WEEKEND MFP INDUSTRY NOTES
7-27-08
The following is a quick review of copier/MFP industry news from industry publications.
- Canon announced its financials for the first half of this calendar year:
o Worldwide decrease in copier/MFP sales of 5.3%
o Operating profit decline of 14.9%
o R&D costs up 3.1%
o Net income decline of 15.9%
o Canon attributed the decline to sluggish U.S. economy.
o Claims to have taken orders for 160 of the imagePRESS color systems at the recent DRUPA show in Germany
- Canon announced the imagePRESS C1+ featuring:
o Replaces the imagePRESS C1
o Uses one OPC drum, with multipass paper path
o 11ppm top speed full color, but 42ppm for b/w
o Uses CMYK toners but also has a fifth toner hopper with clear toner in it to provide more gloss
o Base MSRP of $35,500
- Ricoh announced it will launch the Aficio Pro C900 on 10/26/08 at the Graph Expo print for pay trade show in Chicago. Tentative info:
o Production print color laser system
o 90ppm top speed at 1200x1200dpi (4 bits per pixel)
o Is currently operating in 5 different beta sites in the U.S.
o MSRP for base print-only system, EFI Fiery, large capacity deck and stapling finisher for $124,995.00
o Runs at 90ppm for all paper weights, up to 300gsm
o Cost per click of $0.059 for color and $0.01 for b/w, single click for 11”x17”
o Maximum duty cycle of 400,000 impressions per month
o Ricoh expects actual monthly volume of 170K to 240K per month
o Finishing options include; cover inserter, booklet maker, folder, trimmer, stacker, mechanical binder, and perfect binder
o Later this year, Ricoh will launch a version with platen and document feeder that can copy and scan
- Ricoh announced its financials for the first half of this calendar year:
o Worldwide sales are down 1.9%
o Gross profit decreased by 0.2%
o Selling, general & administrative expenses increased by 3.6%
o Operating income decreased 14.7%
o Net income decreased by 24%
- Ricoh announced new color laser MFPs to replace the existing Aficio C2500, C3000, C3500, C4500: New models are:
o MP C2800, 28ppm
o MP C3300, 33ppm
o MP C4000, 40ppm
o MP C5000, 50ppm
o All are 4 bits per pixel
o 4 tandem OPC drum design
o Polymerized toner
- Ricoh now shipping new production b/w laser systems, the 906EX, 1106EX and 1356EX featuring:
o 90ppm, 110ppm and 135ppm top speeds respectively
o Base MSRPs of $39,000, $50,000 and $60,000
o Drum yield of 2,000,000 pages
o Duty cycles of 1, 1.5 & 2 million pages per month
o Toner yield of 60,000 pages
o Developer yield of 500,000 pages
o Optional RB5000 ring binder for $24,825 creates a finished 3-ring binder with covers
Rings that hold either 50 or 100 letter-size sheets
o Optional GB5000 perfect binder for $44,830
o 100 sheet RADF
o Top scan speed of 80ppm (document feeder runs slower than engine)
o 10.4” color LCD touch screen control panel on an armature
o Dual 160GB hard drives
o 256MB RAM
o Comes standard with two 500 sheet drawers and two 1000 paper drawers
o Optional $4300 large capacity deck (two 1000 sheet drawers and one 2550 sheet drawer)
o $8150 for a paper deck with two 1000 sheet drawers and one 2000 sheet drawer
o $1400 for 500 sheet stack bypass
o $1420 for optional tandem copy connector
o Optional Ricoh print controller for $3200
866MHz processor
512MB RAM
PostScript costs an extra $2200
Unknown who actual manufacturer is
o Optional kit to connect to EFI MicroPress for $3650
o Optional EFI Fiery controller for $8500 w/2.8GHz processor
o Finishing options include:
SR5000 finisher can staple up to 100 sheets for $5550
Booklet maker for $7360 (up to 20 sheets)
Z-fold unit for $7000
Cover inserter for $3500
Hole punch kit for $875
Production booklet maker, which can stitch up to 30 sheets, for $10,500
• Booklet trimmer option for $7600
• Book fold unit for $7400
• Cover feed unit for $2500
GBC StreamPunch for $8995
- Tinker Air Force base in Oklahoma City, OK announced it has consolidated all of its imaging devices to cut costs:
o Previously, owned 6,068 printers, copiers, scanners, fax machines, digital senders, and all-in-one multifunctional devices
o Spent a total of $11 million to purchase devices over last several years
o Annual operating costs were $4 million per year for supplies
o Found that it had $45,000 worth of toner cartridges that did match up to the printers its owned
o Had 2,000 desktop print only devices
o Now has only 1,000 devices total (mostly MFPs)
o Unknown which vendor won the bid
- Heidelberg announced that Russian investors are considering acquiring the company.
- Kodak announced it has sold a NexPress 2500 production color system to Mailings Unlimited, a print and mailing house in Portland, Maine.
- Kyocera launched “PrintQ” which is server based software that tracks usage of printers and MFPs on the network.
- Xerox reported its latest financials:
o Total revenue up 8%
o Gross margins fell 39.3%
o Net income fell 20%
o Revenue from color products up 11%
o 70% of revenue came from consumables
o Company stated it would buy back $1 billion of its own stock to boost share price
o Xerox claims that revenue growth is due to emerging markets outside of U.S., which grew 19%
o Color devices produced 25 billion pages during last quarter
o Professional services accounted for $1.8 billion in revenue, up 8%
o Total production revenue increased 4%
o Production color installs declined 12%
o Production b/w systems declined 8%
- Xerox gave its dealer of the year award to Mr. Copy, owned by Bob Leone, with locations in San Diego, Orange County, Los Angeles, northern California and Oregon.
- IKON reported its latest financials from the past quarter:
o Total revenue increased from $1.04 billion last year, to $1.05 billion this year
o Gross profit up from $346.96 million to $354.25 million
o Net income declined to $69.54 million from $86.86 million
o Company claims revenue growth is due to increased sales of managed services and professional services
o Equipment revenue declined 1% worldwide
o b/w sales down, but color sales up
o corporate debt of $579 million
- Michael Lahoff, a copier technician, was gunned down by a robber in Pittsburgh, PA who took off with the $15 from his wallet.
- Riso announced it will open showrooms in the U.S. to boost sales of its duplicators. The first of which just opened in downtown Chicago. Riso uses both factory direct branches, as well as independent dealers to market its products.
- A company formed in California, which acquires obscure patents, plans to go after printer and copier makers for patent infringement penalties:
o Company is named Acacia Research Corporation
o Based in Newport Beach, CA
o Has accumulated a total of 94 different patent portfolios
o Detractors call this type of company a “patent troll”
o Company collected $52.6 million in patent licensing fees in 2007
o Companies it is currently collecting fees from include Panasonic, Epson, Muratec, Okidata, Dell, HP, Samsung, Sharp, Xerox & Toshiba
- Hewlett Packard signed an agreement with IRIS Group Inc. to use the company’s OCR technology in future LaserJet MFP products.
- Epson announced it will relabel color laser MFPs made by Konica Minolta. The Epson Officio LP-M7500 is based on a 25ppm bizhub color device. Apparently, the product will only be marketed in Japan.
- Oce’ announced it will relabel the bizhub C253 as the Oce’ cm2522, and the bizhub C353 will be named the Oce’ cm3522.
- Lexmark reported its financials for last quarter:
o net income of $83.7 million, as compared with $64.2 million next year
o revenue declined 1% to $1.1 billion
o to cut costs, it will close a plant in Mexico, and eliminate 650 workers
o the closure will cost $24 million, but save $9 million per year
o currently manages 30,000 printers for Boeing as part of a managed print services contract
- Toshiba provided more details on its new color laser MFPs. The new models are the 2330C, 2830C, 3530C and 4520C featuring:
o Base MSRPs of $10,999 for 2330C with 23ppm color and 28ppm for b/w
o Use pulverized toner infused with wax
o Black toner yield of 29,000 pages based on 5% coverage
o Color toners have yield of 24,000 each based on 5% coverage
o Developer yield of 56,000 pages
o Uses a mylar film transfer belt
o Top scan speed of 57opm
o Comes standard with two 550 sheet paper drawers and 100 sheet bypass
o Options can add up to 2500 sheets to paper capacity
o $1595 for 100 sheet RADF
o Comes standard with print controller
866MHz processor
Actual maker unknown
1GB RAM
80GB hard drive
PCL and PostScript print drivers
o Optional fax board for $1025, second line is $620
o Supports banner printing
o Optional EFI Fiery
o Finishing options include:
o Hanging stapling finisher $1525
o $2175 for multi-position stapling floor standing finisher
o $850 for hole punch
o $3395 for booklet maker
- Toshiba also announced it is developing color inkjet technology.
- Toshiba announced it will post a loss of 20 billion yen ($185.4 million)
- Toshiba announced it will sell some of its real estate holdings to Nomura Real Estate for $80 billion yen.
- Pitney Bowes announced that it will stop trying to sell off its FM division, called PBMS. The unit generates $1.07 billion year, or 18% of the company’s total revenue. This division was created when Pitney bought the FM division from DANKA, who acquired it from Kodak.
- Hewlett Packard gave out more details of its reorganization of its printer division:
o Nor Rae Spohn, who was in charge of LaserJet division, was replaced by David Murphy
o Rich Raimondi, who was in charge of large format printers, was replaced by Michael Hoffman
o Lee Ray Massey, who was in charge of print management, was replaced
o Vince Ferraro, VP of LaserJet Marketing and Cathy Lyons are apparently both out as well.
- Buyers Labs Inc. announced the winners of its “Pick Of The Year” awards, for products that performed the best in testing:
o Ricoh Aficio MP 2550 b/w system
o Ricoh Aficio MP 3350 b/w system
o Oce’ im4512 (relabeled Sharp b/w system)
o Canon imageRUNNER 5050 b/w system
o Xerox WorkCentre 7242 color system
o Canon imageRUNNER C2380i color system
o Konica Minolta bizhub C353 color system
o Oce’ cm4521 (relabeled Konica Minolta bizhub C451)
o Canon imageRUNNER C5185i
o Oce’ cm5520 (relabeled Konica Minolta bizhub C550)
o Oce’ cm6520 (relabeled Konica Minolta bizhub C650)
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