WEEKEND MFP INDUSTRY NOTES
9-21-08
The following is a quick review of copier/MFP industry news from industry publications.
Xerox announced that its president, Ursula Burns, will also serve on the board of the United States Olympic Committee in a six year term.
InfoTrends gave out info on the TransPromo market (using billing statements to include full color advertising):
o 1.7 billion impressions made in 2007 for this market
o Will reach 12.8 billion by year 2012
o Growth of 68%
o 63% who produce statement plan on adding color ads in next 36 months
o 60% of print for pay providers are considering acquiring high speed color device for TransPromo in next two years
Xerox announced it has won a large bid to be sole copier vendor on an educational institution contract. Details:
o Contract is called Midwestern Higher Education Compact or MHEC
o Will also be used by Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE)
o Contract can be used by 1700 different colleges and universities across 25 states
§ Illinois
§ Indiana
§ Iowa
§ Kansas
§ Michigan
§ Minnesota
§ Missouri
§ Nebraska
§ North Dakota
§ Ohio
§ South Dakota
§ Wisconsin
o One member, Milwaukee Area Technical College, announced it signed contract for 5 years
Street pricing seen on Xerox production print systems:
o Xerox DocuTech 6115 system:
§ 115ppm top speed
§ 600x600dpi
§ print controller w/1.28GHZ processor, 36GB hard drive & 2GB RAM
§ scanner and RADF with top speed of 65opm
§ recommended maximum average volume of 600K/month
§ handle up to 110lb. index maximum
§ includes stapling up to 70 sheets
§ tape binder up to 125 sheets
§ includes 365K/mo b/w clicks for $4530/month. Overages @ $0.0039.
o Xerox 4595 system:
§ 110ppm top speed
§ 600x600dpi
§ Handles up to 140lb. index
§ RADF holds up to 250 originals up to 100opm
§ 100 sheet stapling
§ 2/3 hole punch
§ Print controller w/40GB hard drive & 512MB RAM
A company named “EFI-X” announced it is offering a $155 USB dongle, that allows an IBM PC type computer to run the Apple Macintosh Leopard operating system. This of course violates Apple’s patents.
Industry Analysts gave out an award to Ricoh for its monochrome production print products (b/w faster than 70ppm), based on a survey of 250 print shop owners.
Toshiba announced that it will lose money worldwide for the first half of its fiscal year:
o forecast of net loss of $468 million
o original forecast was for 15 billion yen profit
o posted 45.7 billion yen profit during same time last year
Recently, Toshiba gathered 250 employees from its branches around the U.S., and brought them to Coral Gables, FL for training on selling solutions and professional services. Details:
o Event run by Kay Fernandez, Toshiba VP of Marketing
o Keynote speaker was Geek Squad founder, Robert Stevens
o John Heinemann, executive from Republic Services, a waste management firm, discussed why he awarded bid to Toshiba, and how company benefits from Toshiba products and services
o Presentations given by Prism, eCopy, DocuWare, Fujitsu and other solutions vendors
o Launched SS4 Professional Services Selling training program
Sharp announced that it will resell copy/print tracking software & hardware from Print Audit, to push its dealers and branches into print management programs.
In response to the sale of its largest distributor, a Canon executive finally commented on the sale of IKON. Canon’s managing director, Masaki Nakaoka, stated; “The acquisition (of IKON) will trigger a further reshuffle of sales agents for us and others. We will now aim to expand our sales network.”
Ricoh reported that if the acquisition of IKON falls through:
o IKON will pay Ricoh a termination fee of $66.7 million
o IKON will also pay $16 million to reimburse Ricoh for legal fees.
IKON, a division of Ricoh, announced that Vic Rainsford is now Vice President of Managed and Professional Services. Mr. Rainsford announced the formation of the Legal Printing Services, to focus on this vertical.
According to some reports, on 9/16/08, IKON conducted a conference call notifying its employees that Canon would cut off IKON from acquiring any new hardware inventory as soon as the Ricoh acquisition is finalized. IKON will however, still have access to Canon parts and supplies.
o Due to the fact that Ricoh does not yet offer high end production print equipment (as Canon did with imagePRESS color and imageRUNNER PRO relabeled Kodak b/w units), IKON may be in discussions with Xerox to market some of their equipment.
More details on what makes up IKON:
o Original company founded in 1928
o Formally incorporated in 1952
o Revenue peaked in 1996 at $11 billion
o Unisource, the paper distribution business, was spun off in 1996
o Has currently completed only 2/3’s of its “One Platform Conversion” program
o Copier division revenue peaked in 1998 at $5.5 billion
o Stock value peaked in 1996 at $65 per share, but declined to as low as $2.50 per share
o Has total of 24,000 employees in 400 officelocations
o Canada & Europe account for 18% of revenue
o 6000 technicians
o 9000 are FM or professional services employees
o 500 work in the HQ located in Malvern, PA
o Has 500,000 customers
o Has 900,000 devices in field under service contract
o GE Capital provides most of leasing
o Includes 100 of the Fortune 500
o Sales and service of copiers accounts for 75% of business
o 50% of revenue comes from color and production print systems
o 20% was from professional services or FM
o B/W copier sales were declining by 7%
o 8% of service revenue was coming from color clicks
o In contrast, when Xerox bought Global, it acquired 200 offices and 200,000 customers for $1.5 billion
Ricoh has hired an advertising agency, Gigante Vaz Partners, to create a brand and program to promote its service technicians. The brand is called; “Teknoforce”, and Ricoh is hoping it will boost its image with IT Directors in the U.S.
Canon launched a desktop color laser MFP, the imageCLASS MF8450c featuring:
o Copy/print/scan/fax standard
o 17ppm top speed color or b/w
o 4 tandem OPC drum design
o RADF standard and holds up to 50 originals
o 600x600dpi
o USB & 10/100BaseT ports
o 250 sheet paper drawer and 100 sheet stack bypass
o Letter and legal size only
o Base MSRP of $999.00.
o Optional extended warranties do NOT include supplies
Canon announced that it will use some of its $4 billion in cash to buy back $500 million worth of its stock shares. This will boost its share price.
American TonerServ, maker of generic toner cartidges for desktop laser printers, announced it expects its annual revenues to grow from $3.6 million to $25 million.
Hewlett Packard announced it will terminate 24,600 employees in a cost cutting move. This comes after the acquisition of EDS. HP estimates this restructuring will cost the company $1.7 billion.
o The company reported that its LaserJet business declined 9% during last quarter
Xerox is now shipping the iGen4 production color system. This is one of the only copiers that is actually manufactured in the U.S. Since the original iGen3 was launched 6 years ago, Xerox claims to placed 2,000 systems worldwide. The first iGen4 will be installed at Keiger Printing Company in Winston-Salem, NC., and sold for $640,000.00.
Muratec plans on relabeling a 55ppm b/w MFP and a 40ppm color MFP made by Samsung of Korea.
Xerox announced a 19% decline in profit for the second quarter, and will spend $1 billion to buy back stock to boost its value.
Kyocera announced that it will launch 4 new color laser MFP models, and called them the “TASKalfa” series. Speeds will range from 25ppm to 40ppm. They will also offer the ability to embed software into the control panel using “Hybrid Platform For Advanced Solutions” or HYPAS.
o During last quarter, the company announced its net income declined from $25 million yen to $22 million yen.
Kodak reported details on its last quarter’s financials from its Graphic Communications Group, which sells the production print equipment (NexPress and DigiMaster):
o revenue of $880 million, up 4.8% for entire division, due to increased sales of plates for offset printing presses
o sales of NexPress and DigiMaster products went down 1%
o earnings of $13 million, a decline from $29 million
o gross margin down 0.5% to 28.9%
EFI, maker of Fiery print servers, announced its revenues are down by 4%, and a net loss of $100,000 during last quarter.
Software Imaging, one of the suppliers of technology for print controllers, announced new software that may speed up printers. Dynamic Device Font Technology (DDFT), which will be offered to printer manufacturers, will assist with the processing of fonts. While most printers now come out of the box with 136 PostScript fonts, if the document uses a font which is not part of the list, it slows the job down as it downloads the font from the computer each time it is used. DDFT will download the font, and add it to the print controllers memory, so less processing is needed to complete print job.
Ricoh gave out more details on the new Aficio PRO C900 production color system at a press event in New York:
o top speed of 90ppm, on all paper stocks, up to 300gsm
o 4 tandem OPC drum design
o Can replace toner on the fly
o Base MSRP of $125,000
o Has 5 beta units running in locations around U.S.
o Based on Hitachi designed engine
o 1200x1200dpi with 2 bits per pixel resolution
o Maximum monthly volume of 400K/mo
o Recommended maximum monthly volume of 170K to 240K/month
o Air assisted paper feeding
o Sensor and steering roller to prevent misregistration of mylar film transfer belt
o Anti-skew fence
o Back to front registration during auto duplex of 0.5 millimeters
o Ricoh hopes that besides toner, end users will also replace on their own:
§ Called the Trained Customer Replaceable Units (TCRU) program
§ OPC drum cartridges
§ Developer cartridge
§ Charger cartridge
§ Mylar film transfer belt cleaning unit cartridge
§ Mylar film transfer belt cartridge
o Each toner yields 72,000 pages based on 5% coverage per page
o Suggested service/supply click pricing of $0.0095 for b/w and $0.059 for color, with standard of 11”x17” as a single click
o Maximum paper supply of 13,000 sheets
o Optional EFI Fiery has 2.16GHz processor, 2GB RAM and two 250GB hard drives
Oce’ announced it will relabel two Muratec desktop b/w MFPs, and call them the fx2081 and sx1481.
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