Ricoh A4 Envelope Printer to the Rescue

I may be rehashing some information here, however I was ecstatic on how a Ricoh SPC431DN Color printer performed a few weeks ago.

Ever since I saw the first envelope press from Xante, I've wanted to be able to sell these.  For those of us in the know the Okidata C9800 is the engine of choice for Xante, PSI and Oki themselves. To make a long story short, these systems will print up to A3 (11x17), take super thick stock and have an EFI Fiery built into the system for color matching.  Pricing, well anywhere from $17K-$22K, a few years back I knew a print shop that picked up one up at a show for about $14.8  The claim to fame is that you'll print full color envelopes at 36 per minute, the cost for toner (color) would be about .02 cents (since you are print a small logo) and you could have a customer envelope feeder and conveyor.  Each of these companies also added a few other tweaks to the system.

Commercial Trade Printer Helps Me Out

Since we've got that out of the way, a few years ago I met a commercial printer who just prints envelopes for the trade. He has at least three of the OKI C9800's with the feeders.  I wasn't able to sell him anything however we hit it off since I was intrigued with envelope presses and how you could take an ordinary color laser printer and tweak it so the system could run envelopes all of the time.

Just about a year ago I asked this commercial printer if he would test a Ricoh SPC431DN for me, I was curious if this system could print envelopes without wrinkles and not misfeed.  We ran the test with a envelope feeder he had, we disconnected the by-pass tray and the Ricoh C431DN ran all of the envelopes without misfeeding and without wrinkles.  I then asked about the percentages of sizes of envelopes that he prints, I wanted to know what was the most common.  He replied that just about 75% of his work is with DL10's and smaller.

Existing Customer Emails Me

Fast forward to about a month ago, one of my clients emailed me and asked if I could supply a system that would print envelopes for this mailings. he had been in touch with Pitney Bowes, however Pitney wanted him to sign a ridiculous 69 month lease for something like $250 for a Pitney Bowes envelope printer.  Since I had the previous experience with the Ricoh SPC431DN, I figured it was worth the time to investigate.  I researched the Pitney Bowes Envelope printer (sorry I forget the model number) and it seems the printer was nothing more than a noisy (saw a video of the system on youtube) inkjet system.  The out put speed was fast, however it was inkjet and the cost was over $17K!

My Testing

I went back to my customer asked for any appointment and found out that his needs are to print 2,000-2,500 envelopes at a time and they would be doing a mail merge from an excel database and a database in PB smartmailer (was not made aware of this until later). I asked for a file from the customer and they emailed me an excel database. Luckily we had a Ricoh SPC431DN in the showroom, but it was only equipped with one paper tray.  In the next 90 minutes I printed off 200 or so envelopes without a hitch, no wrinkles no misfeeds, and the quality was awesome.

Sales Issues

In order to put together a viable solution for the customer, I had to configure the system with three additional paper trays.  However I was not able to test the system with the additional paper trays.  From past experience I knew that I could set each paper tray to due a "roll over", meaning that when one tray was empty, the envelopes would then pull from tray two, then three and four.  I made an assumption that if the system was capable of printing from one tray without issues then all of the other trays would work also (I crossed my fingers). So when I was ready for the install, I knew that I had to change all of the paper tray sizes to DL 10, change the media setting for each tray to envelope #1 and then set the auto "roll over" for each tray. I would also present a 36 month lease and also add in a maintenance agreement for the system with no toner. As far as the quantity of envelopes. I figured that each tray could hold about 100 envelopes since and envelop is three sheets of paper.  Thus with four trays we could load 400 envelopes.

The Presentation

Probably the best thing

Daily Managed Print Industry Notes from Around the World!

OKI will be demonstrating the company's proprietary Managed Print Services (MPS) solution Total Managed Print™ (TMP) within their booth (#302), and will be discussing the solution's value to the channel during a breakout session entitled “The 30-Day ...read more here

"We wanted to get control of our costs, make genuinely positive green decisions and refocus our IT resources on core functions and services." Sydney Institute adopted HP's Managed Print Services, which offered automated supplies, reporting functions ...read more here

TRUMBULL, Conn., Nov 07, 2011 -- Oce, a Canon Group Company and an international leader in digital document management, today announced the Document Printing Systems division of Oce North America has begun selling the Canon imageRUNNER 1700 Series of monochrome, multifunctional office devices. These compact, yet effective systems will easily integrate with existing MFP and printer fleets and allow users to control their devices in a flexible and convenient print solution....read more here

-=Good Selling=-

Daily Managed Print Industry Notes from Around the World!

EFI, a world leader in customer-focused digital printing innovation, today launched PrintMe® Mobile, a new mobile print solution available to IT resellers and managed service providers. PrintMe Mobile can help resellers with mobility practices, office technology solutions or managed-service businesses increase revenue opportunities and deliver new value-added services by meeting customers’ mobile printing needs. PrintMe Mobile provides SMB to,,,,read more here

There's now a new service provider in the Managed Network Services (MNS) sector and growing Managed Print Services (MPS) sector. Agiliant is officially open for business and is targeting customers looking to optimize their overall network performance, ....read more here

Pitney Bowes has launched its Managed Print service – a core element of the wider Marketing Lifecycle Services http://www.marketinglifecycleservices.com/ suite - designed to help marketing departments execute the print process more efficiently, more affordably and with uncompromising quality. Recent Pitney Bowes research reveals that European private and public sector....read more here

FRAMINGHAM, Mass., Nov 03, 2011 -- The explosion of color printing represents lots of green for imaging vendors reaping the rewards of high aftermarket profitability when compared to monochrome printing. According to survey results delivered through a new study from International Data Corporation (IDC), users of color devices reported that 47% of their weekly print volume contained color on the....read more here

 

....read more here

-=Good Selling=-

NEW YORK, Nov 02, 2011  -- Oce, an international leader in digital document management and delivery, announced today that the company has been placed by Gartner, Inc. in the Challengers Quadrant of the 2011 Magic Quadrant for Managed Print Services (MPS) Worldwide.*

Daily MFP Industry Notes from around the World!

Before we kick off the latest news from the world of copiers and printers here's a little tidbit of information for you!  When traveling to Sandy Hook, NJ from the Garden State Parkway using Route 36 East be prepared for a SLOW ride.  In 11.7 miles you'll see thirty (30) traffic lights.  On the way home today I had to stop at 11 of them and had 8 slow downs, plus it took almost 40 minutes!!!

August 19, 2011 - Labelsprint Ltd, Rhyl, North Wales, has announced the purchase of the UK’s first Xeikon 3500 digital colour label press. The machine, officially launched to the UK market at IPEX 2010, provides for a wider media width than other Xeikon label presses, offering Labelsprint significant opportunities to run both wider and longer label runs and to print smaller format products more efficiently and more cost effectively. “I knew when we were being shown the Xeikon 3500 for the very first time at an industry demonstration in Belgium that it was the machine that we needed to rise above the rest of the digital market,” said Gary Lovell, Sales Director of Labelsprint. read more

Sydney, Australia – August 19, 2011 – Fuji Xerox Australia continues the heritage of its Nuvera platform in Australia by announcing the launch of the Xerox Nuvera 200 EA Perfecting Production System and GBC eBinder 200 inline finishing solution.  The Xerox Nuvera 200 EA Perfecting Production System is the latest addition to a broad, industry leading line-up of monochrome cut-sheet production devices, tailored to meet the extended high-speed and high-quality requirements of Fuji Xerox customers. read more

STAMFORD, Conn., August 19, 2011 - Pitney Bowes Management Services (PBMS), a wholly owned subsidiary of Pitney Bowes Inc. (NYSE: PBI), will showcase its legal services, specifically in the areas of eDiscovery services and litigation support services, at the International Legal Technology Association 2011 Annual Conference to be held August 21-25 at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Convention Center, Nashville, TN. “The legal services market is a key focus area for.. read more

-=Good Selling=-

MFP Weekend Industry Notes for 2/27/2011

Special thanx to Print4Pay Hotel members and moles from across the globe  for posting these updates on the P4P Hotel forums!

- Canon announced that it has finalized sale of its interest in a semiconductor plant in Singapore to Micron Technology of Boise, Idaho.
- Canon, Samsung and Hewlett Packard were all sued by Lodsys LLC in regards to alleged patent infringement over technology that exchanges info with customers via printers.

- Canon announced it will donate “one million dollars of in-kind printing services” from its LA branch to Operation HOPE. Curriculum will be printed by Canon and distributed by HOPE Corps to educate youth at no cost in area school districts, according to Canon’s VP of Zone Operations Eddie Saji.

- Marvell Technology (which makes print controller technology for companies like Xerox, etc.) was sued by Link A Media Devices Corp. over alleged patent infringement regarding hard drive technology.

- Zoran of California, which makes controllers for MFPs (i.e. Xerox, Canon, Ricoh, Sharp, etc.) as well as DVD players, Blu-Ray players, cable TV boxes and video games, announced it will be launching a product called “DirectOffice Mobile Print”.

o This new option for its print controllers will allow end users to print to their MFPs from smartphones and tablets via WiFi wireless technologies.

o Made in partnership with another print controller technology company, Software Imaging Inc. of England.

- Okidata is launching the pro905DP, which is a color desktop LED-based toner printer that is specially made for envelope printing. MSRP of $18,995 and includes an EFI Fiery.

- Hewlett Packard announced it has acquired Vertica Systems Inc. of Billerica, Massachusetts, which makes software that “helps business spot trends hidden in large amounts of data”. Purchase price not announced.

- Hewlett Packard announced that LG Electronics will relabel some of its printers in Asia. LG already relabels product from Lexmark.

- HP’s new CEO, Leo Apotheker, purchased a 6 bedroom home in Atherton, CA for $7 million.

- HP announced it won a 7 year, $281 million managed IT services contract from Oklahoma Healthcare Authority.

- Hewlett Packard announced HP Digital Health Solutions:

o Portfolio of products, solutions and partnerships

o holistically addresses the technology needs of care delivery

o expanded solution framework and formal reference architectures

o real-time information environment

o enable healthcare organizations to link to monitor health and deliver care to patients

o On display in the HP Health Solutions Center showroom in Plano, TX

- IKON, a division of Ricoh, announced it has filed suit against two former FM employees for supposedly violating a non-compete clause. The suit was filed against John Kolacinski and Robert Hornbeck, who now work for Myriad Litigation Solutions of California.

- Electronics For Imaging, maker of the Fiery print server, announced:

o It will buy back $30 million of its stock shares

o Has acquired Streamline Development, maker of PrintStream management information systems (MIS) software for printshop owners

- Kodak announced it sold a Prosper 5000XL production color inkjet system to Servinform, a printshop in Spain.

- Survey on proposed new leasing rules, by Deloitte:

o Only 7% of companies polled are ready for new rules, which would force companies to put leases on their books

o 80% say it will add burden to their financial reporting

o 40% said it will make it more difficult to obtain financing

o 40% believe it will force them into shorter term leases

o 35% don’t believe that their company’s lease data is accurate

o 25% believe it will require them to upgrade their existing IT systems

- Sharp announced it filed a lawsuit against a former Sharp branch copier sales rep in Phoenix, AZ. The lawsuit is aimed at Brenda Luettenegger, for allegedly violating a non-compete clause.

- According to one industry publication, the new Sharp copiers with the “Apple iPhone-like” touchscreen color LCDs, have been locking up in product demonstrations.

- The largest Sharp dealer in Canada, is Pitney Bowes, with a number of locations in the country. (while Pitney Bowes spun off it copier business in the U.S. as Imagistics, which is now part of Canon, it did not do so in Canada)

- Square 9 Softworks of New Haven, CT, maker of the SmartSearch document management software (DMS), announced that it now has panel integration option for both Xerox copiers (with EIP) and Sharp copiers (with OSA). It is also working on integration with Kodak desktop scanners

- OpenText of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, (maker of RightFax, FaxPress, and document management software) announced it has completed its acquisition of Metastorm of Baltimore, Maryland, which makes business process management software, for $182 million.

- DocuLex, maker of document management software, announced that it has new feature allowing end users to pull email out of Microsoft Exchange 2010.

-=Good Selling=-

MFP Weekend Industry Notes from 1/04/2010

- Microsoft co-founder, Paul Allen, announced he is renewing his effort to sue Apple, Google, Facebook, eBay, AOL and other companies for patent infringement. The patents at issue are owned by Interval Research, which was founded by Allen and Xerox’s David Liddle in 1992.


- Pitney Bowes announced that Patrick Keddy, Executive VP and President, will retire at end of year.

- Hewlett Packard announced it sold an Indigo W7200 production color system to Schmidt Printing of Byron, Minnesota.

- Adobe Corp. reported it first billion dollar quarter. In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2010, Adobe achieved record revenue of $1.008 billion.

- Brother announced a new promotion where customers who buy replacement ink cartridges get a free music download from EMI.

- Fuji, maker of most Xerox copiers, announced that future models will have “Smart Power Saving Technology”, where power will provided on an as needed basis. For example, if end user is scanning, then power is not supplied to print engine to save electricity.

- Impact of proposed new leasing rules studied. PricewaterhouseCoopers stated that it conducted a survey of the impact of proposed new rules that would do away with off-balance-sheet accounting for equipment leases. The study revealed that 24% of companies surveyed would experience an increase in debt of over 25%.

- Kyocera (aka Kyoto Ceramic Company) announced the following awards won:

o BLI stated that test of FS-1320D and FS-1370DN b/w laser printers delivered “flawless” reliability

o Industry Analysts Inc. gave “most reliable” rating to TASKalfa 250ci and TASKalfa 300ci color laser MFPs

o BERTL gave “Outstanding” ratings to FS-C2125MFP and FS-3140MFP

- Kyocera announced it now offers an embedded/panel integration HyPAS connector for docSTAR Eclipse document management system.

- Office Products Analyst Inc. stated that in a recent survey of 232 printshop owners:

o Kodak NexPress production color systems were rated the most reliable

o Sharp b/w MFPs (not production units) were rated most reliable

o Canon products were least reliable.

- Canon apparently is planning on selling a LCD manufacturing division to Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. of Taiwan (aka Foxconn) for $1.2 billion.

- Canon announced it plans on buying controlling interest in Altair Nanotechnologies Inc. of Reno, NV, which makes lithium ion electrical energy storage systems.

- A new survey conducted by Lexmark finds that 7 out of 10 offices workers that have access to wireless connection to their printers do not use it, due to connectivity and security issues.
- According to Contextworld, the best selling desktop color laser printer in the world is the Samsung CLP-315, beating out the HP Color LaserJet CP2025n by twice as many sales.

-=Good Selling=-

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=-

MFP Industry Notes from Around the World!

Special thanx to Print4Pay Hotel Members from around the world and a few moles in very good places!Take a moment and join the largest group of copier professionals in the world. Here's the link for the P4P Hotel forums

- Intel announced it is spending $1.4 billion to buy Infineon, maker of wireless network technology, which is found in Apple products.

- Adobe announced it will partner with Monotype Imaging to provide print drivers to MFP and printer makers. The two companies will offer a package that includes PCL, PostScript and XPS drivers, to compete against other makers like Global Graphics & Zoran.

- Hewlett Packard announced it won a managed print services contract from AIB in Ireland.

o 5 year contract

o Reduced fleet from one device for every 4 employees to one for every 12

o Included MFPs and LaserJet 4250dtn and Color LaserJet 4700dtn laser printers

o Included SafeCom solution to allow ID card readers on devices for authentication

o Claims to have reduced operating costs from 20-30%

- Hewlett Packard is sued. About 1 year ago, HP announced a partnership with large commercial printer, R.R. Donnelley, to develop variable data technologies. Now R.R. Donnelley has filed a lawsuit against HP over alleged patent violations, claiming that the violations are “willful and deliberate.”

- Hewlett Packard is fighting a claim by security firm, Zscaler Labs, that hackers can use the Webscan feature to capture images from documents that are left in Hewlett Packard scanners and MFPs that have an embedded Web server. Michael Sutton of Zscaler Labs claims that he was able to find many HP scanners on the Internet.

- Hewlett Packard announced it sold an Indigo 7000 production color system to Color By, a printshop in Italy.

- Hewlett Packard agreed to pay $55 million to settle claims it paid kickbacks so companies would recommend its products to U.S. government agencies.

- Hewlett Packard announced it won an $800 million bid to provide laptops and desktop PCs to U.S. Air Force.

- Hewlett Packard won a bidding war against Dell over both companies’ attempt to buy 3PAR Corp., which make data storage technology for cloud computing. HP will pay $2.1 billion for the firm. Details on 3PAR:

o founded 11 years ago by former Sun Microsystems employees

o original stock price was $10 per share, but sold at $33 per share

o the letters “P”, “A” and “R” stand for names of three founders

o based in Fremont, CA

o 670 employees

- Hewlett Packard announced study by BLI that apparently shows end users will have less print quality and service issues if they use official HP ColorLok paper with their color laser devices. Using ColorLok paper supposedly will lead to 4 times fewer faults and more than 4 times fewer paper path obstructions.

- IBM Corp. has beat a breach of contract lawsuit that accused the company of shorting a current sales rep on a commission he claimed he was owed in connection with a $3.8 million in licensing feeds Motorola Corp. paid IBM for software patents.

- IBM claims it has developed the world’s fastest microprocessor chip, running at 5.2GHz.

- Epson is fighting to keep an internal report private in a lawsuit. Apparently it was released by a disgruntled former executive, and may detail a misrepresentation of the quality of Epson inkjet cartridges.

- International Data Corporation (IDC) gave out it findings of worldwide market sales of printers and MFPs in last quarter:

o Includes inkjet and laser devices, from desktop to printshop

o total market grew 20%

o 29 million units shipped

o Total value increased by 14% to $13.3 billion

o B/w laser MFPs grew 39.7% (the first time that b/w had more growth than color)

o Color laser MFPs grew 33%

o HP shipped 2.8 million laser units, and 11.9 units total including inkjet

o Samsung color laser MFPs grew 55% to 108,731 units

o Samsung b/w laser MFPs grew 54% to 500,777 units

o 9 million total laser based units shipped

o 66% of market belonged to inkjet technology (primarily home use devices)

o Inkjet grew 14% to 19 million units

o 78% of inkjet units were MFPs

o In U.S., total shipments grew 14.4%

- Ricoh announced it sold an Aficio PRO C720s production color system to Noel-Baker School and Language College in England.

- Kodak announced a new solution partnership for its high speed scanners. The Kodak scanners, with the optional Kodak Capture Pro Software, now integrates with CAPSYS CAPTURE to create workflows for document management systems.

- In a study of 410 small companies conducted by 1&1 Internet Ltd:

o 37% reported that money is lost from employees failing to share updated versions of documents

o 53% are held back by poor archiving of emails and documents

o 59% of business owners are unable to amend documents when they are off premises

o Over half of business owners believe that their staff is wasting money with excessive printing

- IT departments across the country are facing a looming Microsoft Windows 7 migration deadline, as support for Windows XP will end in 4 years. Gartner study shows:

o Many are starting their migrations at end of 2010

o IT budgets will need to increase between 20% to 60% to accommodate the updates

o Cost of IT labor will also increase

o Estimated migration cost per PC will be between $1205 and $1999

o Capital costs account for 60% of total replacement cost

o Average business will have to replace 25% of its PC early

- The Marin County Board of Supervisors of California voted to stop the implementation of an SAP project, and admitted to wasting over $30 million when it awarded the SAP project to Deloitte Consulting. Marin County has sued Deloitte to get its money back.

- Worldox, maker of document management systems (DMS) to the legal industry, announced it won a contract from Hoskin, Farina & Kampf, a law firm in Colorado. Total cost = $32,975.00

- Microsoft was forced to apologize to attendees of a tradeshow in Australia. The company had hired female models for its booth, but apparently was unaware that they would show up wearing bikinis.

- Microsoft cofounder, Paul Allen is suing Apple, Google and 9 other companies claiming they are violating patents he owns

- Apple has sued Kodak, claiming it violated some of its digital camera patents.

- NER Data Corp, which was a maker of compatible toner cartridges, announced it has sold that business, and now plans on becoming a national provider of managed print services, using genuine HP cartridges.

- Lexmark was ordered by a judge to pay $8.3 million to compensate its California employees for a flawed “use it or lose it” vacation pay policy. Judge Greg Alarcon ruled that 178 employees should be compensated for vacation time they did not use before they were terminated.

- Sharp announced it hired Eric Hafter, to run its new Solar Energy Solutions Group, reporting to CEO, Kozo Takahashi.


- Now that Peerless has sold its print controller business to Kyocera, it only has 4 employees in a 2,000 square foot office, and is part owner of Highbury Financial.


- Sharp announced a new A3 color laser MFP, called the MX-2310F featuring:

o 23ppm top speed

o 4 tandem OPC drum design

o New compact design, smaller than other Sharp A3 color MFPs

o Uses a polymer resin frame, to reduce weight of main unit by one third of other SharA3 color MFPs (is this first copier to have a frame that is not made of metal?)

o Uses 77% less power

o Uses LEDs in scanning section instead of fluorescent lamps

o Faster warm up time

o Standby mode uses only 1 watt of power

o Uses new Sharp Microtoner HG2 toner

o 7” touch screen LCD control panel

o Ship data and pricing not yet announced

- A 44 year old man is being pursued in United Arab Emirates after attempting to cash two fake $1 million dollar bills made on a color copier.

- Bret Rhind and Debra Roberson of Missouri were charged with making fake currency using a color copier after they attempted to spend it at Walmart, Target and Lowes. The phony cash was passed in 19 states, and included fake $50 and $100 bills.

- Pitney Bowes announced that it spent $210,000 in the second quarter of 2010 to lobby the federal government. The company’s FM division, called PMBS, is now run by Vicki O’Meara, who was hired after the division reported a 5% drop in revenue in early 2010

-=Good Selling=-

MFP Weekend Industry Notes 4/26/10

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

- More proof of economic recovery for copiers. The Copier Network of San Leandro, CA has noticed an increasing trend for copier repossessions and other general office equipment in the United States due to the tough economic times. As a nationally established asset recovery company The Copier Network has the privilege of foresight to predict the economy’s coming up’s and down’s. However, recently, Copier Network has noticed a slight decrease in the number of repossession assignments, which may suggest the economy is recovering. (Preliminary forecast for Repo assignments in 2010 is to be about 15% less than 2009.)

- Fujitsu battle with its former president, Kuniaki Nozoe, continues. The latest allegation is that Fujitsu’s board allegedly offered the president “hush money” of $2.9 million, if he would resign quietly.

- Fujitsu launched a computer keyboard that is made with biodegradable plastics, called the KBPC PX ECO keyboard.

- Fujitsu announced it will spend $537.3 million to upgrade its data centers to offer cloud computing (possible price of 30 cents per hour)

- Fujitsu hired John Hanley as Application Division Managing Director, who will be tasked with 3 year plan to double revenue from custom customer applications.

- Pitney Bowes announced it will expand its relationship with Riso to sell the Riso ComColor color inkjet systems. These Olympus made models will be marketed through Pitney Bowes offices nationwide (which may be why Riso is apparently closing its own branches in the U.S.)
- Some customers still prefer the TIFF format for scanning instead of PDF:
o TIFF stands for “Tagged Image File Format”
o works well with CAD programs, and geographic info systems
o file structure is simpler
o originally developed by Aldus Corp, in 1986 (which sold out to Adobe)
o bitmap format
o files are very difficult to alter
o suitable for storing many pages of a single fax in a single file
o better compression algorithms to make files smaller

- Clearwell Systems announced it sold an eDiscovery software package to Wyatt Tarrant & Combs, a 200 attorney law firm with 7 offices in South Central U.S. and Colorado.

- Kodak’s CEO, Antonio Perez, stated that he plans on Kodak generating $250 million to $350 million per year in patent licensing revenue. Details:
o Program actually started during tenure of former Kodak CEO, Dan Carp.
o Kodak invented the digital camera in 1975
o Kodak has reported only one full year of profit since 2004 (in 2007)
o Kodak filed lawsuits against Apple Computer and Research in Motion Ltd. (makers of Blackberry) for patent infringement.
o Apple countersued claiming that Kodak is using its digital processing technologies
o Received $550 million from Samsung to settle lawsuit
o Received $400 million from LG Electronics to settle lawsuit
o Has 30 licensing agreements now in place, including Nokia, Sony, Motorola, etc.

- In the court case “Ghods versus Citicorp”, the judge ruled that just because a copier experienced service problem, the customer (Ghods) is still responsible for making lease payments.

- Nuance announced new features for eCopy ShareScan:
o Document Conversion Extender which enables customers to turn paper documents into fully-formatted Microsoft Word, Excel and RTF (rich text format) files
o The OCR (optical character recognition) engine has been improved to offer 50% more accuracy
o The OCR engine is now 30% more accurate than other middleware solutions
o Forms Processing Extender enables customer to route and process paper forms, including ability to extract data and perform automated database look-ups ($995 per MFP)
o Available OCR SDK (software developer kit) & API (application program interface) making it easier for other software vendors to connect to eCopy
o Support for 3D capture for book scanning
o Export to over 100 formats, including eBook and audio book
o Scan-to-redaction allows keywords or phrases to automatically remove sensitive information with results printed to redacted copy or sent to user as redacted PDF file
o Scan-to-highlight results in a paper-search feature that finds and highlights info hidden within stacks of paper, with highlighted document either printed or sent as PDF

- Zoran Corp. of Sunnyvale, CA, which makes print controllers for many MFP manufacturers, announced a new controller called the “Inferno” offering:
o Uses Linux with Quatro RISC processor
o 10/100/1000BaseT ports
o Zoran also makes controllers for DVD players, digital cameras, cell phones and cable TV boxes.
- Toshiba announced it is launching a new series of hands-on workshops to teach its dealers how to sell Managed Print Services and Professional Services. Details:
o Classes held in Washington DC, Dallas, Irvine & Chicago
o Speakers include employees of Toshiba, HP, Lexmark and Strategy Development
o Launched by Toshiba’s VP of Marketing, Bill Melo
o There is no charge to attend

- Toshiba announced that it won four awards in the 2010 BERTL Readers’ Choice Awards:
o Total Solution Provider in the Overall Manufacturer Award Division
o Environment Sustainability
o Workflow Integration
o Output Quality for the Toshiba e-STUDIO5520c/6520c/6530c series.

- Toshiba expects to report a big loss in the financial year just ended:
o expects a net loss of ¥20 billion (US$215 million) for the fiscal year that ended in March
o Sales are expected to come in at ¥6.38 trillion, which is a slight drop from the ¥6.4 trillion that was predicted in January

- Microsoft released results of a survey that showed:
o Most small and midsize businesses (SMB) will be spending more on IT in 2010
o 64% stated that they will spend more, compared with 23% in 2009
o Overall spending expected to increase 16% over 2009 levels
o 19% expect to use cloud based services
o 74% will use more remote workers
o 52% admitted to storing a document on a company server and never finding it again
o 39% state that their company does not have any guidelines for storing documents

- Copier data security in the news. CBS network TV affiliates across the U.S. are airing investigative reports reporting to the general public that many copiers with hard drives that companies have traded in, still have confidential information stored on the hard drive, that may wind up in the wrong hands when the copiers are remarketed to new customers. Sample of customers that inadvertently exposed data when they traded in their copiers:
o Buffalo, NY Police Department (Toshiba copiers)
o Tommy Bahama stores
o Affinity Health Plan of New York
o The copiers involved were all made prior to 2008, which means they were made before most vendors introduced hard drive encryption or disk overwrite features

- Rochester Software Associates (RSA) won “Best of Show” awards during the current OnDemand trade show in Philadelphia:
o RSA WebCRD Web-to-Print software
o RSA KDKPrint SMARTBOARD conversion software (converts Kodak proprietary format to PS or PDF)
o RSA SurePreview previewsa job onscreen as a finishied product using WebCRD

- Cason Research predicts that digital color page volume in North America will grow from 10% of all digital pages in 2008 to almost 50%, more than 325 billion pages, by 2017.

- According to BuyerZone, here is average street pricing of document management software systems:
o $3,000 for entry level system with less than 10 users
o $6000 for small system with 10+ users
o $25,000 to $80,000 for mid-sized system with up to 100 users
o $500,000 for enterprise level (hundreds of users)

- United Stationers Supply Co., a large nationwide office supply distributor headquartered in Illinois, announced it has made a minority investment in NER Data Corp., which refills toner cartridges, offers generic printer parts, and provides a Managed Print Services program.

- Apple Computer has filed a patent application for a color computer monitor that will use special filters to display CMYK, instead of traditional RGB. Unknown when and if product will actually be launched.

- Rosetta Technologies announced it will sell MICR (magnetic image character recognition) toner that supposedly will work in 90, 110 & 135ppm Ricoh production print b/w copiers.

- Ricoh announced that in Australia, it will resell EFI PrintSmith MIS software, which is used by printshops to manage their business. EFI normally sells this product directly to printshop owners, so Ricoh is testing this in one country, and may offer it in the future in the U.S.

- Ricoh gave out some details about its last fiscal year end performance:
o operating profit is 44% larger than originally forecast due to cost cutting measures (massive layoffs)
o operating profit of $697 million

- Equitrac announced it has hired Eric Rodriquez as its VP of Direct Professional Sales, focusing on selling to the legal vertical market. Details:
o Eric started his career at IKON in Chicago
o Then worked as sales manager for C2 Legal
o Founded and become CEO of Ribstone Systems (since he now left Ribstone, some are reporting that Ribstone is going out of business, which would be bad news for all the law firms in the U.S. that bought Canon imageRUNNERs with Ribstone/MEAP embedded)

- Carlson Marketing reported results of a survey regarding building relationships with customers:
o Average company loses 10-30% of its customers every year
o Average company loses 50% of its customers every 5 years
o 50% of buyers claim they’d never do business with a company again if it took more than one day to resolve one of their customer service issues (i.e. billing, etc.)
o Proactively soliciting feedback from customers provides 15-20% more cross-selling and upselling opportunities
o More than 66% of companies that communicate with their buyers via weekly or monthly newsletters increase loyalty
o Buyers who receive regular contact are 4 times more likely to recommend a business to a friend or collegue

- Samsung puts convict back in his job. Even though he was convicted of criminal tax evasion charges in connection with massive slush fund and bribery network scandal, South Korean President lee Myung-bak pardoned Lee Kun-hee, former Samsung chairman. Samsung announced that he was rehired and given his title back.

- Kyocera has hired Peter Cybuck, formerly of Ricoh and Sharp, to lead new data security initiative for future MFPs.

- Kyocera’s president and CEO, Mike Pietrunti, announced that the company is looking to add dealers in Salt Lake City, Denver, Phoenix and Houston. (it lost dealers it had in last couple of years due to acquisitions)

- More data security issues. A vendor survey of more than 200 hospital executives finds instances of health information data breaches and medical identity theft continue to increase despite new federal regulations like the breach notification rule and the Red Flag rules

o Identity Force, a Framingham, Mass.-based vendor of identity theft prevention services, conducted the survey between March 30 and April 13 among members of the American Hospital Association. The company received e-mail outreach assistance from the AHA, which previously endorsed its services. Survey findings include:
 Some 41.5 percent of responding hospitals have 10 or more data breaches annually, up 121 percent from a similar survey done in 2009. Twenty percent of respondents have at least 20 breaches annually.
 Fifty-six percent of respondents believe the health reform law either will not change or will increase instances of medical identity theft. Yet, 71 percent of the hospitals, on average, investigate fewer than 50 possible cases of misuse of identity each year and 34 percent don't keep good patient ID records.
 Only 15.7 percent of respondents believe they are in good compliance with security provisions of the HITECH Act; 48 percent don't know if their vendors and business associates are in compliance.

-=Good Selling=-

MFP Weekend Industry Notes 12/26/09

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

- Yielding to complaints from Hewlett Packard, and the Federal Trade Commission, Kodak agreed to modify its ads on its color inkjet printers. The ads originally claimed that customers would save $110 per year on ink costs if they used Kodak printers and AIOs. Now the ads will say; “Save an average of $110 per year on ink based on just four pages per day”

- PODi (Print On Demand Initiative) announced that sponsors for its AppForum trade show in Las Vegas (on 1/25-27/2010) are:
- Konica Minolta
- Canon
- Kodak
- PageFlex software
- Xerox

- The Konica Minolta bizhub PRO C6501 received the coveted Fogra Certification (standard in Europe) for color quality.

- During the recent Copenhagen United National Climate Change summit, the delegates printed out their presentation on 30 different Konica Minolta bizhub color MFPs. The units were chosen due to their eco friendly design.

- Adobe Corp, announced its 4th quarter’s financials:
- total revenue of $757.3 million, as compared with $915.3 million in previous fiscal
- operating income of $153.6 million, as compared with $273.2 million in previous fiscal
- Predicts revenue of $800 million for first quarter of 2010

- Business Research & Testing Laboratories (BERTL) gave out its “BEST” awards to the following products:
- ABBY PDF Transformer software
- Canon imageFORMULA DR-X10C scanner
- Cima DocuClass Express document management software
- Colortrac SmartLF GX+42 large format color scanner
- docSTAR 3Ten document management software
- Drivve Image 3.0 imaging workflow software
- eCopy Paperworks desktop office utility
- Konica Minolta/eCopy integrated scanning solution
- Lexmark SmartSolution web-based application solution
- Mutoh ValueJet 1618A wide format color inkjet printer
- MWAi M2M asset management solution
- Nuance OmniPage 17 OCR solution
- Oce’ Plotwave 300 wide format color wax printer
- Ricoh PRO C900 production color system
- RISO ComColor high speed color inkjet system
- Roland VersaArt RS Series wide format color inkjet printer
- Sharp MS-M503/M363/M283 digital b/w MFPs
- Toshiba eSTUDIO 855 Series digital b/w MFPs
- Xerox Phaser 7500 color laser printers

- PC Magazine gave out is “Editors Choice” awards to the following desktop laser printer/MFP/AIO devices:
- Brother HL-5340D
- Brother MFC-8480DN
- Canon Color imageCLASS MF8530cdn
- Konica Minolta magicolor 1600 series
- Xerox Phaser 6280dn
- Xerox Phaser 7500dn

- IKON, a division of Ricoh, won the reseller of the year award from Kofax, maker of document management software.

- Former IKON executive, Rob Welcome, is now VP of National Accounts for New Leaf Brands Inc., a maker of healthy beverages in New York.

- Former IKON executive, Robert Rusnack, was named the new CFO of LaJobi, a children’s furniture maker in New Jersey.

- Ricoh announced it is now offering an embedded version of the Equitrac cost accounting software for select Aficio MFPs.

- Ricoh announced that it will offer AccuRoute scanning software from OmTool, as an option for its Aficio MFPs.


- Toshiba announced that it will resell cost accounting solutions from Pharos as options for its eSTUDIO MFPs.

- Toshiba is bidding on a 4 trillion yen project to build a bullet train system for Brazil. The project involves construction of a railway system over a 510 kilometer route connecting Rio de Janerio and Campinas, in less than 2 hours. Brazil wants the new system up and running in time for the 2014 World Cup soccer tournament.

- Toshiba introduced 64GB flash memory chips that it hopes will be in the next generation of Apple iPhone.

- Zoran Corp, maker of generic print controllers, announced it will source fax modem technology from LSI Corp. to incorporate it into new print controllers it will launch in 2010.

- A recent study gives bad press to hospitals that adopt electronic medical records software:
- conducted by Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School
- reviewed 4,000 hospitals
- adoption resulted in no cost savings
- negligible quality of care improvements
- administrative costs increased slightly

- To promote use of electronic medical records technology, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act passed the federal government provides:
- $17.2 billion in incentives through Medicare and Medicaid
- Large hospitals can receive payments for a 4 year period starting in 2011
- Physicians can receive incentives up to $44,000
- Medicare is the biggest health care payer in the U.S.
- the CMS-1500 is the most commonly scanned form in the medical industry
- Most common documents in healthcare are:
- ID cards and insurance cards
- patient records
- lab instructions
- insurance claims (CMS-1500 and UB-04 forms)
- EOB benefit forms (acknowledgement of payment by insurance company)
- medical supplier invoices
- X-ray, EKG, MRI and other test results

- Kodak announced that it will restate its 401K match and pay raises in 2010 for its employees.

- Kodak announced that Heidelberg’s factory direct branch in Australia will resell its Digimaster and NexPress production print systems.

- Kodak announced that it has sold a NexPress SE3600 production color system to Cohber Press, a print shop in Henrietta, New York.

- Kodak announced that it has sold its New York state based water treatment plant to Monroe County for $9.5 million.

- Kodak announced it sold it OLED (organic light emitting diode) division to LG Electronics of South Korea.

- Kodak announced it is relinquishing a lease it has held for last 22 years for a large hangar at the Rochester International Airport. It was paying $112,000 per year for the lease for its company airplanes.

- Kodak added executives for its scanner division, hiring Tony Barbeau as General Manager and Russell Hunt as Regional Business Manager.

- Doc It Inc. announced version 3.3 of its Doc It document management software, featuring:
- automatically recognizes large batches of files and place them in correct folder
- intelligent scan cover page
- universal search
- integration with CCH Tax software
- PDF editor enhancements, such as watermarking, redacting, etc.


- Hewlett Packard announced that it has certified an 18point thick stock for its Indigo production color system. HP now approves running the Masterpiece Premium 18pt CIS Board Stock for the HP Indigo WS6000 system.

- Oce’, (which Canon is attempting to acquire), announced that it won a facilities management contract from Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP, a large law firm with offices in Atlanta, Houston, Washington DC and New York.

- Large Oce’ shareholder, Orbis Portfolio Management, is still rejecting the proposed takeover bid by Canon, claiming that the purchase price is too low.

- Pitney Bowes announced that it would lay off up to 10% of its workforce to cut costs due to declining revenues.

- A group of independent copier dealers has been formed to fulfill managed print services contracts. For example, if a copier dealer A wants to offer a managed print services contract to a customer that has offices outside of copier dealer A’s territory, then it can use another copier dealer in this network, who agrees to provide service for a fixed dollar amount and parts markup. The new group is the National Printer Repair Network (NPRN), and it has also formed a partnership with BEI Services, for advanced national service call routing and service performance measurements.

- Management shakeup at Samsung of South Korea. Details:
- CEO, Lee Yoon Woo is out, and replaced by Choi Gee Sung, who was in charge of Samsung’s TV and cell phone business.
- In addition, it has hired Lee Jae Yong as COO, who is son of former Samsung chairman, Lee Kun Hee.
- Lee’s appointment shows that Samsung execs expect no further fallout from the tax evasion scandal, which led to a 3 year suspended sentence for former chairman Lee and the resignation of former CEO, Yun Jong Yong.
- During last quarter, Samsung reported a huge operating profit of $3.2 billion, as the Korean currency, the won, has not risen against the U.S. dollar as the Japanese yen has, thus giving the company a huge advantage over its Japanese competitors.

-=Good Selling=-

MFP Weekend Industry Notes 10/09/09

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

Investment firm, KKR, is on track to own up to 16.5% of Kodak. Former Kodak CEO, George Fisher, is one of KKR’s senior advisors. (Does Mr. Fisher see Kodak as a future acquisition target?)

Kodak’s proposed settlement of a race discrimination lawsuit goes before Judge Jonathan E. Feldman.
- Lawyers filed a motion asking for approval of a payout of $21.4 million
- Attorney’s fees would take $9.7 million of the payout
- The rest would result in payment to former employees of ranging from $1000 to $75,000 apiece.

Kodak announced that its board of directors has amended its contract with CEO, Antonio Perez, so that he remains in his current position until 12/31/2013. The previous contract ended in 2010.

Will new accounting rules change copier leases?
- Since 1976, all industries have been allowed to account for equipment leases as either a capital lease or an operating lease
- Operating leases allow customer to account for the copier lease as a monthly expense rather than an asset that goes on the balance sheet.
- The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) has put together a project designed to change the rules by eliminating operating, or off-balance-sheet leases. This could go into effect in 2011.

A dealer in Michigan grows by focusing on solutions:
- ImageSoft Inc. of Southfield, MI, was named to Inc. 5000 fastest growing U.S. businesses
- Revenue growth rate of 87.47%
- Named one of Metro-Detroit’s 101 Best and Brightest Companies to Work For
- Has 44 total employees
- Just opened satellite offices in Grand Rapids (MI), North Carolina and Oregon
- Founded in 1006 by Scott Bade, James Leneschmidt & Steve Glisky
- Has 143 customers ranging from government, healthcare, insurance, education and manufacturing
- Just won bid for electronic content management (ECM) system for Oregon Judicial Department, which handles 600,000 cases per year

Intel Corp. demonstrated a chip-based authentication scheme that could allow or prevent devices to access a computer network. It is called vPro with Active Management (AMT) technology, and could also be used to prevent non-original manufacturer-made cartridges from being used in printers and MFPs.

OpenText Corp. was awarded with a “Strong Positive” listing from Gartner’s 2009 MarketScope for Records Management providers. OpenText offers enterprise content management software, including Captaris RightFax.

The global market for printer, copier & MFPs declined in first half of 2009 according to Gartner:
- shipments totaled 51.3 million units including office and home use devices
- a decline of 20.2% compared to year previous
- office printing devices down 24.5%
- HP holds 40% marketshare, down 3.4%
- Canon has 19%, Epson 14.2%, Brother 6.2%, Samsung 4.9%

VistaPrint, a large print for pay, continues to grow its revenues:
- Since 2005, revenues grew from $90 million to $515.8 million (450% growth)
- CEO is Robert Keane
- Incorporated in Venlo, Netherlands
- Has sales offices in Lexington, MA, Barcelona (Spain), Montego Bay (Jamaica), Winterthur (Switzerland) and Paris (France)
- Has 20 million repeat customers
- 60% of its sales are through its website
- Printshops are located in Windsor, Ontario, Canada and Venlo
- Average on-line order is $33.00
- Ranked 16th on Fortune 100 Fastest Growing Companies
- Recently became the provider for Fedex Office (formerly Kinko’s) web-to-print sales

In order to increase print volumes, Hewlett Packard is now offering templates for brochures, fliers and business cards through its MarketSplash website for owners of its printers. The site also will offer a print fulfillment option, giving end user the ability to choose a local HP authorized print service provider.

Hewlett Packard announced changes at its Graphics Solutions business unit. Michael Hoffmann has been replaced by Christopher Morgan as the new Senior Vice President.

Hewlett Packard filed a complaint with the International Trade Commission, seeking to stop several companies from selling compatible printer cartridges that violate HP patents. Companies listed were:
- Zhuhai Gree Magneto-Electric of China
- InkPlusToner.com of Canoga Park, CA
- Mipo International of Hong Kong
- Shanghai Angel Printer Supplies of China
- SmartOne of Hayward, CA
- Shenzhen Print Media of China
- Comptree of City of Industry, CA
- Jingjie Imaging Products of China
- Tatrix International of China
- Ourway Image of China

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, Hewlett Packard is considering merging its printer/MFP division with its computer division. Details:
- The printer and PC operations had been combined early in the decade, but HP CEO Mark Hurd separated the units soon after he took over 4 years ago.
- PC unit is run by Todd Bradley
- Printer/MFP unit is run by Vyomesh Joshi (who spent $1 billion in R&D to develop the Edgeline)

Fogra of Munich, Germany, announced it has certified the Oce’ CS665 Pro (relabeled Konica Minolta bizhub PRO C6501) as a Validation Printing System, meeting the requirements of the latest ISO-based FograCert certification. The is the approved standard for sheet-fed and web offset printers.

On Wednesday, October 21st, at the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, before Judge Jeffrey White, the three major OCR engine makers will argue over their patents, with representatives from Nuance, ABBYY and IRIS appearing.

New managed print services solution. Dynamic Supplies announced that its PrintSolv software will now automatically sends printer and copier information back to a fulfillment system. It monitors client’s toner levels and proactively flags an order when the level reaches a predetermined threshold. The new feature is called “Proactiv Supplies Fulfillment”

Oce’ reported its last quarter’s financials:
- Reported a net loss of $36 million
- Revenues declined 10%
- operating income down 14%
- net income down 1%
- Share value feel 6.5%
- CFO, Hans Kerkhoven stated that Oce’ would continue to use cost-cutting to mitigate revenue declines and would not forecast a return to net profit
- Has cut 1,170 jobs so far this year, with a targeted total of 2,350 jobs to be eliminated
- net debt of 566 million euros
- color is now 31% of revenue
- non-recurring revenues down 23%
- recurring revenues down 7%

Konica Minolta’s Australian division announced it has now placed 500 bizhub PRO systems in the country, for a third of the production print market. The latest sale was a C6501 to Oxford Printing of Sydney.

Pitney Bowes steals an executive from Ricoh. Lori Ann Cerullo, formerly VP and GM of Ricoh’s InfoPrint division, was named VP of U.S. Sales for Pitney Bowes, in charge of the Document Messaging Technologies business unit.

Pitney Bowes released results of a survey that found 57% if alumni chose direct mail as the preferred method to receive information about the school that they attended.

Toshiba announced it will cut in half the amount of research and development money it spends on computer chip/semiconductor technology

Toshiba announced it will launch an LED lightbulb capable of producing 810 lumens, the equivalent of a 60 watt lightbulb. The bulbs will sell for the low price of $101.00.

Toshiba completed the purchase of Fujitsu’s hard drive business for $334 million.

Toshiba announced it is letting go of Jerry Lumpkin, who was VP in charge of the company’s computer division, known as Toshiba America Information Systems.

Des Plaines Office Equipment, a Sharp dealer owned by Chip Miceli, announced it is purchasing one of its competitors in the Chicago marketplace, by acquiring ABM Office Equipment (Xerox and Kyocera Copystar), which was owned by Gaylord Smilden. This is Mr. Miceli’s third acquisition in 3 years.

Duplo, maker of duplicators, three years ago announced it would relabel Sharp copiers, and call them the Duplo Docucate series, and hoped to add $40 million in sales annually to the company. This target was never reached, and when asked if they would continue, the company responded; “ we are reconsidering our business direction for Docucate in 2010”

Lenovo, which bought the PC business from IBM, announced it will relabel the Lexmark X543dn desktop color laser A4 MFP and call it the Lenovo MC8300DN. This their first Lexmark product, as the other desktop products that the Chinese company relabels are from Brother and TECO of Taiwan.

Kyocera now offering a managed print services program, called FASTrack, which is based on FMAudit software.

Kyocera gave out more details on its platform for embedded software in its MFPs, called “Hybrid Platform for Advanced Solutions” or HyPAS:
- provides separate Java and Web Services software developer kits
- Java embedded applications allow company to extend the existing feature set, with more advanced serverless capabilities
- Web Services applications can be implemented on a range of platforms using almost any
programming langurage
- PanelPlus, based on Java, offers pre-programmed OneTouch buttons for scan to email,
scan to PC, or FTP with customizable icons
- PrintQ Manager server based software enables print user authentication and authorization via Active Directory, provides print job queue on control panel and integrates with HID card readers
- KYOcapture is a relabeled version of NSi’s AutoStore
- Equitrac Office and Express
- OpenText RightFax
- Future product is a scanning utility for Apple iPhone and iPod Touch

NEC announced it will relabel the Kyocera TASKalfa 620 and call it the NEC IT6200. In addition, it will relabel the Kyocera TASKalfa 820 and call it the NEC IT8200.

Netaphor Software Inc. announced it is now shipping SiteAudit version 3.0, offering new features of its managed print services software.

Print Audit, makers of managed print services software, announced it is compatible with Microsoft Windows 7 operating systems.

Trying to sell document management solution? Here is a few facts:
- 4 drawer file cabinet holds about 10,000 pages of paper
- 100 gigabyte hard holds enough info to fill 200 filing cabinets
- Documents can be organized into logical electronic files that can be retrieved through
convenient keyword searches
- Document privacy and security are improved through password protected access
- Information is backed up regularly to create disaster recovery strategy

Industry research company, Raymond James & Associates stated the following about IT sales:
- Sales increased by 6.5% in second quarter as compared to first quarter of 2009
- Expects IT sales to fall 10.6% as compared to last year
- Sales for SMB focused resellers are expected to fall 15.5%
- Large corporate account shipments fell 15.7% compared to last year
- Sales to public sector increased by 1.3%

According to Access Markets International Partners of New York, the country of India will spend $.13 billion in 2009 on printers and printer supplies, which is a 7% increase.

Dell Computer was ordered by the New York Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo, to pay $4 million in restitution for deceptive and fraudulent business practices. The charge was that Dell pressured customers to fix their own computers, even though they were under warranty.,

Results of a survey conducted by Business Roundtable revealed:
- U.S. chief executives are not ready to step up hiring or capital spending
- 40% expect to cut U.S. jobs over the next 6 months
- 13% expect to add jobs
- 35% expect to lower capital spending
- 21% plan on increasing capital spending
- 51% expect their sales to increase slightly over next 6 months
- Expect U.S. gross domestic product to decline 0.9% in 2009

Canon announced it is pulling out of the 2010 Photo Marketing Association (PMA) trade show in February, 2010 to cut costs.

Lasermaster International Inc. (LMI), maker of generic toner cartridges, announced it is building an 86,000 square foot manufacturing facility to add on to its plant in Phoenix.

-=Good Selling=-

MFP Weekend Industry Notes from 8/3/09

Special thanx to the Print4Pay Hotel members for this!

According to MAIT’s Performance Review, unit sales of computer printers and MFPs, are up 1% over last year worldwide.

Nuance Communications purchased X-Solutions of the Netherlands. Details:
- Xerox was the catalyst in the formation of both companies
- History of Nuance:
- Xerox purchases Kurzweil Computer Products, an early developer of OCR technology, in 1980
- In 1988, Xerox acquired scanner make, Datacopy
- Xerox combines Kurzweil and Datacopy to Form Xerox Imaging Systems (XIS)
- In 1998, XIS sold to Visioneer
- Visioneer renames itself ScanSoft
- In 2000, ScanSoft purchased Caere, maker of OmniPage OCR
- ScanSoft dumps its TextBridge OCR engine for OmniPage
- In 2005, ScanSoft merges with Nuance Communications
- In 2006, it paid $357 million for Dictaphone
- In January, 2008, it filed a patent infringement lawsuit against ABBYY, maker of FineReader OCR engine. It also sued ABBYY’s largest customer, Lexmark.
- In September 2008, it filed a patent infringement lawsuit against eCopy
- In October 2008, IRIS, who OCR engine is part of eCopy, filed a suit of its own against Nuance.
- Nuance claims to have 70% marketshare of OCR software in the U.S.
- X-Solutions is the maker of ScanFlowStore, an OCR scan embedded application sold with Xerox MFPs.
- Also makes DigiDocFlow for Ricoh, SmartOfficeScan for HP and SimplifyScan for Sharp

Kofax, maker of high end production scanning systems and software, announced it is going downmarket. Its new Kofax Desktop, can be downloaded from their website for only $29. The company hopes to compete against eCopy Desktop or Nuance PaperPort with this new product. It adds a scan tab to MS Office, and works with any TWAIN scanning device, but only offers pull scanning, and not push scanning.

Oce’ has renegotiated its debt covenants, as the company struggles financially, to prevent the banks from taking over company. The new covenants now call for:
- a net debt to EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) ratio of under 3.5
- an EDITDA to net interest ratio of over 3.5
- the banks charged Oce’ 12 million Euros for this covenant restatement

The City of New York just signed a 3 year, $1 million contract to supply typewriters to the New York City Police Department, according to CIO magazine. I quess they don't have forms software, I haven't seen a typewriter in an office in years!

A worker for the State of California reported that budget cuts are so deep, that his department, the Osteopathic Medical Board in Sacramento, is being prevented from buying toner cartridges for its Kyocera KM-3035 digital copier.

Dell Computer agreed to pay out $9.1 million to settle a class action alleging that the company discriminated against women in its methods of compensating and promoting its employees.

Samsung’s North American headquarters won a temporary restraining order against its former chief managing officer in a suit alleging that his accepting the same position at rival Motorola Inc. will illegally pass to Motorola, some of Samsung intellectual property.

Samsung owner and former group chairman, Lee Kun-hee, has been cleared of all legal charges, with the exception of tax evasion, by Korea’s Supreme County after a 13 year court battle. Lee led Samsung for 20 years before quitting after being indicted on charges in April of 2008.

InfoTrends expects desktop scanner sales to increase by 2013, even though sales this year are down as compared to a year ago.

Lexmark reported its last quarter’s financials:
- earnings down 80%
- stock shares fell $1.27 to $17.50
- profit down to $17 million from $83.7 million a year earlier

Police in Utica, NY have arrested Ngoc Nguyen on July 16th, after he allegedly destroyed a copier at an office at 901 Park Avenue.

According to the Printing Industries of America, digital print accounts for 12% of printers’ shipments, or about $36.7 billion. By 2020, the growth in digital print could add $13-$20 billion.

Industry analyst, Gartner, predicts that printer/MFP manufacturers will lose more than $13 billion in revenue to companies that make unauthorized generic toner and ink cartridges, due to the rising popularity of managed print services programs.

Interesting statistics from U.S. Postal Service:
- 86% of domestic mail is generated by business
- 14% of mail is from households
- In 1995, 20% of world communications was mail
- 99% of companies worldwide use email
- 86% of companies have a website
- 78% of companies have an intranet
- 72% of companies plan to process transactions over the Internet
- 45% of all print is distributed via the Postal Service

Kodak reported its last quarter’s financials:
- sales down 29%
- reported a loss of $191 million
- revenue from digital business down 28%
- gross profit was 18.5% of sales, a decline from 23.6% a year ago
- SG&A expenses were down 26%
- R&D expenses down 38%
- Current debt is $1.311 billion
- Graphic Communications Group sales were down 24% (this is division that makes controllers and product print systems)

Pitney Bowes reported its last quarter’s financials:
- revenue was $1.38 billion compared with $1.59 billion a year ago
- reduced its debt by $179 million
- U.S. Mailing revenue declined 8%
- Equipment sales declined 7%
- Software revenue declined 12%

EFI announced results of its last quarter’s financials:
- revenues were $90 million compared with $186 million a year ago
- a net loss of $13.3 million
- CEO, Guy Gecht, stated “main disappointment for the quarter was the delay in shipping the Vutek GS3200” (this is a $600,000 high speed wide format color inkjet system)
- Reduced operating expenses by 22%

EFI announced it had won its legal battle against Zurich American Insurance Co. and Old Republic Insurance Corp. The two companies claimed that they were not obligated to cover a $19 million settlement in a shareholder derivative class action

PrintWeek magazine reports that Heidelberg and Manroland are considering a merger. Both are large offset press makers, who are suffering due to the slow economy. However, the German government may not approve this supposed merger, due to antitrust concerns.

Lexmark launched a new option for some of its printers, which will allow the devices to print on RFID material. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Ultra High Frequency (UHF) technology is used in tags that allow companies to track their assets. RFID tags can be placed into a special $2499 drawer option, so that the Lexmark printer can print an ID number on the tag.

In his memoir, Bob Metcalfe, inventor of Ethernet networking, gave some history on how he first tried marketing his new product:
- DEC said; “Yes, but we’re gonna have to be sure that you know how to build stuff because we wouldn’t want to buy junk. We’re a serious computer maker. We need to check all your
manufacturing processes”
- IBM said; “Get the hell out of here. We’re not doing business with you. We think Ethernet is junk. We’re gonna do the token ring. We were selling millions of Ethernet cards to buyers of IBM PCs without IBM’s permission.” (IBM eventually discontinued Token Ring in favor of Ethernet)
- Apple ordered 300 units, but required that they be external boxes made with lots of metal. “I believe that all 300 of them are out there in the San Francisco Bay right now, serving as boat anchors,
holding yachts in place”

Kyocera announced a connector to allow its MFPs to work with CutCom’s SentryFile document management software.

Kyocera announced that it would relabel a product from Ricoh. The new Kyocera FS-C1020MFP, a desktop color laser MFP, is actually the Ricoh Aficio SP C232SF. (since it is made by Ricoh, it uses organic drum, and not Kyocera’s amorphous ceramic silicon drum)

Kyocera now shipping its new color laser MFPs, the TASKalfa 750C, 650C & 550C offering:
- 750C offers 75ppm b/w & 65ppm color
- 650C offers 65ppm b/w & color
- 550C offers 55pm b/w & color
- All three are actually relabeled Toshiba color laser MFPs (and therefore do not use Kyocera’s amorphous ceramic silicon long life drums, but instead use organic drums which Kyocera normally says is inferior technology)
- product marketing manager for the new products is Danielle Wolowitz
- all come with 10.4” touch screen color LCD display
- optional EFI Fiery print controller (this is unusual, as in the past Kyocera did not offer Fiery)
- Standard built-in print controller (Peerless technology), has 80GB hard drive, and 1.2GHz processor
- 100 sheet document feeder


A company that sells generic toner and ink, announced that it has created a free website for end users to solve their printer problems. PrintCountry.com launched a new site on YouTube with videos showing printer users how to solve common print driver issues, which they hope will drive more traffic to their consumables website.

Sharp reported details on its past financial quarter’s performance:
- reported a 20% drop in sales, down to $6.32 billion
- reported a loss of $266 million, as compared to a profit of $262 million a year ago
- Office technology sales down 14%
- announced a joint venture with Sony to sell large sized color LCDs

Sharp launched the FO-2080 desktop A4 b/w system featuring:
- 20ppm top speed
- Copy/fax/print/scan
- Two paper drawers
- Letter/legal size only
- 50 sheet bypass
- Auto duplex standard
- Button Manager is a built-in utility which offers scan to OCR

MFP Weekend Industry Notes 3-29-09

The following is a quick review of copier/MFP industry news from various trade publications.

- ImageSource magazine announced its Perfect Image Awards, which are given to successful independent dealers:
- Dealer of the Year = Modern Office Methods, a Lanier dealer with multiple locations in Ohio.
- Outstanding Service Program = Modern Office Methods
- Outstanding Sales Program = Thermocopy of Tennessee
- Outstanding Marketing Program = Impact Networking of Illinois/Wisconsin
- Most Innovative Customer Retention Program = Mr. Copy of California
- Best Implementation of Technology Strategies = Fisher’s Document Systems of Idaho
- Best Use of Company Website = Cell Business Equipment of California
- Outstanding Community Involvement = E.O. Johnson of Wisconsin

- Variable data software maker, XMPie, announced a new option, called “Personaleffect E-Media”, which generates personal URLs. When a direct mail piece is generated, the prospects name is created into a website, that the end user can enter to respond to the offer.

- Former Xerox workers have reached a preliminary settlement against their former employer over benefits they claim they should have received. The U.S. District Court approved a $51 million settlement.

- Xerox sales agent, Mr. Copy, won a bid to provide DocuShare document management software to OwnerGUARD Inc., an insurance claims processor in San Diego, CA. The solution was named DocuShare Insurance Claims Workflow.

- Hewlett Packard won a managed print services contract from GES of Las Vegas:
- Originally had 754 copiers, printers and fax machines
- Has 1500 employees in 3 offices
- Was spending more than $1 million per year to own and operate devices
- New contract will reduce costs by 28%
- Now has just 268 HP MFPs

- Hewlett Packard announced it resolved its patent infringement case against Ninestar Image Co. Ltd. of China, which was making compatible cartridges for HP devices.

- Kyocera announced that it will be the official sponsor of the 2009 World Figure Skating Championship in Los Angeles from 3/23-3/29.

- Pitney Bowes announced that its mailing systems division will resell the Riso HC5500 high speed color inkjet printing system to customers looking to create full color variable data mailers. Pitney will compete against Riso branches and Riso dealers with the HC5500, which is jointly made by Riso and Olympus.

- Samsung announced it will offer a Managed Print Services Program thru its printer/MFP dealers featuring:
- Assessment Consulting Tool (ACT) which features a USB device to scan network for printers and MFPs
- Cost Simulation Tool (CST) is a tool to create a cost savings proposal
- SyncThru Admin 5 is a device management dashboard
- CounThru 2 Pro provides remote device management

- A recent study showed that approximately 75% of invoices generated by companies in the U.S. are paper based, thus proving the adoption of electronic invoicing is very slow.

- After starting a managed print services study in 2003, Boeing Corp. announced it finally chose a vendor to award a bid. Details:
- Originally had over 32,000 imaging devices
- Covers 195 offices in the U.S. and 168 locations in other countries
- Printers & MFPs provided by Lexmark
- Management of program provided by Dell Computer (which purchased hardware from Lexmark)
- Roll out will completed by 2011
- Plan is to reduce total imaging spend from $150 million to $110 million per year

- Charles Barbour of Boston was arrested after getting caught making fake $100 bills using a color copier. He allegedly sold fake $100 bills for $10 apiece.

- Staples is running a promo where it will give customer up to a $50 discount towards a new printer if customer brings in an old trade-in printer.

- Lexmark announced a new A4 b/w MFP, the X466DTE, offering:
- MSRP of $1679.00
- 40ppm top speed
- Letter/legal only
- 50 sheet document feeder
- Touch screen full color LCD control panel
- Auto duplex
- First page out time of 6.5 seconds
- Print/copy/fax/scan features
- Two 550 sheet paper drawers

- Toshiba announced a reorganization in its dealer division (called Toshiba EID):
- Steve Rhorer, formerly VP and GM of EID has left, and his position will not be backfilled
- Instead, top dealer division executives will report directly to Mark Mathews, current President & COO
- Larry White, VP of Sales
- Bill Melo, VP of Marketing
- George Colborn is VP of Service
- Sue Wilson head of Supply Chain Management, reporting to Steve Tungate

- Toshiba announced it will sell land it owns for 22 billion yen ($225 million) in an effort to raise cash.

- Equitrac announced it has named Jim Kano as Senior VP of Worldwide Sales & Marketing. He most recently served as VP of Worldwide OEM Sales for EFI, maker of Fiery controllers.

- Panasonic released a new A4 color laser MFP, the DP-MC210 offering:
- 4 tandem OPC drum design
- 21ppm top speed b/w or color
- 3.6” color LCD control panel
- Auto duplex
- 50 sheet document feeder
- 770 sheet paper drawers
- PCL print driver only
- 1200x1200dpi (does not offer 8 bits per pixel)
- Can scan up to 9600dpi in color or b/w
- Comes standard with READiris 7.0 OCR software
- Copy/scan/print/fax
- Base MSRP of $1995.00

- Samsung now shipping a new A4 b/w laser MFP, the SCX-5935FN featuring:
- 35ppm top speed
- Scan/fax/print/copy
- 7” color LCD control panel
- 80GB hard drive
- 80K/month duty cycle
- Auto duplex
- 1050 sheet paper capacity
- 1200x1200dpi
- 70 sheet document feeder
- Base MSRP of $1689.99

- MWAi, maker of remote device management systems, announced it is acquiring Print Control Software/ROI Print Manager. The company will develop end user management software applications. Also announced:
- Shane Hannan was appointed Senior VP of Sales & Marketing
- John Brostrom, who formerly ran ECi La Crosse (and founded the original LaCrosse Software) is now Senior VP of Operations

- Sharp announced it signed a multi-year agreement to be a sponsor of the New York Mets baseball team.

- Sharp lost a patent infringement brought against it by Samsung, over use of the Korean company’s LCD technologies.

- Sharp announced it is recalling 2,000 of its TVs, due to an overheating problem.

- Kodak announced plans to close two different manufacturing operations, and lay off 300 employees.

- The Wilkes County Georgia Board of Education awarded a copier bid to Milner Document Products, a Lanier dealer, which has offices in Georgia, Florida and North Carolina. Details:
- 17 units
- $2126.47 per month lease payment
- $0.009 for b/w clicks
- $0.08 for color clicks
- 36 month lease

- Apparently a lawsuit against Best Buy was granted class action status, over allegations that Best Buy sales reps were paid bonuses to deny honoring the company’s price match policy.

- Kyocera announced it has entered into an agreement with Pantone to get its new color laser MFPs, called TASKalfa, certified by Pantone.