WEEKEND MFP INDUSTRY NOTES
4-27-08
The following is a quick review of copier/MFP industry news from industry publications.
- One dealer sells out to another. GR Graphics, a Konica Minolta/Sharp dealer in North Dakota, has sold out to Marco, a Konica Minolta/Sharp/Kyocera dealer with 10 locations across Minnesota. Marco is also a computer network, phone system and office furniture dealer. Marco is employee owned, while GR Graphics was owned by Richard Ressler. Marco was founded in 1930 as “The Typewriter Shop”.
- And another. Chip Miceli, owner of Des Plaines Office Equipment of Illinois ($12 million/year), announced he has purchased Synergistic Office Solutions of Chicago ($1 million/year) and DVT of Chicago ($5 million/year). All three are Sharp dealers. Des Plaines Office Equipment started 52 years ago selling Underwood typewriters and Olivetti calculators.
- When selling an EFI Fiery or a Kodak Creo color print server, why should customer choose a spectrophotometer instead of a densitometer? Differences between a densitomer and a spectrophotometer in measuring or calibrating color:
o densitometer invented first, and measures ink/toner densities, but is color blind, as it can not tell the difference between one color and another
o spectrophotometer mimics the human color perception
detects wavelengths between 385 nanometers and 720 nanometers
can detect the deviation between measured color and the expected color
the difference is measured as a value of “Delta E”, invented in 1976
A Delta E of “1” or lower is considered to be undetectable by human vision
Delta E values of 2 through 4 are just barely noticeable
For people with normal vision, Delta E values of 5 of greater are easy to detect
Values of Delta E of 10 or higher will be colors that definitely do not match
- Transcontinental Printers, a print for pay in Montreal, Canada, announced it has purchased a Konica Minolta bizhub PRO C6500 with Creo server, integrated into their Kodak PRINERGY workflow system.
- Ricoh is consolidating divisions in Europe, and will report to one headquarters office, run by Simon Sasaki/CEO and Steve Saito/COO/President. Ricoh, in Europe, markets itself under the names Ricoh, Nashuatec, Rex-Rotary, Gestetner, Lanier and Infotec (former DANKA Europe). In contrast, in the U.S., Ricoh only uses names Ricoh, Savin, Lanier & IBM InfoPrint.
- GMC Software Technology, maker of high-end of PrintNet variable data software, announced its supports of JDF (job definition format) for the Kodak Creo print servers.
- Lexmark reported its last quarter financials:
o total revenue of $1.18 billion, down 7%
o business printer hardware revenue up 1% to $741 million
o consumer printer hardware revenue down 17% to $434 million (42% drop in inkjet printer sales)
o gross profit margin of 33.5%
o operating income was 9.6%
o stock price fell 11.6% to $31.23 per share (it was $70 in 2006)
o it recently won a 5 year contract from U.S. Air Force for laser printers (as an alternative to HP, which is also on contract)
o Best Buy announced it will pull all Lexmark product from its shelves due to poor sales in its 1200 stores
o announced it will relocate 1,650 R& and manufacturing jobs to the Phillipines from Lexington, Kentucky to reduce costs
at time, employed 5,500 in Kentucky, now only 3,500
- Oce’ Business Services (Oce’s FM division) announced that Greg Duke is now VP of Sales for Records, Compliance and Legal Solutions.
- Jackson County, of Kansas, announced it has awarded a bid to the local Ricoh branch for a 5 year cpc copier lease. Ricoh used an existing U.S. Communities Government Purchasing Alliance contract.
- Ricoh announced that it will resell the entire line of eCopy products through its branches and dealers. This includes an embedded version that will be able to be accessed from the LCD control panel on select Ricoh MFPs.
- Hewlett Packard announced it has placed an Indigo 3500 production color system at the Pyramid Printing & Digital print shop in Weymouth, MA.
- Hewlett Packard also announced that it placed an Indigo 5500 production color system at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York, which conducts classes on production printing.
- Under pressure from an investigation into alleged tax evasion and breach of trust, the CEO of Samsung, Lee Kun-hee, resigned in disgrace. The stock price dropped 9% after the announcement.
- Xerox released more details on its last quarter’s worldwide financial performance:
o loss of 27 cents per share due to shelling out $650 million to settle lawsuit
o quarter loss of $244 million
o will take a $60 million charge in next quarter for restructuring (more job losses?)
o total revenue of $4.3 billion up 9% (after currency benefit removed)
o service/supply revenue up 7% (after currency benefit removed)
o service/supply revenue accounts for 70% of total revenue
o hardware revenue up 13% (now includes Global revenue, and has currency benefit removed)
o color revenue up 13% (40% of total revenue)
o 40 billion color pages printed last year on Xerox devices worldwide, up32%
o Color is 14% of all pages printed on Xerox devices
o Professional Services revenue of $850 million, up 8%
o Production revenue up 1% (after currency benefit removed)
o Production color unit sales up 5% (includes products that compete with C550 and C650, that KMBS does not consider production units)
o Production b/w unit sales up 8%
o CEO Anne Mulcahy said; “The U.S. economic slowdown has stalled big equipment deals”
o Color MFP unit sales up 40%
o B/W MFP units sales up 35%
o Gross margin of 39.3%, down 1.3%
o Purchased a Konica Minolta dealer in the Netherlands, called Veenman, for $68 million, which has 4,000 customers.
o Stock is now $14.57 per share (a year ago at $20.18)
- Public schools in Oregon conducted a “Great Copy Machine Epidemic” day to advertise that the “schools’ copiers are wasting paper and therefore killing trees”. The Earth Day themed event had these comments from teachers:
o Copiers were said to be infected with “tree-biting rabies”, “treeberculosis” or “treepox” to highlight their ability to waste paper
o Students were made to wear medical scrubs to “cure the copiers” by preventing people from making copies
o This day of action supposedly “saved 16 trees”, and if launched nationwide would “save more than 38,000 trees”
o Making less copies will supposedly “help stop global warming”
- Hewlett Packard launched a promo to people who buy their printers where they can get a free $100 gas card.
- Apple celebrated the 30 year anniversary of the launch of the Apple LaserWriter, the world’s first desktop b/w laser printer that could print PostScript. (Apple no longer sells printers)
- In an interview, VP of Marketing for Oce’ imagistics, John Reilly, stated that the imagistics name will no longer be used.
- Captaris, Inc., maker of the popular RightFax document management software, announced it will conduct a road show, called “Document Process Automation Roadshow (DPAR)” across the U.S. to promote the fact that it now integrates with Microsoft SharePoint software.
- IKON reported more details on its last quarter’s financials:
o total revenue of $1.1 billion, a 0.4% decrease (after currency benefit is removed)
o gross profit increased $6 million to $351 million
o operating income of $52 million or 4.9% of revenue
o hardware revenue of $455 million, down $0.6% (after currency benefit removed)
o color production hardware revenue up 18% in U.S.
o color MFP hardware revenue up 1% in U.S.
o b/w hardware revenue down 7% in U.S.
o b/w production hardware revenue down 5% in U.S.
o gross equipment margin of 26.6%
o service/supply revenue in the U.S. down
o lower total page colume in U.S.
o 1% decline in digital b/w copiers in field
o Total MIF increased 2%
o Gross margin on service/supply down from 41.3% to 40%
o Professional services revenue up 6% to $211 million, of which FM revenue was up 7%
o Gross margin of professional services of 28.4%
o Rental revenue down 3%
o IKON predicts no revenue growth this year, and operating income of 5%
- Oce’ announced that BERTL gave its highest award for reliability to the Oce’ VarioPrint 1105, a 105ppm production b/w system.
- In an effort to entice dealer sales reps to move Hewlett Packard printer/MFPs, the company is paying spiffs to reps, as the margins are so low that normally commissions on sales are quite low. Spiffs being paid are:
o Hewlett Packard Edgeline color inkjet MFPs = $750 each
o Hewlett Packard Color LaserJet 9500mfp = $200 each
o Hewlett Packard Color LaserJet 4730mfp = $200 each
o Hewlett Packard B/W LaserJet 9040mfp = $200 each
- History of Samsung of Korea:
o 1938 – founded by Byung Chull Lee as a company with exported dried fruit, vegetables and fish
o 1969 – became Samsung-Sanyo Electric Company
o 1970 – began making petrochemicals, construction equipment, textiles, ship-building, owned a string of hotels and exported color TVs
o 1980 – began ship-building, making planes, and dabbling in space technology
o “Samsung” is Korean for three stars
- History of Sony of Japan:
o 1946 – started as Tokyo Tshushin Kokyo making rice cookers
o 1955 – changed name to “Sony” which is version of the Latin word for sound (Sonus) and also for “Sonny” for young boy, making radios for children
- History of Sharp of Japan:
o 1915 – started as Hayakawa Brothers Shokai,, when inventor Tokuji Hayakawa invented the world’s first mechanical pencil, which he named the “Ever Ready Sharp”.
o 1916 – changed company named to “Sharp” due to popularity of the mechanical pencil
o 1925 – began first Japanese company to mass produce radios
- History of Canon of Japan:
o 1933 – started as Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory making camers
o 1935 – changed name to Kwanon, the name for the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy, and then modified name to Canon
- History of Toshiba of Japan:
o 1875 – started making telephones as Tanaka Seizo Sho
o 1880 – changed name to Shibaura Engineering Works
o 1939 – merged with light bulb maker named Hakunestu sha Tokyo Denki to form Tokyo Shibaura Electric and the new name came from letters of this company name; TOSHIBA.
- Xerox announced it is donating $2 million to the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York for the new environmental study center, The Golisano Institute.
- The FBI is upset with the Memphis City School District which can not find paperwork detailing the award of a $517,000 copier contract to IKON, which was signed by a school board attorney, Percy Harvey, who was deceased at the time of the signing.
- In a study conducted by Lyra Research, the results of a survey found that Konica Minolta bizhub color MFPs were used to print more overall pages per month, and more color pages than similar equipment from Ricoh and Xerox.
- American TonerServ Corp. of California announced it has purchased The Pendl Company of Brookfield, WI. Both are companies that provide toner cartridges.
- Canon announced it has placed an imagePRESS 7000VP production color system at James Printing of North Kansas City, MO.
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