Weekend MFP Industry Notes Newsletter
8-23-09
Lyra Research predicts that worldwide color MFP revenue will grow in 2010 and 2011, in spite of a weak economy. It predicts total revenue will grow from current $18 billion to over $21 billion. The company also predicts that revenue from toner cartridges will greatly surpass that of inkjet.
Netaphor Software announced a new package called SiteAudit for managed print services which offers:
- user-defined service levels and compliance metrics
- service level agreements based on business hours and days of week excluding holidays
- also based on measured according to printer uptime percentages
- includes cost management and service performance
- service level tracking based on:
- alert errors
- alert severity
- level of training required to fix error
- can create groups based identifiers like manufacturer, model, location, department
Toshiba’s Director of Program Management, Jon Hafey, gives out more details on its Hewlett Packard reseller agreement:
- Toshiba dealers are not actually authorized by Toshiba to sell HP gear
- Instead, dealers send P.O. to Toshiba Corp, who fulfills the order and pays the dealer a commission.
- Dealer never takes title to the HP equipment
- Toshiba has cancelled its agreement to relabel Lexmark MFP and printers, however will now sell Lexmark branded product for those that do not want HP
- Hewlett Packard feels that it now more effectively competes in bids that require higher end MFPs that HP does not offer, but Toshiba does
Toshiba announced it will recall 80,000 clothes washers and dryers after one caught on fire. The apparent cause is that the insulator on a wire was damaged by drops of laundry detergent.
Kodak announced it will move its inkjet printer design division to Singapore, and employ 50 engineers in a new office there. Previously, this work was done in an office in San Diego, CA. (this was former office of Encad, an inkjet technology company that Kodak acquired years ago)
Sharp announced it will open up a first factory direct branch in Vietnam.
Sharp finalized its agreement to offer Print Audit software and RAK keys for its new managed print services program.
Sharp announced it will put its logo on all the food trays used during New York Mets baseball games. The trays also will have a barcode, which enters the consumer into a contest to win $10,000.
Ricoh announced it has renamed its IKON location in Denmark to Ricoh Business Solutions
Ricoh’s IKON office in Grand Rapids, Michigan, announced it won the Muskegon Public Schools bid. The contract is for 45 copiers for a total of $191,000.00.
According to some industry authors, Ricoh’s Senior Vice President of Marketing, Ron Potesky, is leaving the company to pursue other interests.
Ricoh announced it will sponsor the Women’s British Open golf tournament.
The new Ricoh president, Shiro Kondo gave an interview in Japanese magazine, The Nikkei Business Daily:
- Taking steps to reinvent its copier business strategy to turn itself into a provider of business solutions
- Seeks a 10% increase in sales and tripling increase in profit in 2 years
- “We cannot hope to keep growing if we stick to our hardware oriented strategy”
- Now employs 1,000 systems engineers worldwide
- New global marketing headquarters is run by CFO, Zenji Miura
- “If we don’t change, we will follow path of General Motors”
- “Anyone not ready to give their all should leave”
- As of March 2009, only 20,000 of the Canon’s that IKON had in its MIF had been
replaced by Ricoh product
- IKON still has 300,000 Canon machines in its MIF
- As of March, 2009, Ricoh’s debt totaled $8.2 billion
Kyocera announced that is has acquired a large multi-location copier dealership in South Korea, named Chungho Comnet Co., Ltd. Purchase price unknown. (Kyocera, which is short for Kyocera Ceramic, has supposedly over $7 billion in the bank)
Kyocera named former Konica Minolta employee, Dean Lakten, as Vice President of Eastern Zone, in its dealer division. Tom Walsh was named Vice President of the Western Zone.
Kyocera announced several software applications that it will offer as embedded into its copiers:
- based on Kyocera HyPAS (hybrid platform for advanced solutions)
- PanelPlus allows for customizing the control panel
- Equitrac cost accounting solution
- PrintQ Manager for secure print jobs
- OpenText RightFax (formerly known as Captaris RightFax Server)
- Notable Solutions Inc. (NSI) AutoStore scanning workflow
- Pricing not announced
Intel completed its acquisition of print controller maker, Wind River Systems Inc.
Xerox’s Worldwide Product Marketing Manager for entry level production color systems, Dale Allen, gave out more details on the new DocuColor 7002 & 8002 models:
- does NOT use EA toner (this is Xerox’s polymerized toner and EA is acronym for Emulsion Aggregate)
- instead is “same formulation as in the previous generation with an additive to lower the gloss” (the previous models, DocuColor 7000AP and 8000AP used pulverized toner with fusing oil)
- “we elected to leverage our investment with this particular platform”
- Claims to have shipped more than 20,000 DocuColor machines worldwide since the 2045/2060 models were introduced in 2000 (does not include the 240/250 series)
Xerox announced it sold another one of its iGen4 production color systems (which have a $640,000 MSRP) to a printshop in San Diego, CA named Specialist Printing & Direct Mail.
Xerox announced that is 5600 series of b/w laser MFPs passed the Common Criteria for Information Technology Security Evaluation, and are now ISO 15408 certified. Dollar amount of settlement unknown.
Xerox announced it had settled out of court in response to a lawsuit filed against Xerox by Acacia Research, who claimed Xerox was infringing on one of the patents that company acquired.
Fuji of Japan, maker of most Xerox branded equipment, announced it has developed a new type of inkjet printhead:
- can deposit ink at a record 50,000 drops per second
- instead of being made of steel like other printheads, is made of silicon
- can withstand temperatures up to 70 degrees Celsius
- nozzle size of only 1 micron
Fuji also announced that the source of the LED printhead in the new Xerox color MFPs, is the Nippon Glass Co. of Japan.
Fuji of Japan, in an effort to avoid its employees getting parking tickets in Tokyo, purchased a fleet of battery powered bicycles for its employees to use to commute to work. Apparently current Japanese law does not classify these as motor vehicles, so riding on sidewalk, and parking on street restrictions do not apply.
A TV commercial inside a magazine? CBS and Pepsi announced that they will jointly invest in a small, paper-thin color LCD that will show a video in a future issue of Entertainment Weekly magazine for Los Angeles and New York City subscribers.
Samsung launched its new b/w laser MFP, the SCX-6545N:
- Base MSRP of $4999
- 45ppm top speed
- Is A4, or only handles letter/legal size paper
- Document feeder holds up to 100 originals
- Top scan speed of 45opm
- Can scan in color or b/w
- 1200x1200dpi printing, 600x600dpi for scanning
- Comes standard with 620 sheet paper supply
- Maximum paper supply of 3,240 sheets
- Optional hanging stapling finisher
- Optional mail bins
- Built-in print controller
- USB & 10/100/100BaseT ports
- 500MHz processor
- 256MB RAM (can upgrade to 512MB)
- 80GB hard drive
- PCL & PostScript print drivers
- Scan to SMB, email & FTP
- Optional fax board
- 7” color LCD display
- Toner yield of 25,000 pages based on 5% coverage
- Drum yield of 80,000 pages
- Will most likely be relabeled by Muratec & Xerox
More details on the new Canon production b/w models, the imagePRESS 7000 series:
- Apparently has issue with mixplexing, in that it has to clear every sheet in the engine before it can switch to either/or single of double sided printing
- Will supposedly run as slow as 14ppm depending on the job and paper stock used, even though unit is advertised with top speed of 135ppm
In an article in the Japanese newspaper, The Nikkei, had following info on Canon plans:
- Will increase the number of its factory direct branches 40% to 80 total by end of 2010
- Is targeting IT service related revenue of $2.1 billion in 2012
- The new line of copiers it is launching, the imageRUNNER ADVANCE series, has goal of 12,000 per month worldwide
Canon now shipping the new desktop color MFP, the imageCLASS MF8350Cdn offering:
- Base MSRP of $699
- 21ppm top speed
- 4 tandem OPC drum design
- 600x600dpi actual for printing/copying/scanning
- Advertised as offering 2400dpi for printing with interpolation
- 300 sheet paper supply standard (maximum with options is 550 sheets)
- Is A4, or handles letter/legal size only
- Auto duplex standard
- No finishing/stapling option
- Built-in print controller
- USB & 10/100BaseT ports
- 300MHz processor
- 128MB RAM (no upgrade option)
- Host based printing only (no PCL or PostScript print drivers)
- Fax/scan/print/copy standard
- Black toner yield of 3400 pages for $80, color toners have yield of 2900 pages for $75 each,
all based on 5% coverage
- Maximum duty cycle of 40,000 pages
Canon announced that New York state governor, David Paterson, agreed to spend $8 million in road improvements, so that Canon could begin building its new headquarters in Melville, NY. (originally, Canon would have had to make this investment)
Hewlett Packard gave out details on its last quarter’s financials:
- Total revenue of $27.2 billion, a decline of 2%
- Total net income of $1.6 billion, a decline of 19%
- Printer supply revenue declined by 13%
- Total printer/MFP revenue declined by 20%
- Total printer units fell 23%
- Total printer/MFP units sold to business down 42%
- Total revenue for printers/MFPs for business use was down 37%
- Total printer/MFP profit down 4%
Hewlett Packard still under investigation by the Securities & Exchange Commission:
- Kathleen Collins of the SEC, in a letter to HP CEO, Mark Hurd, stated; “Please describe to us the nature and extent of your past, present, current, and anticipated business contacts
with Iran, Syria or Sudan…”
- “the three target nations are identified by the State Department as state sponsors of terrorism, and are subject to U.S. economic sanctions and export controls”
Hewlett Packard announced it has placed its second Inkjet Web Press. Frederic Printing of Aurora, CO joins O’Neil Data Systems of Los Angeles in owning this system which:
- Top speed of 400 feet per minute full color
- Uses rolls of paper up to 30” wide
- Uses thermal inkjet printheads
- 70 million per month max duty cycle
- 1200x600dpi
- Uses CMYK inks and a special sprayed on bonding agent
- HP hopes to deliver units to a printshop in Massachusetts and France by the end of 2009
New study of document capture/scanning by Harvey Spender Associates reveals:
- Market grew to $1.9 billion in 2008
- Market value increase of 7.7%
- Use of desktop scanners and MFPs to scan grew by 5.1%
- Use of high speed scanners grew 1.7%
- Extracting data from captured document increased by 13.3%
Konica Minolta opened a large, new 488 square/meter showroom in Warrington, England (outside of London) to showcase its entire line of bizhub office solutions.
September marks the 13 year anniversary when DANKA purchased the copier sales and service operations from Kodak for $684 million. (Kodak then sold the copier manufacturing to Heidelberg, who then later sold it back to Kodak) At the time, this division of Kodak had revenues of $1.8 billion per year.
Sprint Nextel Corp. announced it is closing its 68 person CRD and outsourcing the work to DST Systems of Kansas City. This division printed and mailed bills to 49 million customers.
Koenig & Bauer announced delivery of the world’s largest sheetfed offset press to Saudi Arabia. The Rapida 185 can print on a sheet that is 130 x 185 centimeters and 9000 sheets per hour.
A company named iProlog Corp. of San Diego, unveiled a product called “Inkgard” claims that its $9.99 print driver will allow you to extend the life of your ink or toner cartridge by up to 4 times, by intelligently reducing amount of ink or toner needed to print your documents.
Print Audit will be conducting a free webinar on 9/23/09 to show its managed print offerings. https://www2gotomeeting.com/register/284029530
A maker of generic HP and Lexmark printer parts shows explosive growth. Metrofuser Inc. was named to INC Magazine’s “America’s Fastest Growing Private Companies”.
MWAi of Scottsdale, maker of device service management applications, announced that Rose Alagna is the new Marketing & Communications Manager.
The BTA (Business Technology Association) announced it will conduct a managed print services training program for dealers in Las Vegas on 9/14 & 9/14 at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.
Panasonic is launching a new desktop A4 b/w laser MFP, the KX-MB3020 offering:
- base MSRP of $499 (this is now the lowest priced device in its class)
- 35ppm top speed
- Copy/scan/print/fax
- Scans in color and b/w
- Auto duplex standard
- 520 sheet paper cassette
- Document feeder
- No info released on cost per page
- weighs only 21lbs.
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