WEEKEND MFP INDUSTRY NOTES
6-8-08
The following is a quick review of copier/MFP industry news from industry publications.
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- Consolidated Graphics (aka CGX), which owns commercial print shops across the U.S., Canada & Czech Republic, announced it has purchased 36 Hewlett Packard Indigo production color systems, to join the 19 it already owns. The Indigo is unique in that it uses liquid toner, called EletroInk.
- Hewlett Packard named Don Grantham, formerly of Sun Microsystems, was named Chief Sales Officer.
- Hewlett Packard gave out more details on its future Inkjet Web Press:
o will use two inket print engines in tandem
o uses page wide inkjet printheads
o handles up to 36” wide paper
o uses roll fed paper only
o top speed of 400 feet per minute, or 2600 letter size images per minute
o max duty cycle of 70 million pages per month
o sprays the paper with a “ink binder” before the actual colored ink is applied to speed up drying time, and stops ink spread (bleed)
o contains 140 each of 4.25” wide thermal inkjet heads, which are also currently being used in the HP Edgeline CM8060mfp (HP uses thermal heads as it does not own a piezo crystal inkjet head patent)
o 600x600dpi (most likely offers 8 bits per pixel)
o Each print head has 10,520 ink nozzles
o Expected cost for supplies per page of $0.001 for b/w and $0.005 for color
o Base MSRP of $2.5 million
- Ricoh won a “Pick of the Year” award from Buyers Labs Inc. (BLI) for its DocumentMall 9.1 offering:
o Based on relabeled Documentum software
o Solution is hosted on a secure remote server accessed over the Internet
o The Starter Package, for $1200 offers:
1 year of use
Up to 400 users can access
1GB of storage
o For use with Ricoh MFPs as scanners, need firmware to be installed on MFP
o Seven levels of access rights
o SSL encryption
o Optional backup of all files on DVDs
- Ricoh announced it has sold an InfoPrint 5000 production color inkjet system to National Hirschfeld, a print for pay in Denver, CO.
- Ricoh launched the SP-C420DN color laser printer featuring:
o 31ppm top speed color or b/w
o 4 tandem OPC drum design
o 1200x1200dpi (does NOT offer true 8 bits per pixel)
o 4 line LCD display
o PictBridge port for direct connect to digital camera
o 2300 sheet maximum paper capacity
o Handles up to 120lb. index paper
o A4 (letter and legal size only)
o Banner printing
o Base MSRP of $1299
o Optional extended warranties do NOT include supplies
- Ricoh completed its acquisition of another copier dealer. Details:
o Dealership was named Automated Business Products (ABP)
o Was owned by Lee Christensen (president) and Mike Archer (CFO), who will remain as Ricoh employees
o This version of ABP in Salt Lake City, UT was started in 1999. The original version was started in the 1980s by Mike’s father, Lee Archer, which was then sold to IKON.
o Total employees = 63
o Was a Savin dealer
o The Archer family also tried to sell Kyocera copiers on-line, a few year ago, with a business called; “CopiersNOW.com”, but it folded.
- Xerox won a “Pick of the Year” award from BLI for its DocuShare 6.0 featuring:
o runs on Windows, Solaris or Linux server
o accessed via Web browser
o users can store, index, find and share documents
o can also find data on blogs, calendars, wikis and e-mail
o Can use Xerox MFPs as scanners if equipped with optional SmartSEND
o With optional Scan Cover Sheet, can also use other brands of MFPs
o Integration with MS SharePoint and Office 200 applications
o Backed by on-line and 24/7 phone support
- In a survey of lawyers conducted by Xerox, the following was found about their ability to meet federal guidelines regarding “E-discovery” of electronic documents:
o Federal law covers:
Identifying
Producing
Filtering
Storing
E-mail
Memos
Databases
o Only 29% judged themselves prepared for federal law compliance
o 42% were concerned about slow turnaround time for document search requests
o 41% had inadequate software support
o 41% lacked important features
o 38% said their in-house IT department could not support
o 35% thought outsourcing would save money
o 53% felt that outsourcing would save time
- Xerox announced it has sold 4 Xerox 490 Color Continuous Feed Printing Systems to Stralfors, a print shop in Sweden.
- At the huge DRUPA show in Germany, a fire broke out on a finishing system attached to a Xerox iGen3 110 production color system. This incredibly embarrassing moment was captured by onlookers, and posted to youtube.com.
- The IPA, an association of graphic solutions providers, announced results of lab testing of several production color systems during the IPA Digitial Print Forum in Chicago, IL on 4/24/08. Details:
o Devices tested include:
Heidelberg XL-105 traditional offset press
Kodak NexPress S3000
Konica Minolta bizhub PRO C6500
Xeikon 6000 & 8000
Xerox iGen3 110
Hewlett Packard Indigo 3050 and 5500
o Support came from:
Rochester Institute of Technology
Western Michigan University
Ryerson University
Q-Lab
o Every manufacturer was invited to submit a product for testing, but only those above decided to participate
o Test conducted included:
Image consistency
Pantone color matching
Resolution
Ability to produce accurate grayscale
Amount of toner cracking for folded paper
Check to see if toner rubs off
Fading of toner
Saturation
Abiity to match color from offset press
Print speed on different paper stocks
o Even though the C6500 is far less expensive than the other products tested, the C6500 received high marks in testing
o For a complete copy of the $99 report, visit ipa.org
- More details on the new Kodak DigiMaster EX300:
o World’s fastest b/w production print toner system
o 300ipm top speed
o Actually uses two 150ppm engines tied together
o (will compete against the Xerox Nuvera 288, which is a system with two 144ppm units bound together)
o Can print up to 150 two-sided letter size sheets per minute
- Quark announced version 8.0 of QuarkXPress desktop publishing software in an attempt to compete against Adobe InDesign. New features are:
o Image manipulation tools
o Vector art editing tools
o Scale, rotate and position photo tools
o Preview of outside box content
o Support for importing Adobe Photoshop PSD files and Adobe Illustrator AIS files
o Transparency support
o Preservation of layers
- Samsung of Korea announced a new desktop color laser all-in-one, the CLS-6240FX featuring:
o 4 tandem OPC drum design
o A4 (letter/legal only)
o 25ppm top speed color or b/w
o Auto duplex standard
o 80GB hard drive
o Up to 4800x4800dpi scanning
o Scan to PDF/TIFF/JPEG
o USB port for printing and scanning with thumb drive
o Print/copy/fax/scan standard
o 80K/month max duty cycle
o 850 sheet paper capacity
o Base MSRP of $2399
o Optional extended warranties do NOT include supplies
- The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is working on a new variable data format, to be called PDF/VT.
- Toshiba named Kay Fernandez as VP of Marketing for its copier division. She replaces Steve Rhorer, who was promoted to VP and GM.
- Punch Graphix of Belgium announced it sold a Xeikon 5000plus production color system to McGowans print shop in Ireland. The Xeikon is unique in that it uses 8 drums, to image both sides of paper at same time (4 on each side) and uses LED instead of laser technology.
- Canon announced it has sold an imagePRESS C6000VP to Zing, a print shop in Ireland.
- Canon announced that the imagePRESS C1 can have a fifth toner unit added to it that contains clear toner. The C1, which operates at a top color speed of 14ppm, can use the clear toner to add gloss, but causes it to slow down to 11ppm. Base MSRP of the color laser MFP is $31,500.00
- If you are competing against Canon imageRUNNER 7095/7105 production b/w systems equipped with the A-1 Professional In-Line Punch, apparently there is a design flaw. The punch puts holes in the lead edge of the paper, instead of the trail edge. This weakens the lead edge of the paper, thus causing paper jams as the machine tries to push the paper through the rest of the finisher.
- In Vietnam, all color copiers and printers must be registered and are under government control
- Federal Express announced it would kill off the “Kinkos” name from its copy shop division. The stores will now be called “Fedex Office”. The name Kinko was the nickname of the original founder, Paul Orfala.
- Better Buys for Business magazine gave “Editors Choice” awards to the Konica Minolta bizhub 360 and 500 b/w MFPs.
- KIP gave out more details on its wide format color LED printer, the KIP Color 80 offering:
o 600x600dpi
o Top speed of 2,160 square feet per hour
o Maximum of 4 rolls of paper on-line
o Uses 4 large OPC drums
o Up to 32lb. bond or 4 millimeter paper thickness
o Advertised cost per sheet of 4.1 cents for CAD, 5.2 cents for business graphics or 10 cents for display graphics
o Prints are UV proof
o Optional color scanner
o May ship by end of August
o Pricing not accounced
- Street pricing recently seen in the print for pay marketplace:
o Canon imagePRESS C6000 w/RADF/Fiery/bookletmaker/paper deck for $161,000 with color clicks at $0.052 and b/w clicks @ $0.0075. 12”x18” billed as one click.
o Xerox DocuColor 242 w/embedded Fiery for $26,000 with color clicks @ $0.05 and b/w clicks @ $0.012. 11”x17” billed as one clicks.
o Canon imageRUNNER 7095 w/Fiery/bookletmaker/LCT/hole-punch/cover inserter for $28,400 and b/w clicks @ $0.0042.
o Xerox 4112 b/w system w/Fiery/bookletmaker/hole-punch/cover inserter for $36,200 and b/w clicks @ $0.00615.
o Canon imageRUNNER 5065 w/controller/bookletmaker/hole-punch for $18,900 with b/w clicks @ $0.0086.
- In a survey of what printshops are selling color copies for in the U.S.:
o Prices are for single sided, letter size color prints or copies, on 28lb. bond
o Single copy sold for $0.90, but pricing went as low as $0.27 for run lengths as long as 500
o Price for long runs rose to $0.78 when end user asked for 80lb. gloss cover
- In a survey of printshops using the bizhub PRO 1050, the average copies made between service calls was 145,500, a better track record than any other b/w production print system surveyed.
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