WEEKEND MFP INDUSTRY NOTES
8-24-08
The following is a quick review of copier/MFP industry news from industry publications.
The country of Japan is asking the World Trade Organization to resolve a dispute over high tariffs imposed by the European Union on imports of digital copiers to the European Union member countries. According to the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry, 12 copier manufacturers paid a total of 18 billion yen in tariffs on their exports to Europe. Apparently, the tariffs do not apply to Chinese manufacturers. (if tariff were removed, it would hurt domestic vendors, like Oce’)
The U.S. Postal Service reported a 5.5% drop in volume of direct mail as compared with last year. This helped lead to a loss of $1.1 billion for the USPS.
Hewlett Packard gave out more information about last quarter’s financials from its printer/copier division:
o operating profit of 20%
o $7 billion in revenue
o Commercial hardware revenue declined 5%
o Consumer hardware revenue declined 14%
o Commercial unit placements down 9%
o Total printers placed was 13 million
o Supply revenue grew 11%
o Operating profit of $1 billion
o The company plans on laying off 300 workers from its printer plant in Oregon to cut costs.
A former Xerox employee, Katsutoshi Masago, was arrested for embezzlement of 440 million yen in Tokyo. Apparently he sold 2,100 computers that he ordered under the company name, and may have yielded as much as 1.18 billion yen since 2002. Mr. Masago apparently pled guilty, and used the money he received from selling the computers to pay for his gambling habit.
Xerox launched the DocuColor 5000AP. Details:
o this supplements the existing DocuColor 5000 model
o the “AP” stands for “All Paper” mode
o like the 7000AP and 8000AP models, it is advertised as being able to run thick stocks, up to 300gsm, at the same top speed as when running plain paper
o still uses fuser oil
o 50ppm top speed
o while it is able to run thick stocks at top speed, Xerox recommends that for best image quality, to use the “Single Weight” mode, which means that the unit slows down to half speed, like most other production color systems (The reason for this is that thick stocks absorb the fuser oil at a higher rate, reducing the amount of oil applied at high speed, resulting in lower image density. By slowing the unit down, the fuser is allowed to apply more oil, thus increasing image density)
o MSRP of $144,000
Xerox now offering an optional embedded scan/retrieval software for some of its EIP equipped digital copiers. The new DocuShare Express option will sell for $1800.
The City of Chatham announced it would award its copier bid to local dealer, Maple City Office Equipment. This caused an uproar with residents because Xerox was actually the low bidder, offering a savings of $35,000 per year.
The County of Leavenworth, Kansas, awarded its copier bid to KK Office Solutions.
According to Cartridge World, the following data about inkjet cartridges:
o there are 500 cartridges thrown in the trash every minute
o it takes 450 years to decompose one cartridge
o over 350 million cartridges are discarded in our landfills
o amount increases by 12% annually
A female office worker in Skokie, IL called police to complain about two copier technicians who were dispatched in response to her service call to a local dealership. Apparently, they got into an elevator with the 26 year old woman, got off at the same floor as her, pushed her into her office, took a drum out of her copier, and fled.
The Canadian government announced it is studying the potential health risks of colorants used to make colored ink for inkjet printers.
Parts Now!, which makes generic parts for HP printers, announced it will now offer parts for Xerox printers. This will assist vendors who offer print management programs.
Oce’ announced it has opened a new 18,000 square foot showroom in Boca Raton, FL to display its entire product line. This will include not only all the product it relabels from Konica Minolta, but also includes even the very expensive, ColorStream 10000 high speed, rollfed color system. The showroom is called the “Oce’ Customer Experience Center”
Oce’ announced more details from its last quarter’s financials:
o revenue down 9.3%
o net income declined by over 70%
o stock shares dropped 15%
Oce’ announced it is now shipping its relabeled version of the Konica Minolta bizhub PRO 1050e, which it will call the VarioPrint 1105.
Oce’ announced more details on its reorganization in the United States:
o The current Digital Print Center (DPC) sales & marketing division will be disbanded
§ This group launched the VarioPrint 6000 series (the high speed b/w systems that Konica Minolta will relabel)
§ Group was formed in 2005 to focus on in-house print shops within corporate customers (CRDs)
§ Members of this group will allowed to apply for positions in the Production Printing Systems (PPS) or Document Printing Systems (DPS) divisions
o PPS is responsible for Oce’ rollfed systems, as well as production print cut sheet models (including relabeled versions of Konica Minolta bizhub PRO 1050 and C6500)
o DPS originally only focused on low to mid-range systems, but will now have access to production print cut sheet systems
o End result of this reorganization will be a reduction in staff to cut costs
o John Reilly, currently VP of Product and BPC Operations, was promoted to VP of Enterprise Sales and BPS Operations. He is in charge of national accounts, public sector sales, business product centers, marketing and operations groups.
Ricoh executive, Jorge Silva, left to become VP of Sales for XID Technologies, a California based company of facial recognition systems.
More details released on the new Ricoh Aficio Pro C900:
o 90ppm top speed
o 4 tandem OPC drum design
o Uses mylar film transfer belt
o Polymerized toner (Ricoh PxP)
o Maximum monthly duty cycle of 400,000 pages per month
o Recommended maximum volume of 240,000 pages per month
o Ricoh will still continue to sell the Kodak NexPress production color system
o Ricoh executives claim the unit is “heavier-duty than the C6500”
o Uses laser engine developed by the former printer division of Hitachi (which Ricoh acquired)
o 1200x1200dpi, but only TWO bits per pixel (C6500 is 8 bits per pixel)
o Each toner bottle yields 72,000 pages, based on 5% coverage
o The C900 ($125,000 MSRP) is print only, while the C900s is an MFP
o Maximum paper capacity of 11,000 sheets
Gartner Group reports that digital copier unit sales in Europe and Middle East are up 2.2%. This in contrast to a decline in the U.S.
Canon announced it will cut costs by reducing its research and development spending, as well as amount spent on sales and administration personnel.
Canon now shipping new mid-range b/w digital copiers. Details:
o Models now discontinued include imageRUNNER 3025, 3030, 3035 and 3045
o New models are 3225, 3230, 3235 and 3245
o Speeds are 25ppm, 30ppm, 35ppm and 45ppm (last two digits of model number)
o Base MSRPs fo $5200, $6600, $8500 & $10,500
o Comes standard with auto duplex
o Optional document feeder
o Optional print/scan controller
§ 768MB RAM
§ 60GB hard drive
§ $900 to add PCL print driver
§ $600 to add PostScript print driver
§ Color Universal Send scanning for $800 (can scan in color, even though output is only in b/w)
o $950 for fax board
o Drum life of 85,000 pages
o Toner yield of 24,000 pages (based on 5%)
o Optional QWERTY keyboard to make data entry easier than using the touch screen LCD display
o Comes standard with two 550 sheet paper drawers and 50 sheet bypass
§ Options include 2500 sheet paper deck for $2100, or two more 550 sheet drawers for $1450
o Finishing options include:
§ Internal tray for $100
§ Handing stapling finisher for $1230
§ Hole punch kit $670
§ Floor standing stapling finisher for $2700
§ Booklet maker finisher for $4000
Canon is upset with advertising from Kodak. Canon filed a complaint with the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, in regards to Kodak’s ads for its color inkjet printers. Kodak’s ads highlight the low cost per page of its new desktop color inkjet printers. The ads state “Save up to 50% on everything you print”. Canon markets its own color inkjet printers, and the Kodak ads have hurt its sales. Unfortunately, Canon lost its challenge, as the council found the ads factual.
Canon announced it has opened its new factory in Bac Ninh province of Vietnam in the Que Vo Industrial Park. It will produce 14.4 million products per year. Phase one is 61,000 square meters, and second phase is 56,000 square meters, with a total of 10,000 employees. This facility joins two other Canon plants in Vietnam. Most of what these factories produce are laser printers which will bear the Hewlett Packard name.
Quick summary of types of variable data usage:
o Simple - name and address only used on envelope
o Mail merge - use of name, address, and salutation in letter
o Versioning – variable text on first and last page
o Hybrid – color materials printed on press, then variable data added by b/w inkjet techniques (75% of all direct mail is this method)
o Document assembly – pre-written text blocks are chosen based on data type
o Database and image merge – both text and images are integrated based on data type
o Multi-channel – use of PURLs (personalized URL) where customer can go to a website link that uses their name to respond to the mailer offer
o Web-to-print – allow end users to order print collateral from a website, upload database, or pay for a mailing list to create, print and mail out an advertising message
Based on a recent survey, here is some interesting data about copiers and printers used by businesses in the U.S.:
o The average number of printers for every copier is 8 to 1
o Average monthly volume is 4800 per month
o Average cost per copy, when combining copiers with printers is $0.0409
Print controller makers continue to struggle and consolidate. Conexant Systems announced it has acquired the Imaging Systems Group (ISG) print controller division from Freescale Semiconductor Details:
o Conexant was originally a division of Rockwell.
o Freescale was originally a division of Motorola.
o Freescale started ISG when it bought SigmaTel
o SigmaTel got into controller business when it purchased Oasis Semiconductor
o Conexant claims it makes controllers for the following vendors; Sharp, Panasonic, Kodak, Brother, Samsung, Canon , HP and Lexmark
Okidata announced that in an effort to increase sales, will allow Sagem of France, the country’s largest telecom provider, to relabel its products in that country.
Samsung of Korea launched a new desktop b/w laser all-in-one, the SCX-4828FN offering:
o base MSRP of $499
o letter/legal size only
o fax/copy/print/scan
o 30ppm top speed
o Auto duplex
o 17.2”Wx16.2”Dx14.6”H
o Comes out of box with a 2,000 page yield toner/drum cartridge which sells for $69.99
o Optional 5,000 page cartridge for $99.99
o 50,000 page per month duty cycle
o USB & 10/100BaseT ports
o 128MB RAM
o PCL and PostScript print drivers
o Can scan in b/w or color
o 600x600dpi
o 10 second first copy out time
o 50 sheet automatic document feeder
o 150 sheet paper tray
o Optional 250 sheet tray for $250
EFI announced version 4.0 of its SendMe scan solution. Details:
o Is competition for the eCopy ScanStation
o Base MSRP of $5995.00
o Includes software, PC kiosk and large touch screen LCD panel and stand
o Scanned documents can contain up to 1,000 pages
o Blank page separators to split documents within a single scan job automatically
o Scan job can be set up so that every page becomes a separate PDF file
o Support for direct PDF file import from USB port
o Now offers connectors for more than 80 different software packages and are free downloads
o Global address book search
o Support for Microsoft Exchange 2007 and Outlook 2007
o NetConnect feature which is used to develop links to databases
o Automatically scans into Microsoft Word or Excel (this is actually a relabeled version of Nuance PaperPort software)
o Faster version of OCR
o High compression PDF file format
o Can add descriptive notes to electronic folders
o Will be sold by IKON as the DocSend
o Will be sold by Xerox as SendMe
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