Art:
Even though you are correct, look at it from this point of view. When Ricoh sells to their dealer base they make X profit for each machine plus, of course, profit from parts and supplies. Now when they sell to there own network they get the total profit. All revenue goes to them. Sure it may be a RBS dealer but when it is all said and done RBS profits go to Ricoh. They get all profit, I believe they understand exactly what they are doing. Look what they lost when Xerox bought Global, was it 200+ million per year? They know exactly what is going on, and they are going to make their RBS base as strong as possible I believe they cannot afford for the dealer base to be bought up by the larger companies or manufactures. I have seen Ricoh dealers in our area be purchased by Toshiba, Sharp and Xerox and with Ricoh policies of dropping dealers it is decimating their new sales. I believe they do not consider themselves strong enough throughout the Nation to survive all the dealers selling off. So they must build their base and not worry about the dealers competing against RBS, any thing the dealer sells they will still get some profit and when they win they get all. This may all be rambling but it is my point of view.