WEEKEND MFP INDUSTRY NOTES
12-23-07
The following is a quick review of copier/MFP industry news from industry publications.
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q Better Buys For Business magazine came out with its “Color Laser & Business Ink Jet Printer Guide” and gave out Editors Choice Awards to:
o Konica Minolta magicolor 5570 series
o Konica Minolta C30P
o Konica Minolta magicolor 2500 series
o Konica Minolta magicolor 2550 series
o Dell Color Laser 3110CN
o HP Color LaserJet 2605
o Lexmark C530 & C532
o Ricoh GX5050N inkjet (aka Gestetner GX5050, Lanier GX5050, Savin GX5050)
o Samsung CLP-610ND
o HP Color LaserJet CP3505
o Lexmark C782
o Samsung CLP-660ND
o Xerox Phaser 6180
o Xerox Phaser 8560
o HP Color LaserJet 4700
o Xerox Phaser 8860 (wax)
o Xerox Phaser 6380
o Kyocera FS-C8100DN
o Lexmark C935
o Okidata C9600/C9800
o Ricoh Aficio SP C811DN (aka Gestetner C7640, Lanier LP440c, Savin CLP240D)
o Xerox Phaesr 7760
o HP OfficeJet Pro K5400, K8600 inkjet models
q According to study conducted by InterQuest, digital book printing will grow by 16% per year, and double by 2011. This means a growing demand for either:
o Using post process color cover insertion and perfect binding on a production print b/w system
o Using perfect binding solution with production print color system
q Oce’ announced it will sell its document management software division to Captaris for $22.7 million. Captaris, makers of RightFax software, is acquiring the division and its 180 employees. Oce’ stated that it sold the division to better focus on its core business of making printers and copiers.
q Oce’ announced a new product called; “eyeDOC”. It is a touch screen color LCD control panel on an armature, that a customer can add to any copier. No matter what the branch of the copier, by adding an eyeDOC to every machine in the office, the customer would have the same look and feel for every model. Pricing and ship date not announced.
q Dell Computer announced that it is buying its leasing division back from CIT, to bring it in house.
q IKON in trouble with one of its largest customers, Deloitte & Touche. IKON won an FM contract with D&T, and one of the IKON employees who worked at the FM site at D&T, had their notebook computers stolen, which contained classified data on D&T employees:
o was stolen from IKON employee’s car
o IKON reported theft to Walnut Creek, CA police
o data on computer contained social security numbers of D&T employees
o IKON’s FM employees were responsible for scanning D&T pension fund documents
o Unfortunately, while the IKON employee was handling sensitive data, they were not using encryption technology on their notebook computer
q IKON announced that it has purchased $295 million outstanding stock shares, more than half way to its goal to purchase $500 million. As you may recall, this action was forced by disgruntled large IKON shareholder, Steel Partner II, run by Warren Lichtenstein, who wanted to drive up the share price from $12 to $17.50. However, while Mr. Lichtenstein announced that he would not put up shares for sale, he changed his mind, and decided to sell a substantial portion back to IKON for $12.84 apiece.
q Details on management shakeup at Ricoh:
o Current Chairman and CEO of Ricoh Americas, Susumu (Sam) Ichioka, will go back to Japan to be Corp. Senior VP of Marketing.
o Katsumi (Kirk) Yoshida will be new Chairman and CEO of Ricoh Americas. He previously had this job, but then became Chief Marketing Officer of Ricoh Japan.
o Nori Goto will continue to server as Vice Chairman of Ricoh Americas.
q Ricoh signed an agreement to market software from Fast Search & Transfer Inc.
q Ricoh announced a new desktop color inkjet printer, the GX7000 featuring:
o Uses Ricoh’s proprietary “GelSprint” technology, using a higher viscosity ink, for less drying time than a conventional color inkjet printer
o Uses a piezo crystal inkjet print head
o 1200x1200, 600x600 and 300x300dpi print modes. Advertised as offering 3600dpi with interpolation.
o Not 8 bits per pixel.
o Advertised top speed of 29ppm full color (based on 5% per color fill on letter size sheet, so actual print speed varies, using low quality 300dpi mode)
o Uses belt driven paper supply (instead of just rubber feed tires)
o End users can highlight prints without smearing the image
o Maximum paper size of 11”X17”
o Uses separate ink cartridges, and inkjet printhead cartridges for lower per page cost
o Standard auto duplex
o 250 sheet paper tray std., but can add second 250 sheet drawer, and/or 100 sheet stack bypass
o 200MHz TMPR4951BFG processor
o 16MB RAM
o Does not come with PostScript or HP PCL drivers, instead uses proprietary RCPS driver
o 10/100BaseT & USB ports
o Base MSRP of $749.00
o Optional extended warranties do NOT include supplies, so cost per page varies based on ink coverage
o Will also be marketing under Savin and Lanier names
o Also announced a letter/legal size version, the GX2500, for $169.00
q Customers of Lanier factory direct branches received a letter informing them that Lanier branches will now carry the name Ricoh Business Solutions. The Lanier name will now be reserved just for dealers, as the Gestetner name has been phased out in the U.S.
q Ricoh launched a new desktop color laser printer, the Aficio SP C400DN offering:
o 26ppm color or b/w speed
o Letter/legal size only
o 600MHz processor
o 15 second warmup time for color (from sleep mode)
o 1,750 sheet paper capacity
o 1200x1200dpi
o Not 8 bits per pixel
o Can add Ricoh IS200e scanner to use as a color copier
o Up to 110lb. index stock handling (no 10point)
o Base MSRP of $999.00
q HP gets sued. Mr. Ranjit Bedi, of Boston, has sued Hewlett Packard and Staples, claiming that HP paid Staples (the office supply superstore chain) $100 million dollars so that they would not sell low priced generic ink cartridges for color inkjet printers. Instead, Staples only carries the more expensive, HP branded supplies. The claim is that this arrangement is in violation of the Sherman Act and Clayton Act, which prohibit noncompetitive behavior.
q Sharp announced it had won the “Line of the Year” award from Buyers Labs, Inc. for 2007.
q Industry Measure releases survey results of print shops:
o 24% said business conditions are excellent
o 22% expect it to improve in 2008
o 77% cite “cross-media” to be best sales opportunity (web ads, direct mail, etc.)
o Top three planned buys in 2008 were:
§ New computers
§ Flat panel LCD monitors
§ New versions of Adobe Photoshop
o 64% worked on at least one wide format job for customers
q Xerox sells more big iron to a print shop in Illinois. Document Centre, of Carol Stream, announced it now has:
o Two Nuvera 288 production print b/w systems
o iGen3 110
o Two DocuColor 8000s
q Xerox announced it has sold a DocuPrint 850 to North East Mailing Centre of England. This device, which sells for $500,000, prints up to 4,000,000 pages per month b/w on rolls of paper.
q A company named “Qipit” announced new software and website that allows you to convert your digital camera into a document scanner. End users take a picture of the document, then upload it to the Qipit website, where it transforms the document into a legible b/w text document, and e-mails it to the end user. Subscription fee not published.
q Management shakeup at Okidata:
o Mr. Harushige Sugimoto replaces Mikihiko Maeno as President and CEO
o Yutaka Tsubokawa is senior managing director
o Tetsuhei Kawamura is senior managing director
q According to Pitney Bowes, direct mail (or junk mail) makes up less than 2% of waste in landfills.
q Buyers Labs, Inc. gave out more awards for outstanding performance:
o Konica Minolta bizhub C451
o Konica Minolta bizhub C550
o Konica Minolta bizhub C650
o Sharp MX-450N
o Sharp MX-700
o Sharp MX-950
o Sharp MX-1100
o Ricoh Aficio MP C3500 (aka Savin C3535, Lanier LD435C)
o Xerox WorkCentre 7345
o Xerox DocuColor 242
o Xerox DocuColor 252
o Xerox DocuColor 260
q Toshiba announced that it can build a nuclear reactor and fit it in a closet. It claims that its new “Micro Nuclear Reactor” can fit into 20 feet by 6 feet of space. It hopes to start marketing these in 2009.
q Is there a major consolidation of Japanese manufacturers coming? Consider this:
o Sharp & Toshiba announced that they would work together on future HDTV production.
o In contrast, Canon, Hitachi and Matsu****a (parent of Panasonic) are in talks on a multibillion-dollar deal to team up in making thin panels for televisions and other electronics
§ Will form an alliance to produce organic light emitting diode (OLED) panels
§ Will invest $2.6 billion to build a new factory to make LCD panels
§ Matsu****a and Canon would contribute more than 100 billion yen each to acquire equal minority stakes in Hitachi Displays
§ Canon is considering the use of OLED panels in digital cameras and camcorders, while Matsu****a is likely to use them in flat-panel televisions.
q Christmas Trivia: The first known use of a Christmas tree was in 1510, in Latvia. It was then popularized in Germany in the 1600s, and the first Christmas tree in the U.S. was in 1830 in Pennsylvania. President Pierce put the first Christmas tree in the White House in 1923.
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