quote:Originally posted by GIntel:
I agree with almost all of everyone's statements.
The truth is its just going to get harder for each of the second tier guys to grow and succeed and considering that Sharp, Kyocera, and Toshiba all have plenty of options outside of printing it would not be shocking to hear if some of them left or sold-out in the next five years.
However, the feeling I get is that each of them still has some fight left and although they all face some headwinds none are actively working on their exit strategy. That said, right now it does seem like Kyocera (A4s, TCO) and Toshiba (services, direct presence, A4 partnerships) are better suited to emerge successfully out of the three.
With all respect to Mr. McLaughlin. He was a box-pusher and that is part of the reason that Sharp has such a hardware-led strategy. We will see, but the best thing that could happen to Sharp would be for his successor (they have some smart people there) to come in with a services led approach and strategy that covers all key product areas and business areas. I think Sharp realizes its need to expand direct sales coverage and additional services too.
Either way, it will be exciting to see how this all shakes out.
It will be a challenging time for Sharp, I agree, Ed was a very good leader and actually had a good grasp on technonolgy, he always knew the strengths and capabilities of the products and solutions. Regarding the new User Interface, dont be deluded by comments that it is going to a difficult learning curve, the display may look complex at first glance, but it is the most flexible system on the market. You can make it real simple for the end user and there are features that will blow you away. Sharp is a sleeping giant, wait and see!