that are about to get a new sales position, make sure you get everything in writing, as a matter of fact when you're asked to sig a non compete, make sure you have your own contract in hand for your prospective employer to sign. Heck if they state you have to sign a non compete then I say you have the to tell them they have to sign a "what I expect from xyz company". 

		10 Awesome Tips for a Great MFP/Copier Demo   954 3D MFP Printer/Copier/Scanner "Ready for Prime Tim...   336 10 Things Might Not Know About Digital Duplicators...   286 8 Tips from Selling Copy Machines in the 80's   261 New Ricoh MPC8002 & MPC6502 Sneak Peek   258   Scan2Cloud Solution the Alternative to eCopy   218 7 Tips to Help Win Net New Competitive Copier & MP...   216 Growth Opportunities for Wide Format & The PEiR Gr...   198 How Can You be the Best at MPS, MFP, MNS?   178 Photizo Transform 2013 Wednesday Roundup -=Good Selling=-                                                       -=Good Selling=-

Scan2Cloud Solution the Alternative to eCopy

When you've been in the busy as long as I've been you see many reps come and go, however for those of us that stick around we have a tendency to never leave the business.  I met Monte through the Print4Pay Hotel forums many years ago, it may have been in 04 or 05, even though we've never met we've been able to help each other with information through the P4P forums and ever now and then we get the chance to chat on the phone.

A few months ago, Monte introduced me to CC Scan and gave me a brief overview of the features and benefits of the program. I'm not able to offer CC Scan to my current prospects and current clients, although I wish I could. I'm sure many readers maybe able to use CC Scan as an additional tool or to add value to the MFP sale. Lately, I been asking every potential prospect if they are archiving or scanning to cloud based software and I would estimate that 60-65% have answered that question as a yes.  The key question would be "how are you doing that" and or please show me.  CC Scan allows you to.....well better that it comes from Monte than me.......

Capture Component based in San Juan Capistrano, California has just released its newest version of ccScan Now integrating all manufactures of MFP’s and offering an alternative to eCopy that is a fraction of the price.

This software allows users to scan document directly to cloud based repositories like Box.net, Salesfroce.com, Google Drive, SharePoint 365 along with several other cloud providers. Users simply scan the document at the MFP and key in Metadata at the point of scan and documents are automatically filed correctly and named correctly to the cloud. All companies are either looking at cloud solutions or they have already implemented one. At a cost of only @$360 annually you now have a solution to offer that your competitor may not. Want some help on a presale?

Monte Jensen with 20 years of experience in the MFP space is there to help with trial licenses and web-ex demos.

So, Monte knows his stuff, as a matter of fact he is my "go to" guy when I have a question about eCopy (speaking of eCopy, have you ever tried to get support out of them...).  Maybe you're looking for that special lockout feature, or maybe you're looking to build your Pro Services, or better yet you're looking to drive additional profits and margins.  CC Scan offers you many choices, no quotas and the opportunity to be "the expert" with Scan2cloud solutions and it's device agnostic!!!!

You can reach at 415-286-1127 or email him at monte.jensen@capturecompents.com  and as Monte would say "Good Solution Selling"

-=Good Selling=-

The Next Generation of Smart Copiers has arrived!

The next generation of smart MFP's has arrived.  Back in June of 2009 and I wrote a blog titled "I Want My...I Want My.....Smart MFP.  Just a few years ago we were ecstatic that Smart Copiers were now capable of saving businesses countless hours of time for scanning document.  The statement I hear of lot of this year is "do more for less".

The Hot features a few years ago was scan2ocr (will scan a paper based document and drop in back into a word doc), searchable .pdf (will scan a paper based document and turn it into a searchable .pdf), scan2MS365 and MS Sharepoint (via UDOCX) and the standard features for scan2email and scan2folder.

Document Management Software

Today's Smart Copiers/MFP can now hold the keys to kingdom for productivity in today's modern office.  Smart Copiers can now scan2 document management archival systems, many of your document management software providers are now developing connectors for the Copier/MFP.  Basically this means that you'll be able to scan documents to nested folders directly to your document management system, and it doesn't stop there with some document management connectors that are designed for the likes of Sharp and Toshiba you'll be able to access that document from the Copier/MFP and the print the document from the Copier/MFP.  If you're looking for Document Management Software check out Doculex and Intellinetics.

Scan2Cloud

Scan2box, Scan2googledrive, Scan2dropbox are just a few of the really awesome cloud solutions that are available now from different manufacturers.  

Apps

In the near future we're going to see the potential for hundreds of apps that can be run from the MFP, thus the potential to improve business process with MFPs will be enormous.  Some little know apps are available right now for your ipad, iphone and ipod.  Ricoh Innovations has a couple of apps that allow you to use your smart phone as a scanner and then also run OCR of that document. Yeah, the technology is in it's infancy but I can't wait for some of this technology to mature.

-=Good Selling=-

8 Talking Points for Selecting an Imaging/Copier Vendor

I've been in down the street office equipment sales for 33 years, over that time I've seen and heard it all when I meet with prospects who are considering a new vendor or manufacturer.

Many times... and by the way I just had a prospect email me today that price only is the driving factor as to who they will buy from.  I sent then back an email declining to offer a proposal. I work for a well respected dealer with an excellent support team and I won't compete with many of the fly by night dealerships that are out their.  Having one of my customers wait two to three days for on-service, a week for parts or not getting a return call is not an option!

Please consider the below points as more of an educational process to choose the right vendor for your needs.

Know your present and analyze your future needs: Since almost all MFP/Copiers are leased, you need to have a handle on your present and future needs. Will I need Network faxing or walk-up faxing, scan documents to email, scan to folder, walk up authentication, TWAIN scanning, Apple Air Print, envelopes, scan2cloud, scan2folders to a network drive, paper sizes needed to print, scan, fax or copy, color scan, color copy, color print.

Know what your existing costs are: How can you make a decision on a new product or service if you don't know your existing costs. Consider the cost of the current lease if any, cost of current print devices, costs for supplies, cost for service, cost for maintenance agreement, how many sheets of paper you have used for printing or copying in a week, month or year.

Copiers & MFP's "Scan2Cloud Middleware Reveal"

Scanning from MFP's, every business is doing it, everyone I speak to admits it's been a boon to saving them time.

All of your current manufacturers MFP's now have standard scan2email and scan2folder. In recent months MFP manufacturers have sweetened the pie by adding additional background functionality when you scan2folder.

Such as creating a text searchable .pdf, performing OCR (optical character recognition) back to a word doc or an excel doc, or even scan2 a power point file, and least we no forget scan2cloud functionality.

It's  truly is amazing that you can walk up to the MFP and have these time saving features at the touch of a button, right?

Well, kinda, if you're a small account and all you need is to create searchable /pdf's here and there, or the occasional scan2word or scan2excel, these systems will work fine.  But what about more intensive users, lets say accounts that want every document scanned as a searchable .pdf and every document is 30-50 pages and you want to drop them off to the cloud?  This is where it can get

Ricoh MP6002, 7502, 9002 series "Scanner Reveal"

It seems about every 18 months Ricoh will refresh a series of multifunctional copier systems.  The latest refresh of the MP6001/7001/8001/9001 completes the entire line change to the new "istyle" series. 

The new Ricoh MP6002 (60 page per minute device), the MP7502 (75 page per minute device) and the MP9002 (90 page per minute device) will be the new models moving forward. The new MP 7502 will be the replacement for the MP6001 and MP7001. There will be six different models in all, MP6002/MP7502/MP9002 will not come from the factory with scan and print.  The MP6002SP/MP7502SP/MP9002SP will all come from the factory with color scan, network scan and black network print.

Scanning:

The speeds are awesome!  When scanning at 300 dpi with the single pass dual scan document feeder you'll be able to scan black at 88 ipm for single sided and 176 ipm for double sided originals.  Color scanning at 300dpi will run at 88 ipm for single sided and 120 ipm for double sided originals.  Thus if you are using document management programs like Doculex or Intellenetics you'll be able to breeze through those documents in seconds!

Scan2folder, Scan2email, Scan2ftp, Scan2url are all standard features and you'll be able to scan from 100dpi to 600dpi. Let's say you have ECM (Enterprise Content Management) software then you'll be able to take advantage of the Ricoh's  1200DPI TWAIN scan driver. 

But!  What I like best is that the new Ricoh MP6002/7502/9002 is that you can add a browser unit (the browser unit is an option and the unit allows the MFP to connect to the Internet)!  Thus if you're a Microsoft Sharepoint or MS365 user you'll be able to scan directly Sharepoint & MS 365 with the UDOCX Cloud solution.  With UDOCX there's no need to install software on the server, no maintenance, it's a true access & go solution! 

There's a few other items I like also, even if you don't have the browser unit, you'll be able to use two really cool FREE cloud storage solutions.  One is dropbox where you can get a free 2GB service, dropbox sets up as a simple scan2folder on your PC or notebook, you'll then set a path from the MFP to your folder. That's it!  Anything you scan will then be sync'd with the folder on your pc/notebook and replicated in on the Dropbox Cloud.  The other service is OfficeDrop, they'll offer you a free 5GB solution, sets up similar to dropbox, however with OfficeDrop you'll be able to label your files.  With the labeling feature you'll then be able to search those files.

Output formats for scanning on the Ricoh can be single and multi page  page TIFF, PDF, JPEG, high compression pdf, encrypt pdf, and PDF/A. If you're not familiar with PDF/A is a file format and also an ISO standard for long term archival of scanned pages.

Ricoh has also added as a standard feature a nifty scan2usb and scan2sdcard.  Users will be able to scan to a usb drive or sd card, along with that users will also be able to print from these devices.  I was able to test this on a Ricoh MPC4502 and not only can you print the files but you can also view the files from the USB drive or SD card right on the awesome 8.5 inch color display.

I'll be you thought I was done right?  Nope, there's one other noteworthy feature and that's JBIG2 compression support. In a nutshell JBIG2 compression for scanned black images will enhance compression and allow companies to make better use of their document storage solutions.  FYI, for you those of you that are dealers, I highly recommend this leasing company, truly a pleasure to do business with LCA.

Stay tuned for next week when I'll go over all of the cool new print and fax features!

-=Good Selling=-

Can Your Dealership Profit through the Click Charge ECM?

Darn tootin!  I wrote about the Intellenetics Enterprise Content Management solution a few weeks ago during Photizo's Global Transform show in Orlando this year.  BTW, I recommend that all MFP dealers try and make this show next year in Scottsdale, and don't rely on the data and information your MFP manufacturer is feeding you is the right solution for making a profit.

A few days ago I was treated to a Mano-a-mano webinar with the folks at Intellenetics about their "Click Charge" ECM solution that is designed for the MFP and MPS dealer channel.  Here's a few interesting items I picked up. Hmmm.....

All right seems these notes will be from memory because I misplaced the note pad that had the notes! 

• Branding is available
• Dealer Billing per month and then Dealer bills end user with MU
• Direct Billing to customer and royalties paid back to dealer
• Public portion of ECM allows users to search on their documents

And that's about all I can remember with my notes, not a big deal because Intellenetics will conduct a private webinar on July 19th for Print4Pay Hotel Members.  After I viewed the webinar a few days ago I asked them to tweak a few things and that will tell your more about the billing, and branding options along with the revenue stream royalties and the up charge for billing. 

If I had my own dealership (which I don't), I would be rolling this out to all of my SMB accounts.  First I would call them and ask them for a short 15 minutes about a new product and service we are launching. I would schedule this for one day of the week, like a Thursday and set 4-5 appointments each day.  I would then have a power point presentation set-up.  I would then guide them through the FAB (remember FAB, Feature, Advantage and Benefit),  and of course at the end when they ask how much this will this cost I will have TWO plans available.  A Premium Plan where we charge a base monthly fee and scan click charge (could be quarterly), where we (dealer) controls the uploading to the Cloud, and the indexing, and we would then train the end user on how to retrieve the documents.  The second plan would be Basic Plan, where we charge a monthly (could be quarterly) base fee and scan click charge, we would train the customer on how to index, upload and retrieve the files.

Remember it's not about the big sale, it's about the click and the ongoing annuity stream.  Most SMB accounts are scanning to a wndows based file folder and then placing documents (that are not OCR'd or in  indexed) in nested folders. If you can find the pain, which there is with this type of format you can bring home the bacon and have the best of both worlds by capturing the scans and the print clicks.  Keep in mind that Dealers have been reluctant to charge for scans because they were afraid that they would lose print clicks to the competitors who did not charge for scans. But in this scenario  you are presenting value of the ECM system and the benefit of accessing those files from the cloud.

Recently, I've been scheduling appointments for our new services, and with every appointment each customer either asked for a quote or additional information about a pain that we discovered on the appointment.  The moral of the story is to keep introducing new products and services to your existing accounts, they are a gold mine of they have pain in their business process.  

Please go here for the exclusive P4P Hotel webinar for Intellenetics "Can Your Dealership Profit through Click Charge ECM.

=-Good Selling=-

Ricoh MP 301SPF Review

Whoa! Ricoh may have finally almost gotten it right with the new MP 301SPF system!

Kudos for bring this A4 31 page per minute system to market; with an MSRP of only $2,960  (or $2.00 a day for a lease) you get a lot of bang for the buck!  Network Color Scan, Network Print, Network Fax, Walk up Fax, and Copy all in a neat footprint that covers a space of 19.0 x17.7x18.1 (WXDXH). 

However the REALLY BIG NEWS is that the new MP 301SPF which will scan color, print, copy and fax in black follows the A3 (systems that print 11x17) cost per page model for toner!!!  Get this; the cost per page for black toner based on MSRP is only .0041! Nice, very nice indeed!!

It’s my understanding that the MP 301SPF will be the replacement for the MP201SPF. I hate to see the MP 201SPF go, however I believe the MP301SPF is an excellent replacement choice.

Basically, there’s a lot that I like about this system and I’m exciting to have this in our product line.  There’s so much that I like I just can’t fit them all in this blog.  The likes far outweigh the dislikes!

What I Don’t Like:

Retraction, it just came to my attention that the system will be capable of scanning mixed sized originals, even I make mistakes, the 52 page manual only has one small line stating that the system will accept mixed sizes for letter and legal. The document feeder in the brochure seems to be the same that was used for the MPC 305 which did not have the ability to scan mixed sized document, special thanx to Grandma T for pointing this out to me! BTW, I also went through the 207 page operator manual and there was no mention of mized size scanning or copying.

User Interface Screen:  What’s with the 4.3” inch color LCD?  Color LCD screens are cheap!  Why skimp on something that is used every day,  when it comes to LCD screens BIGGER is always better

Wireless Card (option):  Ricoh, have you all gone mad?  The MSRP for the wireless card is $593?? Why even offer one for that type of price?  Best bet is to pick up a wireless router with an Ethernet port and direct connect to the MP 301SPF and it will cost you $80 or so.

What I like:

Batch Scan: Nice feature for a value system, batch scanning allows you to scan the more than 50 originals into a single file.  You’ll select the batch scan feature before you scan and when the document feeder empties you just add the additional pages.

ARDF (automatic reversing document feeder), enables users to automatically scan two sided originals, nice and it was much needed with the A4’s.

Scan Speed:  For the price, 31 pages per minute black @ 300dpi and 21 pages per minute @ 300DPI for full color.  Nice that Ricoh is now quoting scan speeds at 300 dpi and not 200 dpi.

Document Server:  The Document Server is a feature I’ve been talking up for years, the MP 301SPF can store up to 3,000 pages and can really reduce costs if used properly in the office.  I instruct users to put their most popular forms, or information on the document server.  This eliminates the time to find the file and print to the local printer and also reduces cost because you would print to the MPC305 instead of the higher cost local printer.  Plus, if people are constantly asking you to re-print documents (which decrease your productivity), you can point them to Document Server and have them print the documents themselves.

Scheduled Print:  Set the time to print and away you go, excellent feature for workgroups!

Auto Job Promotion:  It’s about time!!  I love this feature; too many times in the office I’ll send a document that is a mismatch meaning the paper orientation maybe the wrong way or I selected the wrong paper size and or the wrong media. If I did not go to the system to clear the print job, no one else could print.  The Auto Job Promotion allows the print job error to be parked and allows others to print!  Nice.

Scan2PDF/A: Is a file format and ISO Standard for long-term archiving of documents.

Access2Cloud:  The browser card is an option and is needed to connect to cloud solutions, it’s only $170 but well worth the cost especially for scanning to MS 365 with UDOCX!

Scan2folder, scan2email, scan2cloud, scan2documentserver plus you can also set up scan2dropbox (you can do this on your own and is not a Ricoh solution)

What Should Have Been Added:

·    Document Feeder that can sense mixed sizes of originals, thus you could put letter and legal documents in the feeder, scan them to a folder and when you open the document you have both letter and legal size scanned pages.

·      Larger Color LCD Screen

·     Wireless Card as a Standard feature,  go figure I can buy a wireless printer from staples or Office Max for $200$300 or so and they have standard wireless print, why oh why does the wireless card for the MP 301SPF cost almost $600!!

·     Browser Card as a Standard feature.

Tips:

·        You’ll need to add the HDD (hard disk drive) in order to have Internet fax, LAN Fax, IP fax and Forwarding to email.

-=Good Selling=-

Ricoh "Where's the ICE"?

Ice Ice Baby, Ice Ice Baby
All right stop, Collaborate and listen
Ice is back with my brand new invention
Something grabs a hold of me tightly

First four lines of "Ice Ice Baby" by Vanilla Ice, which brings me to Ricoh ICE (Integrated Cloud Environment)  solution or the lack of it. I was floored when I read the first three lines of the lyrics and I was tempted to change the lyrics for this blog.

 Last May 2011 at the Ricoh Vision Dealer Meeting we were told about Ricoh new ICE solution.  The solution in short would consist of three cloud solutions that would have an annual fee (need to make it monthly guys), the three packages were Silver and you get scan2email, scan2evernote (evernote provides it own OCE & searchable pdf), the GOLD packages adds scan2google docs, scan2box of OCR and Excel files (good for only 2 users and 4GB of space, PLATINUM increases users to 20 and adds an additional 16GB of space.

Last May Ricoh gave us a preview of ICE at the 2011 Ricoh Convergence Dealer Show,  I didn't go to the booth and I should have because I'm thinking ICE  was not even running at the time (I could be wrong). If you're going to run ICE or any othr Cloud solutions on a Ricoh MFP you'll need order the browser unit for $170,  I'm thinking that this should be standard with all of the systems, but a recent rumor had told me that the official launch is now slated for November of this year and not a Convergence which is set for the first week of June in Vegas.

I've been told that Ricoh Europe has had the browser units running on the European Ricoh MFP's for over a year now. I had know of one solution provider UDOCX is already supported Ricoh and Xerox systems with a "Cloud Based Document Processing Service" and today I just found Fabasoft which offers Cloud Integration to Ricoh MFP's.

I believe that Cloud Integration of MFP's offers end users a multitude of choices and services that can make companies just as productive as their employees.  While I'm at it I also believe that there needs to be open open operating systems for all MFP's.  Manufacturers needs to adopt the Andriod OS and I think you'll see terrific apps that will be developed for MFP's.

But, what I really wanted to talk about is that there are applications available right now that will allow your MFP to have some sizzle.  Dropbox, it's free, you can get 2GB of storage and guess what?  You can set this up as a scan2dropbox  folder right on the MFP. It's awesome, no more scanning to folder or scanning to email or emailing the document back to myself.  Wait.... Dropbox also has an Android app!  How cool is that, all of my files on my phone!  Walk up to the MFP press my dropbox button and away it goes.  How about adding a PS option to your customers MFP's, include it in the deal and make sure they set it up.  Then you'll be able to print from your dropbox account when you're at the customers office .

How about the UDOCX solution it's available in the US, it's not expensive and you'll have scan2sharepoint, cloud printing and scan2fax!
Point is, for most of us that are selling Ricoh or Savin, we're get our butts kicked with similar solutions that are already in place from other manufacturers.  Take the time to check out Dropbox, UDOCX and Fabasoft you'll be glad you did and you'll be on your way to selling cloud solutions.

Betcha I don't get an invite next year either :)

-=Good Selling=-

Daily Document Management Industry Notes from Around the World! 4/18/2012

Yup, I know it's been awhile since I posted these, but been busy in my day job sellin (still pays the bills). If you need daily info I post it all here http://copierquestions.websitetoolbox.com/

Equisys is pleased to announce the launch of Version 5 of Zetadocs for NAV, the latest version of the popular document management add-on for Microsoft Dynamics NAV.
See all stories on this topic »

OpenText™ today announced the availability of OpenText Document Server, Alchemy Edition, version 9 (OpenText Alchemy), the latest version of OpenText's popular document management solution which helps small-to-medium-sized ...
See all stories on this topic »

Today, document management and imaging company, Version One, today announces that Greg Ford has been appointed as the company's new managing director. Greg, who succeeds, Julian Buck, will be looking to deliver significant year-on-year growth.
See all stories on this topic »

Canon India Pvt. Limited, India's No 1. complete digital imaging company today announced the launch of new range of imageRUNNER 1700 series and Document Scanners to further strengthen its stand as the market leader in India in Document Management Space ...
See all stories on this topic »

KYOCERA Document Solutions America, Inc. (www.kyoceradocumentsolutions.com/us), headquartered in Fairfield, NJ, is a leading provider of computer-connectable document imaging and document management systems, including network-ready digital ...
See all stories on this topic »

This not only improves accountability by helping lenders comply with regulations, but allows for a more organized document management system. Documents, which can be digitally stored on secure file servers, can be retrieved at anytime from anywhere.
See all stories on this topic »

-=Good Selling=-

Daily Document Management Industry Notes from Around the World! 4/2/2012

Doxim has spent the last decade helping financial service providers to streamline creation, management, storage and access of customer documents such as statements, confirms, loans and tax forms. Adding Arius OpenAdvantage® to this mix is a natural ...
See all stories on this topic »

A new cloud-based document management service, SurDoc, allows users to back up, share and edit -- including digitally sign -- a variety of documents on the cloud using desktop and mobile devices. The SurDoc service is compatible with popular Web ...
See all stories on this topic »

While LegalZoom provides legal documents to the consumer market, there are very few solutions to help small legal businesses manage documents, conduct billing, manage tasks, and run reports. So it's only natural that several web-based applications are ...
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Document management software would love to be Paper 2.0, but paper won't go away without a fight. I'm not here to defend paper. In fact, just the opposite. So if you're in love with paper--forms and pamphlets and every kind of document that you can ...
See all stories on this topic »

TriCerat announced a new version of Simplify Suite version 5.5 desktop management software and unveiled its new Scanect software at the show. Scanect is designed to help law firms quickly scan archived documents directly to a document management system ...
See all stories on this topic »

Actnet Print Concepts (ACTNET) announced some new and exciting developments to its Enterprise Document Delivery (EDD) solution, in a move designed to provide its customers with solutions that continue to meet the ever-changing document management needs ...
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Objective CEO Tony Walls told ZDNet Australia that in order to comply with the law, government agencies like Customs needed strong document management systems to keep track of everything. "The national Archive Act ... basically says that if you create ...
See all stories on this topic »

-=Good Selling=-

MFP & Copier Industry Weekend Notes 3/4/2012

I'm working on a new book titled 101 Ways to Close MFP Sales. it should be completed within three weeks and it will be posted on the Premium Forums and Amazon.  If you've got a favorite close, please send it to me and we'll give you kudos and a free copy of the book!

This week Ricoh Europe announced that they will launch a color wide format gelsprinter in 3rd quarter of this year, read the threads that have been posted so far, they are not.... Canon will finally refresh the 2008 monochrome products 2500 & 3200 series, the thread is below check it out and Sharp announces price increase for April 1st.

Yours truly will be interviewed by The Week in Imaging this week about reaching the 1,000th blog!

I've started a new forum for posting our "best sale of the month", I think it would be educational for all of us to hear you brag about the sale, how you nailed it, how you found the customer, did a solution deal the deal, how much GP of revenue you gained, and or clicks that you captured.  There's also a $25 gift card incentive for one P4P'er each from from one of our advertisers. Tell us About Your Best Sale this Month!

On another note we've posted "Effective emails for obtaining appointments", and they are great!  They are not from me, but from your peers, check em out in the P4P Document Library!
Please take advantage of the sales documents, quotes, proposals, rfp's, rfq's, uploads, p4p library, downloads and all of the additional forum features that are enabled with a Premium Membership!
Please support our Advertisers by clicking their links and giving them a call! LCA Leasing Corp, Stethos USA, Jetmobile,  Polek & Polek, UDOCX, Print Audit, & Cybercon Dealer Services, sfSCAN

Recent Blogs of NoteSelling MFP's & Copiers "Positioning yourself as an MFP/Copier Expert"
Canon & Oce "Was this a good deal or a not so good deal?"
Ricoh Adds Wide Format Color "OMG not the gel"
SMART MFP's 2the Cloud
I dare you...
Managed Documents "The Next Big Thing"?

Interesting & Most Viewed P4P Forum ThreadsOKI "MPS" series MFPs
Canon ImageRunner Advance 4025...
C651EX/C751EX Toner Shortage
W3601 Scan Software
Can a Kyocera 3640mfp copy mixed originals
Re: new C4502/5502
Profit Breakdown Question
New Samsung 11 x 17" Colour MFPs due Oct 01 USA
NEW! Uploaded MFP Docs in P4P Document LibraryOKI MC361 vs HP color MFP M475
OKI C330 vs HP color M451
Customer Expectations 770 Digital Color Press v1-03 For Launch
"Unlocked" Winning Proposal Generator for MPS & MFP's
Production Print Study Excel Guide
Effective emails for obtaining appointments

News & Press Releases
 Sharp Price Increase
Oce Varioprint DP Line (Oce & Canon integration)
Kyocera launches four new MFPs
Ricoh Adds Colour to Its Wide Format Portfolio (10 replies already)
NSi AutoStore 6.0 Earns Konica Minolta bEST Certification

P4P Poll QuestionsJanuary 2012 Sales Quota Poll
New Color Cost Per Page Poll for 60 ppm plus
New Color Cost Per Page Poll for 30-44 ppm COLOR
New Color Cost Per Page Poll for 45 - 59 ppm COLOR

New Leads, RFP's & RFQ's Uploaded!Illinois
Georgia
Colorado
South Africa
West Virginia
Southern California for KIP700

Uploaded Pricing Proposals & QuotesEnd User Report for Xerox 700 vs KonicaMinolta
xerox workcentre 5325 proposal
Toshiba estudio 2040c proposal
Copystar (Kyo) CS255C
Savin C9145 MFP Proposal/Quote
Ricoh C751 proposal

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The Staff at the Print4Pay Hotel

SMART MFP's 2the Cloud

Mick Jagger wrote "I live in an aparttment on the ninety-ninth floor of my block" in the song titled "Get Off of My Cloud" way back in 1965.  Who would have thunk that the "Cloud" would now play an import part of sharing, colaborating and migrating business documents almost 50 years later!
I'd like to share a recent post on the Print4Pay Hotel forums from our friends at UDOCX.

Last year, we have been talking mostly about UDOCX and its ability to integrate multifunctional devices from companies like Ricoh and Xerox (Canon and Sharp soon to come) with Microsoft services including Office 365 and SharePoint Online.

People often ask if you can still use UDOCX even if you haven’t migrated to a cloud-based infrastructure and are still using a traditional, on-premise installation of SharePoint.

The answer is YES!

You can scan documents directly from your multifunctional scan/copy/print devices to on-premise SharePoint document libraries. We even support hybrid environments where some SharePoint destinations are local and some are cloud based. To read more about configuring UDOCX for hybrid environments, click here.
How?

Your UDOCX-enabled multifunctional devices communicate through the UDOCX cloud service to either SharePoint Online or a local, on-premise installation of SharePoint. Your employees may access your on-premise SharePoint services even when they are traveling or telecommuting. Because UDOCX connects to SharePoint using the credentials of the currently logged in user, all of the same connectivity rights are available to the UDOCX service during that session. The location of the SharePoint server, in the office or in the cloud, is completely transparent to the end user, therefore if you can access your SharePoint services over the Internet, so can UDOCX. This also helps to explain why UDOCX does not require any on-premise hardware or software. UDOCX is a completely cloud-based Internet service.

Is it secure?

UDOCX uses the same domain-level authentication and security that you’re already using on a daily basis in your organization. Setting up UDOCX requires absolutely no security changes to your existing environment and it completely adheres to SharePoint’s (formidable) security protocols.
This ensures that all configurations are 100% compliant with any security policies that your organization may already have in place. UDOCX never grants a user more or less SharePoint access than they would normally have from their workstation.

In a nutshell, UDOCX is a cloud-based service that leverages the latent technology inherent in today’s multifunctional copy/scan/print devices to provide seamless Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange integration, both on-premise and in the cloud.

Any questions? Ask us!

BTW, yes UDOCX is a Proud Partner for the Print4Pay Hotel forums
-=Good Selling=-

Do You Trust the Cloud

Actually the thread that was posted on the Print4Pay Hotel forums was "Can you Trust the Cloud"  which was derived from a Xerox white paper that was posted many months ago.   Below I'd like to post some snippets from the threads that we had posted.  This thread was one of the more popular threads on the forums and continues to be read and additional threads posted.

From SSG:  A good white paper from Xerox XGS.
xgs_whitepaper_cloud_computing.pdf

From SSG:  I am learning about scanning to the cloud from any MFP via email by opening a free account at www.box.net and....

From SSG:  A real interesting concept from Lexmark https://smartsolutions.lexmark.com/ssds/
You can basically upload dozens of free.....

From TXEAGLE:  If only they would offer this on their B2B laser MFP's.

From AP:  Most of my customers do not trust the cloud, those who do already have something working.

From Constanze:  You can even scan directly and securely to the cloud from your Ricoh MFP(to Microsoft Online, Office 365 BPOS, SharePoint). Just take a look at www.udocx.com or at our....

From CASHGAP:  This pretty much sums it up...http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-11-19/

Look forward, reason back. How many of us have big generators in the parking lot because we like to be in control of our own electrical uptime? Very.......

From JASONR: I totally agree, "not trusting" the cloud is an irrational fear.

From SSG:  I just watched a video from the investment website called Motley Fool. They are stating that Cloud Computing is the next big thing to invest in. http://www.fool.com/shop/newsl...rce=irbsitlnk0000141 and point out the big three .....

From ANON:  Buy an LG phone and get 50 GB of free Cloud storage on www.box.net .

http://storagenewsletter.com/n...l/lg-box-partnership

From SSG:  Is 2012 the begining of the end for File Servers as more companies move to Cloud Storage? http://storagenewsletter.com/n...-egnyte-file-servers "Forrester found that 41 percent of information workers surveyed were using.......

There's may additional replies to this thread.  According to the Xerox white paper the we're pretty much going to have to trust the cloud.  The white paper even spoke about intellegent documents that would update themselves with new content. 

Personally, I'd like to see more MFP's? Copiers have browser units in them that would allow us to use the MFP more open applications, meaning you would not have to use the "Ricoh, Xerox, Canon or KonicaMinolta" scan2cloud offerings.  You could use the solution that works best for your document workflow and one the fits your financial concerns. 

-=Good Selling=-

MFP Scan2Cloud Poll from the Print4Pay Hotel

I'm watching the Giants lay waste to the RAMS, hopefully it stays that way!  In the mean time, a few months ago we posted a poll on the Print4Pay Hotel forums titled "Scan2Cloud Poll".

 We asked "Please vote on your estimation of what cloud-based solution integration would best help you in the field to capture additional business?

With many manufacturers having or ready to release scan2cloud services, we figured we'd ask the guys and the gals in the field what they would like to have.  I always like to see these polls turnout because I feel that the salespeople on the street have a better grip on what their customers want and not some wishy washy product manager trying to come to grips of what customers want.  Tell me when was the last time a product manager was in the field trying to sell a solution to an end user?  NEVER!

"Please vote on your estimation of what cloud-based solution integration would best help you in the field to capture additional business?


Scan2Microsoft SharePoint/Microsoft exchange server/Mircosoft 365/OCR & searchable pdf/Scan2Print (unlimited users)  50%

Scan2Fax Documents/multi cloud fax numbers (unlimited users) no mfp fax modem require 17%

Scan2Cloud/Documents stored offsite 33%

Scan2Evernote/Scan2box.net/Scan2google docs/Scan2email w/ OCR 4 Word & Excel/Scan2print (2 users) 0%

Scan2Evernote/Scan2email w/OCR & searchable .pdf 0%

There you have it, what I can tell you is that the first two poll questions are features that come with the UDOCX solution, 67% of our members felt that this was the best choice for them.

The third solution is a basic scan2cloud that is now being offered by a few different companies and last but not least are the last three.  But, key in a 4 & 5, this is a cloud solution soon to be released by one of the Big 4 (Xerox, Ricoh, KonicaMinolta and Canon) and not one member voted for that solution.  I can tell you upfront that the product being offered with those features will BOMB.

So you wanna know who?  Well, I ask you to log on to the Print4Pay Hotel forums and we'll show you which on eof the Big 4 it is.

-=Good Selling=-