FYI, this is a blog I wrote 10 years about about Ricoh A4 color. I forgot to copy it over from the old site. So now it's here.
Ricoh's Zeus "Father of Gods and Copiers"
It's been a few years since I attended a meeting at Ricoh to discuss the emergence of A4 devices and what type of effect they were having on the market place. Almost three years from the anniversary of that meeting Ricoh will officially enter the color A4 market with a Segment Two and Three system.
I'm hoping that Ricoh does not follow the likes of Sharp, Samsung and KonicaMinolta when it comes to cost per page pricing. For years I've been touting that what we (Sales) need in the field is an A4 device whether color or monochrome that has an A3 cost per page model. If this goal is to capture additional clicks then why even lower cost A4's to market with higher cost per pages than A3 models. The one downfall of the A4 MFP's is the lower hardware cost, which means lower profits (hey, I thought no one made a profit on the box and it was the supply revenue), which in turn means everyone will have to sell more boxes to maintain current profit levels! We'll see, I'm hoping for a kick butt Cost Per Page, but I'm not betting the ranch here.
A few questions about the new Zeus:
- Where will the cost per page be for color and monochrome?
- Will it be manufactured in China or elsewhere?
- Will it have an ARDF and not and not an ADF?
- Will it have additional Paper Feed Units?
- Will it work with APP2ME?
- Will it have a Document Server?
- Will it print from an SD Card or USB?
Really, I can't wait for this system to hit the streets!!! Zeus could really be the "Father of all Copiers" and be an exciting new product that will increase sales, in a industry that really needs a shot in the arm!
-=Good Selling=-
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