Showing posts with label Gartner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gartner. Show all posts

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Daily Managed Print Industry Notes from Around the World!

In its annual report on MPS, Gartner provides insight gleaned from global customers into the benefits and challenges of implementing managed print services, and criteria for identifying and evaluating providers. "We consider it both an honor and a ...read more here

TOKYO — Ricoh Company, Ltd., a worldwide leader in digital office equipment and advanced document management solutions and services, today announced Ricoh Managed Document Services™ (Ricoh MDS) 2.0, born from an in-depth analysis of customer engagements and focused on measurable results. MDS 2.0 represents significant....read more here

 The TAFE, which services over 60,000 students, turned to HP's managed print services division to help slash its fleet of light production printers from 2,200 to 1,020. TAFE NSW's John Myles, who managed the project, said the overhaul has saved in waste and costs and created a "much more professional print experience". "TAFE NSW's Sydney Institute....read more here

New managed print services with existing Xerox clients could cannibalize equipment and post-sale revenue by reducing printing costs by up to 30%, potentially offset by cross-selling opportunities for other Xerox products and services. ...read more here

WALNUT CREEK, CA, Nov 10, 2011  -- ARC, one of the leading document solutions companies in the U.S., today announced it has been positioned in the October 2011 Magic Quadrant for Managed Print Services, Worldwide, by Gartner Inc., the world's leading information technology research and advisory company. In its annual report on MPS, Gartner provides insight gleaned from....read more here

-=Good Selling=-

Monday, October 31, 2011

Daily Managed Print Industry Notes from Around the World!

Since Asia Pacific MPS Conference was help in Australia. In traditional Greg Walters style, I thought Greg would appreciate this awesome Aussie lass.

Photizo Asia Pacific MPS Conference, Sydney, AUSTRALIA, 31 October 2011:Fuji Xerox Printer Channel today announced the launch of Streamline, the Asia Pacific region’s first training program designed to help channel partners capitalise on the growing interest in Managed Print Services (MPS) by the SMB sector. According to Photizo, the Asia Pacific MPS market will....read more here

LAKE SUCCESS, NY, Oct 31, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Canon USA, a leader in digital imaging, today announced that the Company has been placed in the Leaders Quadrant of the 2011 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Managed Print Services Worldwide(1) report. ...read more here

Lexmark was recently named a leader in several fields by acclaimed research firm Gartner Inc. Gartner positioned Lexmark as a leader in its "Magic Quadrant" analysis of printers, multi-function printers and worldwide managed print services. ...read more here

Last autumn,lection of interesting MpS players who brought something good to the Ecosystem. I chose individuals or companies who in my opinion, contributed to the MpS cause in a positive manner. For instance, last year, Constellation 1 included, MT Business Technologies, Ken Stewart, Robert Newry, and Photizo. So how did these stars fare over the past 12 months? read more here

-=Good Selling=-


Saturday, January 1, 2011

MFP Weekend Industry Notes

Special thanx to Print4Pay Hotel Members from around the world and a few moles in very good places for posting these great threads!


Take a moment and join the largest group of copier professionals in the world. Here's the link for the P4P Hotel forums!

Xerox announced it sold a DocuShare CPX Enterprise Content Management solution to The Copernicus Group Independent Review Board, which will use the system to share and store critical biomedical research documents for the Food and Drug Administration.


Xerox announced that its XMPie variable data software can now be integrated into PrintStream Fulfillment System web-to-print software from Streamline Solutions.

According to Gartner, 16% of worldwide software sales will deliver as a service. According to Saugatuck, 40% of new software sold will be cloud-based.

InfoTrends predicts that print production workflow software sales will increase 5.2% per year through 2014. By 2014, it projects the total spend in the category will be $8.6 billion.

New use for recycled paper. Nike Corp. announced a new pair of sneakers, called “Women’s Premium Print Pack”, that are made from shredded magazines.

Pitney Bowes announced it is opening up a new Federal Litigation Support Center in downtown Washington DC. Details:

o capable of scanning 500,000 pages per month

o PB already has a similar facility in Grand Rapids, MI

o Will be used to fulfill a $950 million contract it won from Dept. of Justice

o Also will support Lockheed Martin, CACI and USIS

o Includes Kodak high speed scanners

o IPRO eCapture software installed

o Clearwell ECA software

o Will have total of 50 employees covering 2 shifts

Toshiba announced it is entering the electronic book market, with its new Toshiba Biblio Leaf:

o Solar powered

o 6” b/w touchscreen display

o 800x600dpi

o 2GB RAM

o SD memory card slot

o WiFi and 3G wireless connections

o $20/month subscription

o 12 hour battery life

o Expected price of $150.00


Toshiba announced it will outsource some of its system chip manufacturing to Samsung of South Korea. This will allow the company to grow its memory chip production.

Toshiba announced it is selling its Nagasaki, Japan system chip plant, which was losing money, to Sony Corp. for $599 million. Sony will use the plant to make CMOS sensors for cell phones and digital cameras.

Toshiba launched the world’s first 3D HDTV set that does not need special 3D glasses. The 12” flat screen, called Regza GL1, will sell for $1400.00

Toshiba announced that revenue from its nuclear plant business may reach $12 billion in next 3 years

 Toshiba announced it is working on a new copier that will be a “Green” machine. Details:

o Produces instantly erasable output

o Documents can be turned blank by heating them with a special device

o Uses special toner that loses its color when heated

o Printouts can be reused at least 5 times

o Top speed of 30ppm (b/w only)

o Will cost 30% more than current 30ppm model

Canon estimates its sales in Asia to increase 40%, and that it will account for 30% of its total revenues.

Canon announced that it expects it operating profit for the fiscal year to end at $4.8 billion. This forecast is half the record levels it reached in 2007.

Canon was sued for patent violation by Alcatel-Lucent USA Inc. for allegedly infringing on patents involving video compression technology.

Fitch announced it has downgraded Sharp’s debt from BBB+ to BBB, due to concerns over Sharp’s ability to sustain a 3% operating EBIT margin.

Hewlett Packard revealed that it spent $1.6 million on lobbying the federal government in the third quarter, which is twice its normal spending levels.

Hewlett Packard announced it won a managed print services contract from 3M Australia:

o reduced devices from 130 to 72

o will supposedly save $170,000 per year

o page cost reduction of 90%

o 14 sites and 700 employees

o Also included Perceptive Software document management and Adobe electronic forms solutions

Hewlett Packard detailed the success of its last 4 years of trying to put counterfeit print cartridge makers out of business:

o Conducted 4,723 investigations

o Covered 88 countries

o Resulted in 3,733 enforcement actions (raids and seizures)

o Confiscated 47.2 million cartridges
- Avatron Software announced a new $2.99 app, named Print Sharing, that allows Apple iPad, iPhoen and iPod users to print wirelessly from their mobile device.
- Lorree Ann Capps of Anderson, South Carolina was sentenced to 30 months in prison for making fake $20 bills using a color copier.

Janelle Newsome and Richard Gladfelter were arrested for allegedly creating fake $10 and $20 bills using a color copier in South Charleston, WV.

OpenText announced version 5.3 of Edocs document management software:

o support for rapid remote deployment

o maintenance can now be carried out remotely

o support for MS Office 2010

o will add social media tools and apps next year

Omtool AccuRoute received a 5 Star rating from BLI. Omtool AccuRoute is a middleware scan/OCR data capture application that competes with Nuance eCopy and NSi AutoStore, and is very popular in the legal vertical market, and sold primarily by IKON/Ricoh.

-=Good Selling=-

Saturday, January 23, 2010

MFP Weekend Industry Notes


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

- Gartner, based on survey, states that by the year 2012, 20% of businesses won’t own any of their own IT assets. This includes servers, PCs and software. Businesses will turn to leasing, employee ownership and cloud computing. The reason is that companies are moving to use operational budgets instead of capital budgets to upgrade their IT infrastructure.

- DocuWare of Germany, maker of popular document management, announced it will spend $1.45 million to develop web-based solutions.

- Ricoh launched a new production color system, called the PRO C720 system offering:
- Slowed down, cheaper version of the slow selling C900
- Offers a top speed of 72ppm versus 90ppm of the C900
- Maximum duty cycle of only 320K/month
- Runs at same speed, regardless of paper weight, like the C900, up to 110lb. cover
- Uses same EFI Fiery as C900
- finishing options are limited to saddle stitch booklet maker and standard finisher

- Ricoh apparently will be reselling large format color inkjet printers from Epson.

- Large medical firm sued for violations of health data security law, known as HIPAA act:
- Health Net of Connecticut Inc. was sued by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal
- Sued for violations of HIPAA privacy and security rules
- Large breach of identifiable medical records and Social Security numbers
- It was reported that hard drive disappeared in May, 2009
- The hard drive contained health information on 1.5 million members, including 446,000 in Connecticut
- The data was not encrypted

- On Demand Books, LLC, announced it is now offering a new version of its Espresso Book Machine, which can produce a 300 page paperback book in less than 4 minutes. The new model uses the engine from a Xerox 4112 b/w production system.

- Open Text Corp., maker of document management/search/retrieval software, announced that it is boosting its - business process automation by adding next-generation document recognition:
- called Capture Center version 4.0
- formerly known as Captaris DOKuStar
- includes numerous recognition modules
- machine and hand print recognition
- optical character and intelligent character recognition
- magnetic ink recognition

- Toshiba announced a new option for its color MFPs, the eBRIDGE Color Profiler Tool featuring:
- Works with ES1000 spectrophotometer ($1299)
- Software that enables the creation of ICC device output profiles
- Target Reader creates characterization data files used to build custom color profiles
- Data Viewer allows end user to view character data in several ways
- Profile Builder initiates construction of the ICC profile
- Profile Viewer assists in verifying the integrity of the ICC profile
- ICC stands for International Color Consortium, a standard in color management
- Base MSRP of $499 for software
- Provides color management, without owning an EFI Fiery

- In an interview with Hewlett Packard’s Director of Commercial & Enterprise Printing, Mr. Samir Shah, stated:
- “There is a tremendous opportunity for color, especially since the technology is becoming affordable”
- “Our second priority is to take AIO and MFD portfolio to the next level. Going forward, you will witness a lot of innovation and initiatives from HP in this regard. The market for MFDs is just the tip of the iceberg. We want not only to grow marketshare, but also grow the market base.”
- “The third priority is around the toner business and evangelizing the value propositions of original toner. The science behind toner technology is not understood by many. Our intent is to take it closer to the customer.”
- “Fourth is to ensure that our channels are up to date in terms of technology. We also want to arm them will all the possible ammunition to enable them to grow their business”
- “We are working on launching a TCO (total cost of ownership) calculator”

- Hewlett Packard & Microsoft announced a three year, $250 million partnership. Details:
- Cuts across sales, engineering and marketing
- Bundled products aimed at small business
- Will be delivering a next-generation data warehouse, which bundles tens of servers and can hold hundreds of terabytes of data

- According to Von Hansen, a VP with Hewlett Packard, the company will be reselling a total of 34 different Canon copiers in the year 2010.

- HP’s CEO, Mark Hurd, received a total of $24.2 million in pay during 2009.

- Xeikon, a division of Punch of Belgium, announced it has appointed John Blumsack, as Vice President of Sales, to increase its sales of production color systems.

- A former copier dealer pleaded guilty to using bogus copier leases to scam area businesses and nonprofits. Scott Arthur Waddell of Raleigh, NC, pleaded guilty in federal court to fraud. He will be sentenced later and faces up to 20 years in prison. Waddell ran two companies, Modern Office Solutions and PST Consultants. Investigators said he created a web of forged documents, including copier leases and credit applications, to scan area businesses and nonprofits.

- Google threatened to shut down its China operations after a cyberattack on its infrastructure. According to Google:
- the attack was coordinated and focused on 20 large companies
- aim of attack was to et the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists
- attack also focused on U.S., China and Europe based Gmail accounts that supported human rights in China

- OfficeMax announced it will offer in-house paper shredding:
- $0.59 per pound for first 5lbs.
- $0.49 per pound for next 5lbs.
- $0.39 per pound for 11 pounds or more

- Equitrac announced it will receive an investment of $16 million from Brookside Mezzanine Partners.

- Law firms are concerned about the cost to store and retrieve case data.
- Collecting the data, processing, and staging it for review, and then reviewing it for privilege
can be costly.
- One large data producer calculated that these steps can cost between $5000 and $7000
per gigabyte of data.
- A typical midsize case could comprise 500 gigabytes of data
- 26% of law firms state that preproduction privilege review consumed between 20% and 50% of their litigation budgets annually.

- Fujitsu of Japan announced that it is entering negotiations with Sagem of France in regards to 3G mobile telecommunication services.

- Ashley Hawkins of Benwood, West Virginia, was arrested by police after she attempted to make a purchase at a local gas station using a fake $20 bill she made using a color copier.

- Samsung of Korea has decided to settle out of court with Kodak, which had sued the company regarding Kodak’s digital camera patents.

- Canon announced that in the year 2010, it will celebrate 20 years of recycling toner cartridges, in Japan, China, France and Virginia.

- Canon announced the following appointments:
- Kunihiko Tedo is now Senior CP and GM of Finance & Accounting
- Yuichi Ishizuka is now Executive VP of Consumer Imaging Group
- Eliott Peck is now Senior VP of Consumer Imaging Group
- Junichi Yo****ake is now Senior VP of Imaging Systems Group

- Office Depot announced results of a survey:
- 30% report having lost an important document due to a messy desk
- The most likely items to cause workspace clutter were:
- 32% = food
- 31% = coffee cups
- 12% = spare shoes
- Most common problems caused by disorganization were:
- 47% = lost time
- 16% = meeting tardiness
- 14% = missed deadlines

- According to IDC, business analytics software-as-a-service (SaaS) market will grow more than three times as fast as the total business analytics software market with a compound annual growth rate of 22.4% through 2013.

- Panasonic announced it is aiming for a total of $100 billion in sales per year by March of 2013. The company plans to announce detailed business plans for the next three years in May, after reviewing business overlaps and potential synergies between it and Sanyo, which it just acquired. (unknown if it will discuss its plans for its digital copier division)

- The National Conference on Weights and Measures plans to take up the issue of inkjet cartridge labeling at its meeting in January in Nashville, TN. Printer makers are expected to fight potential plans to force them to put labels on the boxes stating how much actual ink is contained in the cartridge.

- Toshiba announced it will now offer its dealers refurbished Hewlett Packard and Lexmark printer parts, to lower their costs to support managed print services programs. The parts are supplied by Depot America.


- The Managed Print Services Association gave out its MPS Leadership Award Winners for 2009:
- Nationwide Insurance for “Corporate MPS Implementation”
- LaserNetworks won for “MPS Vendor of the Year” (owner is Chris Sloate)
- PrintFleet won for “Infrastructure Component Provider”
- Supplies Network won for “MPS Infrastructure Logistical Provider”

- Law Technology magazine gave out 6 awards to Autonomy Corp. for its document management software for law firms.

- According to some industry analysts, Samsung and Sony are going to invest $3 billion to start a joint venture.

- Okidata announced it will relabel the Konica Minolta magicolor 1690MF desktop color laser AIO, and call it the Okidata MC160.

- Agilysys Inc. won a bid to supply document management software to Royal Caribbean International Cruise Lines in Miami, FL.

- According to Forrester Research, tech spending (including MFPs) in the U.S. will grow 6.6% in 2010, after being down 8.2% in 2009. “The technology downturn of 2008 and 2009 is unofficially over” said Andrew Bartels of Forrester.

-=Good Selling=-

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

MFP Weekend Indsutry Notes from 10/27/09


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

Xerox now shipping 4 new mid-range color MFPs, the WorkCentre 7425, 7428, 7435 offering:
- replaces the 7325, 7335, 7345 & 7346
- actually made by Fuji of Japan
- 4 tandem OPC drum design
- Polymerized toner, called Xerox Emulsion Aggregate (EA)
- 7425 offers 20ppm color and 25ppm b/w
- 7428 offers 28ppm b/w or color
- 7435 offers 35ppm b/w or color
- optional fax board (only 400dpi)
- first copy out time as fast as 5 seconds for b/w, 6.4 seconds for color
- Duty cycles of 60K/mo, 80K/mo & 105K/mo respectively
- Base MSRPs of $10,499, $11,599 & $13,499 respectively
- Scanning is OPTIONAL and does not come standard with print controller
- 75 sheet document feeder
- Maximum scan speed of 54opm
- 1200x1200dpi (interpolated to 2400dpi)(2/4 selectable bit depth)
- 600x600dpi when copying or scanning
- Built-in print controller offers 667MHz processor
- PCL & PS print drivers come standard
- 1.5GB RAM and only a 40GB hard drive
- Comes standard with bypass and only one paper drawer
- Up to 256gsm paper handling in bypass or drawers
- Up to 12”x18” paper in bypass
- Maximum paper capacity with options of 5,140 sheets
- Can replace drawer 1 with a 60 envelope feeder
- auto duplex standard
- Optional Bates stamping
- 30 second warmup time from sleep mode (longer if turned off)
- gloss mode
- Optional EIP for embedded applications
- Optional SD card reader (print from digital camera memory sticks)
- Optional scan to searchable PDF (OCR board)
- Optional USB port for scan/print from thumb drive
- Optional thumbnail preview for jobs on hard drive
- Optional EFI Fiery print server with 1.86GHz processor and 80GB hard drive
- Optional internal stapling finisher
- Optional external finisher with stapling, hole-punching & booklet making

- Hewlett Packard launched three new laser MFPs available exclusively for its PartnerONE dealers:
- LaserJet M9059 is a 50ppm, b/w A3 unit, based on existing M9050.
- LaserJet M4349x is a 45ppm, b/w A4 unit, based on existing M4345
- Color LaserJet CM6049f is a 40ppm, color A3 unit, based on existing CM6040f
- All are actually made by Canon
- The only difference of the new models, versus the units that they are based on, is that they have toner cartridges that are keyed, so end users have to buy the toners from the HP PartnerONE dealer, and not on-line, or in a superstore

- Hewlett Packard announced that is sold an Indigo 7000 production color system to DS Graphics, a print for pay.

- According to Computer Resellers News magazine, Hewlett Packard took the #1 spot from Xerox in desktop color laser printer sales in the U.S. Details:
- HP was in sixth place last year
- Xerox was number 2, and Lexmark was number 3

- Hewlett Packard launched BookPred, a service that will allow users to purchase printed copies of scanned pages of a book. It also launched MagClould, allowing anyone to publish their own magazine, and printing it at a print-for-pay location near to where the reader ordered the issue. All work will be sent to printshops that own HP Indigo systems.

- More details on the new alliance between Canon and Hewlett Packard:
- HP will begin advertising Canon copiers on its website on 11/1/09
- HP will resell imageRUNNER, imageRUNNER ADVANCE, and imageRUNNER ADVANCE PRO series
- Speed range from 23ppm to 105ppm devices
- According to Larry Trevarthen, HP’s Worldwide Director of Market Development,
HP also has access to the imagePRESS production print products
- All the devices will initially carry the Canon name
- The products will be identical to what Canon dealers sell, including supplies
- Service will be provided by a Canon factory direct branch primarily. Only if there is no Canon branch in the area, will the service contract be offered to a Canon dealer.
- Canon currently has 60 factory branch locations, but will expand to 90 locations within 2 years
- HP will support Canon copiers with its Web JetAdmin utility
- HP will also modify its Universal Print Driver to support Canon copiers
- Starting in early 2010, HP will begin to develop its own print controllers for the Canon copiers

- Lexmark announced a new program for copier dealers:
- Has created a line of 15 models that will not be sold on-line or through retailers
- These “XS” models will only be available through copier dealers
- 5 are A4 b/w MFPs, 3 are A3 b/w MFPs, 2 are A4 color MFPs, 2 are A3 color MFPs, 2 are A4 b/w printer, and 1 is A4 color printer.
- Speeds range from 35 to 55ppm
- All have a published MSRP, but not a published street price
- All have large touch screen LCD display
- Offer eTask software for embedded application ability
- Have high yield cartridges so they are ideal for managed print services contracts
- Lexmark claims it has signed up 150 dealers in the U.S. so far, and hopes to have
300 total in next few years
- Typical opening order is $12K to $30K to become authorized
- Product is actually ordered from Tech Data or Synnex, instead of directly from Lexmark
- Will have it first dealer meeting in Kentucky

- Lexmark announced results of its last quarter’s financials:
- Will let go of 825 employees to cut costs
- Still employs 3000 in its Lexington, Kentucky facility
- Total revenue fell 15% to $958 million
- Laser unit shipments declined 22%
- Total hardware revenue down 24%
- Supplies revenue down 12%
- Net income down 73%
- cash on hand of $900 million
- Service revenue (including MPS) down 14% to $654 million
- gross profit margin up to 32.7%
- total long term debt of $648.7 million
- total liabilities of $2.45 billion

- According to Lexmark:
- 44% of their revenue is from inkjet, and 56% from laser
- Average employee generates 10,000 pages per year
- Each filed or stored document is printed 19 times
- 20% of print pages are lost
- In 2000, there were 60 trillion pages printed
- In 2012, there will only be 55 trillion pages printed
- 98% of page printed come from an A4 device
- 80% of all print jobs are 3 pages or less

- Lexmark still fighting a company that makes generic cartridges for Lexmark printers. Static Control Components Inc. is appealing a ruling in the Sixth Circuit U.S. District Court, which allowed Lexmark to shut down Static Control.

- Lasercare, a dealer in Los Angeles, CA that services HP, Xerox, Lexmark and other brands, claims it has fixed its 100,000th printer, since it was founded 22 years ago.

- Toshiba announced it will borrow $90 million from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) to complete the new nuclear engine plant in Chennai.

- Toshiba gave out its “Top Achievement” awards to the following dealers for outstanding service:
- Atlantic Tomorrow’s Office
- Copy Products Inc.
- Stargel Office Solutions

- A company is suing leading research firm, Gartner, over the accuracy of its Magic Quadrant reports. ZL Technologies, maker of email search/archive software, is claiming that it was unfairly ranked low in comparison to its competitor, Symantec. The case will be heard in the 9th US District Court in San Jose, CA.

- Gartner announced that it forecasts an increase in tech spending globally by 3.3% to $3.3 trillion in 2010. However, it claims that tech spending will not return to pre 2008 levels until 2012. This year experienced a 16.5% drop it IT hardware spending according to the research firm.

- Photizo Group, which offered consulting and training to dealers for managed print services programs, announced it has opened up its fifth office, this time in London, England. It also has offices in Boston, New York, Austin and Kentucky.

- Equitrac announced it is shipping version 4.0 of Equitrac Office, featuring:
- print management system for corporate enterprises
- improves security of confidential documents
- network based authorization, authentication and accounting
- enhanced reporting of media usage
- end user popup notifications including hyperlinks
- web-based Release Station allowing print jobs to be released using web browser
- Follow-You Printing now allows Xerox and Sharp copiers to have embedded application to over-ride printing rules and print color instead of b/w
- Supports Apple Remote Desktop

- Ricoh’s complaint seeking to bar Okidata from selling any more printers and MFPs in the U.S. won review by U.S. trade officials. The U.S. International Trade Commission said it would investigate the charge that Okidata is violating Ricoh patents.

- Sharp gave out more details on its recent dealer meeting in Washington DC:
- Total US revenue was down 3%
- Has self-financed leases on a few major account deals, but has no plans to open up
its own leasing company
- Has a total of 440 dealers in the U.S.
- Is adding 20-40 new dealers per year, but also losing about half that many per year
- Has 10 factory direct branch operations from 13 acquisitions
- Has temporarily halted acquisitions, until economy improves, but still hopes to have 25 locations total in next few years
- Goal is for branches to account for 45% of sales in U.S.
- 4 of its 10 largest dealers are Global dealers (owned by Xerox)
- While it launched the Frontier series of A4 MFPs last year, it only has sold a total of 7000 units
- Healthcare vertical market is where most A4s are sold, accounting for 14% of units sold
- Only 310 of its 440 dealers are selling the Frontier A4 models
- In 2005, the total number of 31ppm+ A3 units was 479,431, and in 2008 was 563,309
- In 2005, the total number of 31ppm+ A4 units was 21,779, and in 2008 was 116,536
- Now has 135 technology partners for its OSA embedded solutions offering
- Now offering Front Panel, or ability for end user to customize the copier LCD display
- My Sharp Digital Signage, allows end users to run an announcement on the LCD display
- Future models will come standard with OSA, rather than current option for $349
- Will replace the existing AR-M207 20ppm b/w copier with the MX-200D, also 20ppm
- Will replace the AR-M257 and AR-M317 models in 2010 with ones with new design to match rest of product line
- Will replace the MX-M620 and MX-M700 models with models that also incorporate new look, and will also have pull out keyboards, and 150 sheet document feeder that scans both sides of
original at same time

- Konica Minolta announced it has opened up a new factory direct branch in Sydney, Australia. Details:
- located in Macquarie Park
- tall, multi-story glass building
- includes offices, showroom and warehouse in one facility
- surrounded by 200 native trees
- on first floor in front of building is large showroom, which has carpeting with a CMYK pattern stitched in to accent the new mid-range color and production color systems
- building also includes training facilities for technicians and end users
- an on-site café is also inside for use by guests and employees
- person in charge of facility is David Cooke, Executive General Manager of the branch

- Kyocera announced a new embedded solution for its HYPAS equipped MFPs. The new Capture2go allows end users who have an Apple iPhone to scan to the phone, or print from the phone to Kyocera MFPs.

- PrintAudit, of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, announced that its managed print services software is now compatible with Macintosh computers.

- IBM executive charged with insider trading. Robert Moffat, a 31 year IBM veteran and confidant to IBM CEO Sam Palmisano, allegedly conspired to commit securities fraud. He was arrested by the FBI, which believes he netted $20 million in illegal profits.

- Samung of Korea announced it will spend $2.3 billion to build a color LCD manufacturing plant in China, set to open in 2011.

- Current and former Kodak employees have asked a federal judge for final approval of a $4 million settlement that would resolve a long running class action lawsuit accusing Kodak of failing to properly compensate its employees.

- Oce’ announced it will resell eCopy solutions to go with its relabeled Toshiba and Konica Minolta MFP offerings.

-=Good Selling=-

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

MFP Weekend Notes from 8/30/09


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

Toshiba’s copier division in the U.S., called Toshiba America Business Solutions (TABS) announced it has hired Jive Software of Portland, Oregon to develop a social business network to connect its sales, service, admin and corp. professionals. Cost not announced. Will be called Toshiba eXCHANGE and include:
- Detailed profiles of members allowing users to connect directly with Toshiba employees
- Blogs that will keep members aware of ongoing product and program updates
- Video clips that will provide product info
- Content ratings
- RSS feeds that mark key interest areas
- Intelligent searches

Printable Technologies announced that its variable data software, FusionPro, will now support the AFP print file format from IBM. It also is now compatible with DirectSmile personalization software.

Hewlett Packard won a bid from the City of Langford, Canada for an undisclosed number of HP LaserJet MFPs. This was to change a situation of; “a printer next to a copier next to a fax machine”. The new contract will supposedly save the city $375,000 per year, and included Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server and Notable Solutions Inc.’s AutoStore software.

Xerox won a bid from Fayetteville-Perry Elementary School district in Ohio. Revenue and total units not announced, but it is a 5 year cost per copy lease.

More details on the bid that Xerox won from Methodist Healthcare in San Antonio, Texas:
- facilities management contract
- covers 23 different facilities
- claims it will save the healthcare facilities “millions per year”.
- decision maker was Geoff Crabtree, Senior VP
- reduced forms used from 1,200 to 300
- 25,000,000 impressions total per year
- 2 million b/w forms used monthly
- 1 million color brochures printed annually
- Includes an iGen4 production color system, Nuvera 120MX production b/w system and
Nuvera 120EA DPS production b/w system with booklet maker

Xerox announced it has sold three of its new 700 Digital Color Press production color system to three different printshops in South Africa. The buyers were Copy Wizards, Hot Ink and Top Copy.

Amcom Office Systems announced it won a 5 year contract to supply MFPs to the City of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County in Pennsylvania. Details:
- The contract will supposedly save county tax payers $2.3 million.
- County will take delivery of 406 units
- Is a 5 year cost per copy lease
- Based on minimum volume of 3.2 million copies per month
- Total value of contract of $2.6 million, or 47% less than prior contract
- County will remove many, but not all, of its desktop printers
- The City will take delivery of 105 units, and supposedly will save $38,000 per year
- The Allegheny County Airport Authority will take delivery of 18 units


Sappi Fine Papers North America announced it is closing its paper mill in Muskegon, Michigan due to declining sales.

Sharp announced that it will offer DocuLex software, made in Winter Haven, FL, as an optional embedded application for its MFPs.

Sharp will hold its annual dealer meeting in Washington DC from 8/31 to 9/2/09.

Sharp dealer, Advanced Business Systems of Molina, Iowa, is growing. Its new 11,000 square foot facility will be at 4631 44th Street. Owner Jim Soucinek started the company in 1970, and now has 23 employees, and also sells and services Lexmark & HP products.

Gartner Research reports that shipments of MFPs are down 25% in 2009, versus 2008. “In the worst case scenario could hit 30%” stated senior analyst Todd Prabhakar.

Apple releases its new operating system, Snow Leopard, and went on sale on 8/28/09 as a $29 upgrade. The new system uses far less memory than its predecessors, but must be run on an Intel based Macintosh computer.

Epson Corp. pleaded guilty to price fixing when it sold LCDs to Motorola for its Razr cell phone, and will pay a fine of $26 million

Hewlett Packard has been hit with a patent infringement suit by Acacia Research Corp., over videoconferencing technology.

Toshiba & Hitachi are supposedly planning on jointly making hard disk drives, using new nanotechnology to boost recording density. The Japanese government supposedly will invest $48 million in the new venture, which will ship new products in 2012.

The Equipment Leasing & Finance Association’s (ELFA) Monthly Leasing and Finance Index reported that new business volume of declined by 35.1% as compared to same period in 2008. Other data:
- receivable over 30 days increased by 18.2%
- charge-offs increased by 56.1%
- credit approvals now at 65.5% as compared with 73.3% last year
- 47% of leasing companies reported decrease in transactions

Global Graphics & Conexant announced that they will jointly develop print controllers for printer and MFP makers.:
- Global Graphics purchased Harlequin PostScript technology in 1999
- Harlequin acquired JAWS PDF technology in 2000
- Conexant purchased Freescale print controller technology for just $16.1 million in 2008
- Freescale acquired this technology from SigmaTel in 2008 for $110 million
- SigmaTel acquired this technology in 2007 for $57 million.

-=Good Selling=-

Monday, July 20, 2009

MFP Weekend Indsutry Notes 7/19/09


Special Thanx to Print4Pay Hotel members for thier contributions.

Konica Minolta’s Graphic Imaging Division announced it will market PuzzleFlow solutions for the newspaper industry. PuzzleFlow software products manage newspaper prepress workflows.

PostNet, which has 400 franchise mailing locations in the U.S., and 450 more worldwide, announced it will launch a new digital printing services program to its members. The new service will allow stores to receive print jobs electronically over the Internet.

Gartner released prediction of print technologies:
- by 2012, over 75% of all printed bills and statements in the U.S. will have advertisements for products and services, generating more than $2.8 billion in ad revenue for billers
- by 2012, over 30% of enterprise customers with document intensive business processes will use applications or custom workflows deployed on MFPs to lower paper process costs
and improve worker productivity
- by 2012, over 70% of businesses with more than 250 employees will adopt a
managed print services program
- by 2012, over 80% of enterprise businesses will be using fax servers

Hewlett Packard relaunched its managed print services program. Details:
- Run by Bruce Dalhgren (former executive of Lexmark)
- Includes savings guarantee called “Printing Payback Guarantee”
- After HP conducts its on-site assessment, and delivers proposal, it guarantees the savings it predicts.
- If the end user fails to realize the savings that HP promises after 12 months, HP provides the difference as a credit for the second year of the contract
- Guarantee is only offered if customer agrees to PAY for an official assessment upfront
- Customer must sign up for a minimum 3 year contract for guarantee to be valid
- Trade-in credit up to $1000 when upgrading to new HP LaserJet
- maximum of 400 units can be traded in
- HP hired celebrity Ben Stein to launch the program during a live webcast.
- HP claims it can save companies anywhere from 20%-30%
- HP states that one of its largest MPS customers is Intel Corp.
- covers 1800 printers
- 11% of printing is in color, and accounts for 50% of costs
- Another large MPS referral HP is claiming is STMicroelectronics

- Hewlett Packard announced it has hired Larry Irving as VP of Global Government Affairs.
- Previously, he was a White House technology advisor. He will work in D.C. and lobby the
federal government on HP’s behalf for its share of stimulus money projects

Toshiba announced a partnership with Close the Loop, Inc. This company is a global recycler of toner cartridges and was founded in 2000 in Australia by Steve Morriss. The company turns the recycled toner into a composite which is used to make fences, garden edging, outdoor furniture and other applications. The company’s plant in the U.S. is located in Hebron, Kentucky.

Nuance Communications Inc. is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice over its $96 million buyout of a speech recognition division of Royal Philips Electronics in 2008.

Xerox announced that one of its scientists received his 100th patent. Marcel Breton received the patent for development of a new type of ink that could be used in future color inkjet printers

The Department of Applied Chemistry of Keio University in Japan, and the McMaster University of California have developed an inkjet printer that prints out a sheet of paper that can be used to test for toxins by dipping paper in the suspect liquid, and watching for color change.

Kodak announced it sold its first Prosper high speed color inkjet system to Data Forms, a print for pay in Hong Kong.

Lyra Research announced results of poll taken with business owners answering the question; “Have Environmental Considerations and Policies Had An Effect on U.S. Print Volumes?”:
- just under 40% said that it DID have an effect
- Over 40% said it did NOT have an effect
- Around 10% were not sure

Rochester Software Associates announced a new feature for its popular WebCRD product. This software provides an on-line kiosk for print job submission and management. The new feature is “Document Preview”, which not only shows a view of the pages, but now shows usage of tabs, colored paper, and finishing. Customers can turn pages with an animated flip just like a real book.

IBM won a contract from the Mobile (Alabama) County Public School System to provide technology to measure student performance, and adjust academic programs in real time to prepare students for 21st century skills. The contract payment will come out of a $26 million fund which was part of the recent federal stimulus package.

In a test to promote its new high speed color inkjet press, the JetStream 2200, Oce’ printed thousands of personalized versions of the The Washington Times newspaper. The newspapers featured content, ads and articles tailored to the interests of its targeted subscribers.

IRIS of Belgium, maker of an optical character recognition (OCR) engine, sold a major stake in the company to Canon for 22 million euros. Company started in 1987 by Pierre De Muelenaere and Jean Dider Legat.

The Monterey County police are reporting an upsurge in the usage of counterfeit currency apparently made on a color copier. Unknown who is making this fake money.

Graham, Texas police arrested Randall Hammond, 29 and Jamiece Smith, 36, after they were caught making fake currency using a color copier.

Riso announced it opened a new factory direct branch in Boston to increase its marketshare.

Brother, maker of low end color inkjet and laser printers and MFPs, was originally founded as Yasui Sewing Machine Co. by Kaneschi Yasui.

Epson, maker of color inkjet printers and MFPs, was originally founded in 1941 as Daiwa Kogyo Ltd.

Hitachi was originally named Namihei Odaira, and started in 1910.

Kodak settles a race bias class action lawsuit for $21.4 million that was filed by former employees.

DSS Co. Ltd. of Japan introduced new technology to increase productivity of workers. The company charges $10,000 for a two day study that includes the installation of tiny digital cameras on workers clothing and bracelets on their ankles. This tracks and measures their movements to find unproductive behavior. During testing, it found the most popular places of gathering were the coffee machine and copier.

Tomomi Sayuda announced the invention of the iBum, which is a photocopier built into the seat of a chair.

IDC announced latest data on computer sales during the last quarter:
- Dell Computer = 4,174,000, down 18.9%
- Hewlett Packard = 4,134,000 up 2.3%
- Acer = 2,009,000 up 51%
- Toshiba = 1,225,000 up 33.9%
- Apple = 1,213,000 down 12.4%

ABBYY Corp., maker of the FineReader optical character recognition engine, announced it is now offering a version that can be embedded into an MFP, according to Andrey Isaev of Russia, director of technology.

Lexmark launched a new series of color inkjet all-in-ones that can access the Internet from its touch screen color LCD control panel. Pricing starts at $199.00.

EFI, maker of Fiery controllers, announced it won a lawsuit against Leggett & Platt, which had sued EFI over alleged infringement on one of its patents in EFI’s VUTek wide format color inkjet printer.

-=Good Selling=-

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

MFP Weekend Industry Notes from 6/21/09

Special thanx to the Print4Pay Hotel member for this!

Okidata, maker of LED color printers and MFPs, announced that its managed print services program is called “Total Managed Print”.

Lyra Research Senior Analyst Cortney Kasuba will present “The Evolution of Managed Print Services: A Look Ahead” a the 2009 Managed Print Summit on 8/18/09 at Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas.

Mark Robinett, owner of Robinett Copiers & Printers, a Konica Minolta dealer in Springfield, Missouri, has sold his business. After 28 years, he will move on to another career. The sale was caused by foreclosure proceedings ordered by Great Southern Bank, and assets were sold to Pearson-Kelly Office Products, a competitor.

Oce’ announced it will relabel more Konica Minolta devices. It will call the Konica Minolta bizhub C552 & C652 as the Oce VarioLink 5522c and 6522c.

Oce’ wins bid to provide production color system. Jeppesen Corp. has added an OceColorStream 10050 system. Details:
- company produces aviation charts for major airlines and private pilots
- 80% of work is b/w
- 20% is a mix of spot and process color
- Originally shop was offset presses only.
- First digital product was a continuous roll feed b/w production system from IBM (relabeled Hitachi)
- Then added a Hewlett Packard Indigo production color system
- 40% of total shop volume is now digital
- The 10050 system offers 5 colors of toner
- Brown used for contour mapping lines
- Magenta used to highlight important changes
- Cyan used for water
- CMYK used for images of landing approach pictures
- Uses primarily 40gsm paper

A company in Germany, and one in Switzerland claim that they have combined to create a new printing process. MDC Max Daetwyler, the Swiss firm and Interprint GmbH the German firm, sent out a press release claiming the invention of LaserSonic. They plan on showing the technology at the Interprint trade show in 2010, and claims it uses ink. They also claim it will print on paper, plastic or cardboard.

Sharp wins latest court battle against Samsumg. The court found that Samsung infringed on 4 patents Sharp owns regarding color LCD manufacturing.

Managed Print Services related statistics from DocuVision International:
- HP has placed over 100 million laser printers in the U.S.
- Copier makers have placed over 8 million copiers and MFPs
- Only 10% of office document hard costs can be attributed to document device and supply/service costs
- Other 90% is IT infrastructure, IT support, procurement, vendor administration, scanning labor,
storage labor, retrieval labor and distribution labor

Samsung sponsored survey reveals info on printer data security:
- Just under 50% of employees are exposed to sensitive data via prints left on exit tray
- 14% admitted seeing salary details
- 22% had seen performance reviews
- 34% had seen confidential correspondence
- 80% did not know that secure jobs could have been inadvertently stored on hard drive of printer of MFP
- 75% did not know that some printers could be hacked

Gartner stated its research showed the following about sales/shipments of printer/copier/MFP units in first quarter of 2009
- Decline of 18% worldwide to 26.4 million units
- Value of units declined 21% to $12.8 billion
- print only devices declined by 28% to 9.9 million units
- color laser MFPs sold 632,000 units
- color laser printers sales declined 15% to 1.4 million units
- b/w laser printer market grew 23% to 6.4 million units
- 14.6% decline in U.S.
- 22.6% decline in Canada
- End user spending in U.S. declined 21%
- Canon lost its marketshare leadership to HP
- inkjet printers declined by 15% in 2008 to 17.8 million units

InfoTrends released study of those who buy color inkjet wide format output, and if they felt it was effective at delivering message:
- 0.3% felt if was not effective
- 14.2% somewhat effective
- 30.1% undecided
- 17.5% extremely effective
- 37.9% somewhat effective

Police and Secret Service officials are on the lookout for someone in Arkansas who is making fake dollar bills on a color copier. Fake $20 and $100 bills have been discovered at local Burger King and Walmart.

FedEx reported first quarter financials for its FedEx Office division, formerly known as Kinko’s copy/print shops:
- 13% decline in revenue
- Decline in print and copy volume
- $810 goodwill impairment charge

After bad press from JP Morgan, Ricoh’s stock sank 5% to 1206 yen.

Riso launched a new high speed color inkjet MFP series:
- Replaces existing ComColor HC5500
- Still made by Olympus of Japan
- main print engine is 46” x 27” x 40”
- advertised as offering 2 cents per page color cost
- ink cartridge yield of 60,000 pages based on 5% fill per page
- ComColor 9050 features:
- top speed of 150ppm
- 300x300dpi (interpolated to 300x600dpi)
- 8.5” full color touch screen LCD control panel
- image area of 12 3/8” x 21 9/16” maximum
- max paper size of 13 3/8” x 21 5/8”
- handles up to 210gsm
- 8 gradations of ink coverage (3 bit?)
- auto duplex
- optional scanner for copying/scanning offers 40opm and 600dpi
- holds up to 100 originals
- 2 minute, 45 second warmup time
- 8 second warmup time
- uses Windows GDI (end user’s computer does the processing)
- Optional IS900C PostScript controller
- Intel Core 2 Duo 1.86GHz processor
- 320GB hard drive
- 2GB RAM
- forms storage
- supports PPML variable data format
- can cluster up to 4 units
- auto stacking tray
- max duty cycle of 500,000 pages per month
- 3 paper drawers standard
- Optional finishing includes hole-punch, stapling, cover inserter and booklet making
- Optional envelope feeding kit
- ComColor 7010/7050 series:
- same as 9050 except only up to 120ppm
- 7010 has stack tray only, but 7050 also has three paper drawers
- 7050 can collate with finisher
- ComColor 3010/3050 series:
- same as 7010 except only up to 90ppm
- image area only 8 ¼” x 21 7/16”
- trays hold letter/legal size only
- 3050 comes with three paper drawers
- 3050 can collate

Memjet, the supposed high speed color inkjet technology of the future, launched a new website to prime the public for launch of its first product. Details:
- Based on 2500 patents from Kia Silverbrook of Australia
- Work started in 1994, but product has yet to ship
- Company claims that it has partners lined up to product color printers and floor-standing MFPs to compete with traditional color laser devices.
- Each printhead has 70,400 nozzles
- Each nozzle is 31.7 microns and uses only 170 nanojoules of electricity to heat ink
- Nozzle made with silicon nitride
- 1600x800dpi in top speed, 1600x1600dpi in half speed
- 900 million drops of ink per second
- Ink droplets are 1.4 picoliters in size
- Printhead is as wide as sheet of paper
- Unlike HP Edgeline, does not use drum to wrap paper around, or a fixing agent
- Uses water based inks for fast drying
- First product set to launch in late 2009 is an A4 size, 60ppm color printer with speed the same
regardless of ink coverage
- Also in the pipeline are a 60ppm and a 120ppm color MFPs


IKON, a division of Ricoh, announced it has launched the DocSend Server. Details:
- is made by EFI, and is also known as the SendMe technology
- hosted on centralized Windows server
- communicates with applications running on Ricoh MFP control panel
- scanned files converted into MS Word, MS Excel of PDF
- built-in OCR
- pricing not announced

Syratec Corp. of Cicero, NY, claims to have developed a new type of surge protector for copiers. The Innovolt Power Manager supposedly offers:
- LCD display
- Microprocessor diagnostics
- Fax modem protection
- Network RJ45 protection
- Quick check diagnostic summary
- Copier technician can download data from the device to a computer to diagnose power problems
- $100,000 machine replacement guarantee
- Pricing not announced

Hewlett Packard celebrated the 25th anniversary of its first laser printer. History includes:
- First unit actually made by Canon, who makes all HP laser printers sold today
- In 1984, the first model was the A4 size LaserJet 500, for $3495, offering 8ppm, with 128KM RAM and 8MHz processor
- In 1986, launched the LaserJet 500 Plus with two paper trays.
- In 1987, launched the LaserJet II, for $2495
- In 1988, launched the LaserJet IID, offering auto duplex
- In 1990, launched the LaserJet IIP, for $999
- In 1991, launched the JetDirect card, allowing LaserJet to connect to a network instead of a single PC
- In 1994, launched the LaserJet 4V, offering 11”x17” output
- In 1994, launched the Color LaserJet, actually made by Konica (now Konica Minolta)
- Claims to have sold 132 million laser printers since 1984.



-=Good Selling=-