Weekend MFP Industry Notes Newsletter
8-16-09
Fuji of Japan announced that it will show a prototype full color inkjet press at the upcoming PRINT 09 show:
- Was originally shown at the DRUPA show in Germany last year
- Is sheetfed design, instead of rollfed
- Largest sheet size of 20.5” x 28.3”
- Will not actually be running in the booth
- Claims that output has look and feel of an offset press
- Top speed of 10,800 letter size sheets per hour (or 180ppm)
- Infrared drying system
- Uses piezo crystal inkjet head technology (called Dimatix Samba)
- 4 bit imaging
- launch date and selling price unknown
- unknown if Xerox will relabel
More financial woes for Oce’. The Dutch Central Bank has approved plan for Oce’s Pension Fund. Details:
- The fund ratio had dropped to 79.4%
- The Dutch Central Bank had requested that Oce’ submit a recovery plan
- Oce’ will now make a further annual contribution to the fund of 7.5 million euros
- Fund ratio now is 83.9% (goal is 100%)
Lexmark marked the 15th anniversary of the launch of its first inkjet printer, the Lexmark ExecJet 4076 IIc:
- Original design made by IBM, which sold off its printer and typewriter division in 1991,
which became Lexmark
- Just under 100 people were involved in the project
- Project was led by Vic Hair, who is not Lexmark’s VP of R&D
- Many thought that inkjet would be a failure and not replace dot matrix printers
- Original prototype design was a failure as the ink spray in the printer caused a rubber belt
inside to disintegrate
- Company is still selling cartridges for the original model
Lexmark now shipping the RFID UHF option for some of its b/w laser printers. This special drawer allows the printer to print on a special paper that has a built-in radio frequency generator. The purpose for this could be:
- Allowing someone to find a lost important document by using a RFID tracking device
- If someone tried to leave the building with a confidential document, it could trigger an alarm
In an effort to increase slow sales of the Canon imagePRESS C1 color copier, Canon is advertising the unit as a way for hospitals and doctors to print out radiology images. Canon announced that the system is compatible with Virtual Imaging’s Cypher DICOM software. However, the press release stated “prints are not intended for diagnostic purposes”.
Canon announced that its “Green Calculator” program is a success, and will launch more models. The calculators are made from parts and plastic claimed from trade-in copiers.
Canon told its shareholders last week, that it expects it revenue to drop 22% due to slow demand for its copiers.
Competing against production b/w systems from Canon? If you are competing against the imageRUNNER 7000 series (7095, 7105, etc.), make sure to run samples on coated/glossy thick stocks, and ask your customer to demand the same when they get a demo on the Canon.
Canon announced that its factory direct branch in Denver sold an imagePRESS C6000VP to an Alphagraphics printshop ownded by Edward Rothschild as announced by Canon’s Senior Director of Production Print, Dennis Griff.
Hewlett Packard announced it has sold one of its Indigo 5500 production color systems to Walsh Color Print, a print show in Ireland.
Two weeks ago, Hewlett Packard, through its Indigo division, offered its employees the option of receiving their pay statements electronically. So far, only 35% have opted not to receive a printed statement. HP had planned on saving the cost of printing 156,000 statements per year.
Hewlett Packard announced it has sold one of its Indigo W7200 production color systems to Mercury Print Productions. What is significant is that the print shop is located in Rochester, NY, which is headquarters for Kodak, and large presence of Xerox.
According to the Photizo Group. Hewlett Packard has overtaken Xerox in the global market for managed print services revenue.
A recent survey conducted by a lead research firm revealed the following about choices companies make when acquiring desktop printers:
- 71.9% of the b/w printers installed are HP
- 55.6% of the color printers installed are HP
- 42.3% of all printers installed are color
- 64.9% of output from a color printer is in color
- 5.7% of all color devices have software installed to restrict color
- 16.7% of color printers sold are purchased from a copier dealer
- 38 months is average age of printer
- 71.2% of printers are connected to the network
- 71.6% prefer to print to their printer instead of a shared MFP
- 38.6% have a printer on their desktop
- 57.5% make additional copies using their personal printer rather than MFP/copier
The VP of Xerox Canada, Mel Thompson, has raised $150,000 by riding his bicycle across the country this summer.
When Xerox acquired Global Imaging, one of the dealers in the Global portfolio was Southern Business Communications. This is an Atlanta, Georgia area dealer that specialized in selling white boards. Xerox has decided to rename the company, Xerox Audio Visual Solutions, and will be run by Dan Boylan.
In 1975, Xerox engineer, George Pake, told Business Week magazine that offices in the year 2000 would have desks that have built-in TV-sized display terminals with keyboards that will call up reams of documents, files, mail and messages, thus eliminating the need for printers and copiers.
Xerox announced it won a facilities management (FM) bid from Methodist Healthcare in San Antonio, Texas to cover 23 different facilities. While the total revenue of the contract was not released, Xerox claims it will save the healthcare facilities “millions per year”.
Xerox again lost a court battle in Wisconsin. Details:
- Xerox originally was charged by the State of Wisconsin for failing to pay property tax on equipment leased to City of La Crosse and City of Milwaukee, and levied a multimillion fine
- Xerox took their argument to court, and lost the decision.
- Dissatisfied with the decision, Xerox took the case to the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, which on 7/30/09,
again ruled against Xerox.
Bowing to pressure from a local Sharp dealer, a large public school district in Idaho pulls back a contract it awarded to Xerox.
- Original bid win would have given Xerox $43,700 per month for a 60 month cpc lease
that included 120 copiers.
- Meridian School District received a complaint from Fisher’s Document Systems Inc. that its bid should be reconsidered, which was only for $32,417 per month
- The Xerox bid apparently contained one full time, and one part time employee, which
Fisher’s bid did not.
- School board chairman, Mike Vuittonet, stated the district will take a step back from its
July decision and review all proposals.
Sharp announced another copier dealer acquisition. This time the company acquired one of its own dealers, First Choice Business Machines, which has 8 locations in the Seattle, Washington area. All will be run by Dan Taylor. First choice also sold Oce’, Kyocera, and Ricoh made products, and was 30 years old.
Offset press maker, Heidelberg of Germany, announced its last quarter’s financials:
- Unit sales down 52%
- Revenue down 22%
- Reported a loss of 63 million euros
- Will lay off an additional 2,500 employees (on top of 2500 already let go)
InfoTrends released a study on why so few Japanese print shops have invested digital production color systems. Apparently, Japanese printshop owners have not adopted web-to-print software or variable data, as they feel they would rather maintain face to face selling with their customers. In addition, most feel that offset print quality is still superior.
R.R. Donnelly, North America’s largest commercial printer, announced that its profit has dropped 83% due to slow sales.
Kodak launched Prinergy PDF File Editor Software, allowing graphic artists to use power of Adobe Photoshop and/or Adobe Illustrator to modify PDF files to improve their quality for production printing.
Street pricing seen recently in the print for pay marketplace:
- Xerox 700 Digital Color Press w/Creo/booklet maker/LCT for $56,400. Color click for $0.049 and b/w clicks for $0.0129. 11”x17” billed as one click.
- Canon imageRUNNER 7095 w/Fiery/LCT/booklet maker/hole punch for $25,500. B/w clicks for $0.0042, with 11”x17” billed as one click.
- Xerox 4112 with Fiery for $36,600 with b/w clicks for $0.005. 11”x17” billed as one click.
Don’t forget to talk to “for profit” businesses about using the IRS Section 179 deduction to get new office equipment this year. In 2009, the deduction is a maximum of $250,000. In 2010 it is only $125,000. In 2011, it is only $25,000.
A scientist named Jeon Hwn Ju is trying to market a printer concept named “RITI” which uses coffee grounds instead of ink to create a b/w image.
Gary Johnson, president of Toshiba copier dealer, Zoom Imaging Solutions, announced they are moving their headquarters to Roseville, California. The 16,000 square foot building will house 60 employees. The company employs a total of 135 people in 9 different offices.
After losing millions trying to launch its HD-DVD format, Toshiba announced that it will instead adopt its rival’s technology, and begin making Blu-Ray HD players, which was invented by Sony.
Despite the weak economy, variable data software maker, DirectSmile of Berlin, Germany, announced double digit sales growth, as more printshops migrate to digital production print systems. Their new Director of Marketing is Franziska Muller, formerly of Konica Minolta.
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