November 22, 2015
Sharp’s financial troubles continue
- Financial Times newspaper reports on latest issues
- "First it cut wages, but Sharp has a new demand for long-suffering employees; the struggling electronics group has set them targets to buy company goods"
- "By end of January, executives are to buy $1622 of Sharp products, middle management $811 and front line staff $405 worth" of Sharp made products
- "Sharp is still in a fragile position, with just 181 billion yen of equity supporting a 1,787 billion yen balance sheet"
- Reportedly considering closing remaining overseas TV factories to cut costs
Sharp wins MFP contract
- Award from Southern Seminary of Louisville, KY
- Sold through local dealer, Miller Document Solutions
- Included fleet of A3 MFPs as well as a production color and b/w system for CRD
- Also included the PaperCut cost recovery solution
Toshiba’s financial troubles continue
- Reuters News Service reports on latest issues
- "Japan’s Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission is likely to recommend a fine of about $60 million for the scandal-hit Toshiba for cooking its books over the past 7 years"
- Toshiba has set aside 8.4 billion yen for penalties
- Company said it inflated profits by about 155 billion yen over roughly 7 years
- The Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reported that there are 70 shareholders who are poised to institute a class action lawsuit by mid-December, demanding 400 million yen in compensation
EFI announces its keynote speaker
- Company has hired Steve Wynn, chairman of Wynn Resorts, to be its keynote speaker at its upcoming EFI Connect 2016 event in Las Vegas
- Steve Wynn launches several casino resorts in Las Vegas, including Golden Nugget, Mirage, Treasure Island, Bellagio, Encore and the Wynn.
Salesforce hires Microsoft executive
- Microsoft’s head of its Dynamics CRM division has been poached by its competitor
- Salesforce.com hired Robert Stutz as its new Chief Analytics officer
Samsung smartphones can explode?
- Starla Briggs, of Springville, Utah claims that on 6/23/2015, her husband’s Samsung Galaxy S3 "suddenly exploded on their bed side table"
- "Just an explosion, like Bam!, causing flames high in bedroom"
- "all the smoke alarms in the house went off"
- She is pursuing Samsung for $2500 in damages
MGI to launch 3D printers
- MGI is headquartered in France, and is best known for its Meteor production color system (based on engines made by Konica Minolta) and its JetVarnish UV coating systems
- Will have a booth at upcoming Printed Electronics USA 2015 Conference in Santa Clara, CA
- Will display the new CERADROP X-Series, which uses inkjet technology
- Printing with high resolution with nano-particles, conductive metal inks, semiconductors, and other bio-chemical formulations
- Ship data and pricing not announced
HP wins production color contract
- Award from Bennett Graphics of Tucker, Georgia
o Installed an Indigo WS6800 production color systems
- Award from Sun Print Solutions of Salt Lake City, UT
o Installed a PageWide Web Press T230 production color inkjet system
- Award from Range Inc., of Brainerd, MN
o Installed an Indigo 7800 production color systems
Canon wins production contract
- Award from Nuss Printing of Havertown, Pennsylvania
- Installed an Oce’ VarioPrint DP110 production b/w system
Canon closes office
- Closes office at 100 Oakview Drive in Trumbull, CT
- Layoffs are to begin 12/31/15 and run through 2/29/16
Smithers Pira survey results
- Compound growth rate of 7.4% projected for book publishing
- Up from $131.5 billion in 2013 to $187.8 billion in 2018
- Digital printing of books will grow to 20.6% by 2018
Xerox wins production contract
- Award from Alphagraphics of Denver, Colorado
- Installed a Xerox Versant 2100 production color system
- One of reasons it acquired the system was to run #10 envelopes
- Used to produce materials for manufacturing, engineering and construction verticals
Xerox launches new solutions
- Workflow Automation Solution for New Business Processing, for underwriting process for insurance companies
- Workflow Automation Solution for Claims Processing for insurance vertical
- Workflow Automation Solution for File Management for human resources departments
- Workflow Automation Solution for Policies and Procedures Administration
- Pricing not announced
Digital Nirvana survey on QR Code usage
- Adoption has been hovering around 30% of cellphone users
- Marketers indicate that use of QR Codes is on the rise
- Men use QR codes slightly more than women
- Majority of QR code scanners are now older than 35 years old
- QR code scanning continues to dominate in retailing
- Growth in mobile payments via QR codes is rising
Former IKON/Ricoh CEO gets new job
- Matt Espe, who led IKON to be acquired by Ricoh, left to become CEO of Armstrong Flooring
- Now also accepted position on board of directors for NCI Building Systems Inc., a manufacturer of metal products for nonresidential building industry
- Prior to IKON he was in charge of the lightbulb division of GE.
Ricoh wins production contract
- Award from PHD Mail of England
- Installed a Ricoh IP5000 production color inkjet system
- To be used for transpromo output
Ricoh lets go of a senior executive
- The company announced another reorganization
- Dave Greene, who was Senior VP, in charge of both direct and wholesale division, was let go
- Jim Corriddi, VP of Wholesale, will not report directly to Martin Brodigan, who is still President and CEO of Ricoh Americas
- Professional services, solutions, traditional services group and break fix services now all report to Mona Abutaleb, Senior VP of Ricoh, and President and CEO of MindSHIFT (managed IT services division)
- Tim Vellek remains as Senior VP of Marketing
- Dean Nolley – VP of Global Sales
Ricoh launches new solution
- Will now resell software from Syncplicity of Santa Clara, CA
- Makes an enterprise-grade file sync and share solution
- Claims its current customer list includes:
o Texas A&M University
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Merck Corp.
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Associated Press
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Boston Red Sox
Ricoh loses argument
- Ricoh attempted to stop Lexmark from winning an bid for MFPs from the U.S. Army Contracting Command
- The Government Accountability Office (GAO) denied Ricoh’s claim that it was not allowed a chance to clarify part of its bid, as its bid was rejected for not adequately describing its transition during phase out period
Man caught making fake money
- Mark Andrew Halberg of Faribault, Minnesota was arrested by local police for allegedly making fake $50 bills using a color MFP
- Was using the money to acquire methamphetamine
Fuji displays future MFP models
- Fuji is maker of most of the printers and MFPs that carry the Xerox brand
- Products were displayed at DocuWorld event in Kuala Lumpur
- 36 new printer and MFP models to be launched
- Use LED instead of laser printheads
- Use polymerized toner instead of pulverized toner
- Optional Smart WelcomEyes Advance 2 feature, is an infrared camera built into the front of the MFP, which scans the environment for the heat generated by human bodies
o When it detects the heat signature of a human, it wakes up from sleep mode
o
Facial recognition to identify user for authentication
- Supports NFC (near field communication) smart cards to authentication (aka follow me)
Production color system maker acquired
- Flint Group of Luxembourg announced it has acquired Xeikon of Belgium
- Xeikon is maker of production color LED systems that uses toner and sold primarily to the packaging industry
- Flint Group is a provider of ink for offset presses, as well as other products for the commercial print industry
U.S. Postal Service reports volume
- Recorded a 14.1% increase in package volume
- 11.1% increase in shipping and package revenue
- Posted net loss of $5.1 billion
- Overall revenue increase of $1.1 billion to $68.9 billion
- First class and standard mail volume down 2.2% and 0.3%
Feds go after fake toner cartridge maker
- The U.S. International Trade Commission issued a seizure and forfeiture order to Printer Cartridge Recycle of Auburn, WA
- The firm was accused of importing printer/MFP cartridges that infringe on HP and Canon patents
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Epic wins EHR contract
Award from Southern Illinois Healthcare
Manages 6 hospitals in and around Carbondale, IL
Replaced EHRs from MEDITECH, NextGen and McKesson
MEDITECH wins EHR contract
Award from Galway Clinic of Ireland
Will achieve HIMSS Stage 6
Lexmark wins contract
Award from the Center for Diagnostic Imaging of Grants Pass, Oregon
Created a National Image Exchange, enabling participating providers to exchange medical images with each other
Kodak Alaris publishes survey results
Hospitals handle forms for 544 million patients each year
Converting transactions from manual to digital could save healthcare providers $6.7 billion each year
12 million Americans very year are misdiagnosed
Patients spend 274 minutes in the ER before they are admitted on average
Kodak Alaris wins contracts
Award from Lifetime Care, which operates 5 facilities in western New York o Included fleet of desktop Kodak scanners and Capture Pro software
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Integrated in their OpenText File360 ECM system
Award from Syracuse Orthopedic Specialists, which operates 9 locations in New York o Included a fleet of Kodak scanners and an OCR solution integrated into the healthcare organization’s existing FileBound ECM solution
Managed IT company appeals ruling
A judge will hear the case of 2 former Computer Sciences Corp (CSC) employees who lost their jobs after reporting problems with the EHR that CSC helped implement at Hanford Medical Clinic of California
CSC was originally ordered by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to pay back wages of $186,000 to the 2 former workers
The workers had reported that the EHR was not accurately tracking medical restrictions, creating potential for hospital workers to be exposed to disease
GPO gets new name
Recently, VHA/Novation announced it had acquired the MedAssets GPO
Now company announced that on 1/1/2016 the new name of the GPO (group purchasing organization) will be Vizient Inc.
Vizient will be the largest GPO in the country
Has not announced when it will review its vendor relationships, including the MFP part of contract
Obamacare related news
Health Republic, a health insurance company in New York, is being shut down by regulators o Hospitals in the area are owed more than $160 million from Health Republic
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The State of New York has ordered the insurer to stop paying claims so it can facilitate an orderly shutdown
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The shutdown is occurring as the company is going bankrupt
UnitedHealth Group, one of the country’s largest health insurers, announced it has lost $425 million from health plans sold on Obamacare website o The company is suggesting is may close this division altogether by 2017
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Is predicting it will lose $500 million in 2016 on Obamacare
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"We cannot sustain these losses"; stated CEO, Stephen Hemsley
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The move, if implemented, would cancel insurance for 550,000 people
The Economist magazine estimates that fraud is costing the entire healthcare system up to $272 billion per year o The federal Department of Justice claims that as of March, 2015, more than $27.8 billion has been restored to Medicare Trust Fund since fraud crackdown started in 1997.
The National Conference of State Legislatures states that "fraud and abuse, widespread in both the public and private health care sectors, account of 3% to 10% of Medicaid payments nationwide"
HIPAA/Data Security update:
The federal Office for Civil Rights reported the increase in HIPAA breach related complaints received: o 8,763 = 2010
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9,018 = 2011
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10,457 = 2012
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12,974 = 2013
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17,779 = 2014
Marissa Marcinelli, a Fordham University (NY) student is claiming a HIPAA violation occurred, when a Fordham University Emergency Medical Service employee question her about her medical history and prescription drug usage in front of her friends and others.
Muhlenberg Community Hospital of Greenville, KY announced that some computers were infected with a keystroke logger designed to capture and transmit data as it was entered into computers
UC Health of Ohio notified over 1,000 patients that their PHI was exposed when emails were mistakenly sent to wrong email addresses.
A hacker group named "Crackas With Attitude" dumped online 2400 names of federal, local, state and international law enforcement agency employees and threatened to release much more information, after it successfully breached an FBI database
The Children’s Medical Clinics of East Texas notified 16,000 patients that their PHI may have been exposed after a disgruntled employee took paper documents home.