Weekend MFP Industry Notes Newsletter
9-6-09
A man named Edward Talton, of Lawndale, CA, made $7 million worth of fake U.S. currency before getting caught by local law enforcement. It took 3 years before he was caught with 4 others making the bills on a color copier
Xerox’s business in New Zealand, which operates under name of Fuji Xerox, reported a loss of $15.6 million during the last fiscal year.
After a complaint was filed by Fishers Document Systems Inc., the Meridian School District of Boise, Idaho announced it would recant its copier bid award to Xerox. The district will now send out another request for proposals for its 50 public schools.
Xerox launched a new managed print services program, named PagePack NX, which allows resellers to manage not only Xerox printers and MFPs, but competitive models as well, as Xerox provides third party service and supplies for HP and other brands of desktop printers under the program.
Xerox launched a new program to assist printshops in marketing digital color output. The new program is called; “Business of Printing Business Development Series” and includes:
- Sales Skills Assessment Survey – to assess, train, and improve sales skills of printshop’s sales force
- How to Target Agencies and Marketers Sales Training Course – how to convey benefits of digital and variable data
- Proofing Through Personalization Kit – how to sell applications using XMPie variable data software with templates
- Pricing unknown
Xerox introduced a new option for its production print systems, the new FreeFlow Process Manager 8.0 featuring:
- comes with 20 pre-configured prepress functions
- auto resizing and cropping
- business card templates
- Process Manager MAX (manifest automation from Xerox) enable job order details such as bleed area of imposed document or pages in a finished booklet
- 10 built-in Easy Start workflows
- FreeFlow Express to Print offers templates for legal and education markets
- VIPP Pro Publisher supports Adobe InDesign for variable data jobs
- VI Interpreter 8.0 offers commands for patterned inks, tab processing, customizable crop marks and two layer fluorescent text
Xerox announced it has sold one of its iGen4 production color system to a print shop in Montreal, Canada named Pazazz.
Xerox announced it won a copier bid from the City of Henderson, which is a suburb of Las Vegas, Nevada. Xerox claims the new 5 year cost per copy lease contract will save the city $10,000 per month.
Xerox announced it won a bid to provide document management using Xerox DocuShare ECM to Western Forest Products of British Columbia. Xerox claims it is saving the company over $20,000 per month.
Xerox announced it has sold Xerox 700 Digital Color Press production color systems to:
- Coast Litho, a printshop in Oakland, CA
- Harold’s Photo Centers Inc. with 8 locations in South Dakota and Iowa
- Ink Well print shop in Cleveland, OH
- Magnet Harlequin printshop in England
- Dvoglad printshop in Croatia
Toshiba announced it will spend $5.4 billion on a company in France that makes electrical grids. The company, Areva, would help Toshiba further its plan to build nuclear power plants. (is there any money left to make copiers?)
One of the greatest sources of technological innovation was the original Bell Labs. Sample:
- 1925 – first public demonstration of fax transmission
- 1927 – first long distance TV transmission
- 1947 – invention of the transition
- 1954 – invention of photovoltaic cell
- 1969 – creation of UNIX operating system
- 1978 – technology for cellular telephony
- In 2001, had 30,000 employees, today only 1,000 as it is owned by Alcatel-Lucent
The former CEO of DANKA, A.D. Frazier, launched a new company called “Back of the House” or “BOTH”. The company will provide insurance and employee law assistance for independent contractors in Florida.
Industry authors claim that Ron Potesky, former Senior VP of Marketing for Ricoh, will be taking a job as President of Pantone Corp.
Ricoh’s InfoPrint division launched a new controller (not based on Fiery), for when it installs a relabeled Ricoh Pro C900 production color system into a data center that is running AFP protocol.
IKON, a division of Ricoh, announced it has settled a lawsuit it filed against the City of Jacksonville, FL. Details:
- IKON was seeking over $5 million, but settled for $3,077,519.00
- was for use of copiers it provided to the city’s library system
- original cost per copy lease contract was awarded to IKON in 2000
- in June 2005, the city had stopped paying IKON, as it was disputing IKON’s billings
- City claims that the lease was signed by a City employee that did not have decision making authority
- included 48 copiers, even though the library system only has 21 locations
- Even though it was not getting paid, IKON did not stop servicing and supplying the copiers
- The City gained title to the equipment as part of the settlement
Ricoh announced a new lease promo to boost sales of its Aficio PRO C900 production color system. Details:
- Must be leased through Ricoh Financial, CIT, DLL, Wells Fargo or GE Capital
- First choice is end user can choose an interest free 36 month FMV lease
- Second choice is a 60 month FMV lease with only 5.9% interest
- If other products are on the lease, or a trade-in/rebate is involved, must use a blended rate
Ricoh announced it will now offer nQueue BillBack as an embedded solution for its MFPs.
Oce’ announced it won a bid from the Lincolnwood School District of Illinois. Details:
- copiers for 4 buildings
- value of $4,040.000.00
- includes b/w and color units on 5 year cost per copy lease
Oce’ announced that its wax based color wide format printer, the ColorWave 600, won a Bronze award from International Design Exellence Awards.
Canon dealer, Concept Group, won a bid to supply managed print services for the government of Scotland. Value of contract is unknown.
A building from Marysville School District in Seattle, WA was destroyed by a fire caused by a faulty laser printer. Unknown the make a model of the printer which had an overheating fuser.
Printable Technologies, maker of FusionPro variable data software, announced it now integrates with EFI Monarch/Hagen, a printshop management program.
Kodak completed its acquisition of Bell & Howell, maker of high speed scanning systems. 50 existing employees will become part of the new division of Kodak, and report to Russell Hunt.
The National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus has complained to the Federal Trade Commission over what it claims are false advertising practices. They claim that Kodak can not back up its claims that end users can save up to $110 per year if they use Kodak color inkjet printers instead of HPs.
Olec introduced a new UV Coating system for providing a high gloss finish for output from digital production print systems. Pricing unknown. Details:
- supports up to 80lb. cover stock or 17pt board stock
- top speed of 4000 impressions per hour (depending on stock)
- holds 8 gallons of varnish
- can handle lightweight stocks, minimum of 70lb. gloss text weight
- maximum sheet width of 19 inches
- maximum length of sheet of 26.25”
- maximum roller speed of 300 feet per minute
- maximum heat generated of 350 degrees Farenheit
Muratec announced pricing for the new MFX-3550. Details:
- Desktop A4 monochrome MFP
- Actually made by Samsung of Korea
- Top speed of 35ppm
- Base MSRP of $1695 (expected street pricing of $799 to $999)
- 250 sheet second paper cassette for $295
- Toner/drum cartridge yield of 10,000 pages based on 5% coverage
IDC released statistics on the desktop A4 printer and MFP markets:
- Worldwide totals declined 21% in units in last quarter from one year ago to 24.1 million units
- Value of units declined 23.2% to $11.6 billion in the quarter
- Color units declined only 6% in the quarter
- 16.6 million inkjet shipments during last quarter
- Monochrome laser units had value of $4.2 billion in quarter
- U.S. market value of $3.9 billion in quarter with 5.7 million units
- Hewlett Packard lost 4% marketshare by declining 28%
- Canon now has 20% marketshare, while shipments declined 8%
- Lexmark now has 5% marketshare with 1.1 million units
Brother introduced new A4 color printers using LED instead of laser. Details:
- Top speed of 17ppm b/w or color
- Letter/legal size paper only
- MSRPs range from $299 to $349 for print only
- MSRPs range from $399 to $499 for AIOs (all-in-one with scan/copy/print/fax)
According to WhatTheyThink.com, sales of print jobs from printshops are down $858 million so far this year.
Hewlett Packard gave out tips for its resellers on how they can help their customer save money during the recession:
- Preview jobs before printing them to avoid mistakes by using HP Print View preview software
- Print all jobs in auto duplex mode to save paper using HP’s Universal Print Driver
- Eliminate un-necessary color printing with HP Color Access Controls
- Save energy be upgrading to HP instant-on laser printers and MFPs
- Eliminate waste caused by poor image quality when customers use generic toner cartridges instead of using genuine HP laser cartridges (which are made by Canon)
- Shift from printed faxes by using scan to email on new HP MFPs/AIOs
- Eliminate wasted, unused toner cartridges by switching to a managed print services contract
- Consolidate separate single function devices by right-sizing with new HP MFPs/AIOs
- Save money by reducing outsourcing of color jobs to printshops by getting new HP color LaserJets
- Bring design jobs in-house by using templates provided by HP
Street pricing seen in the print for pay market:
- Ricoh Aficio PRO C900 with external Fiery/booklet maker/LCT for $89,500 with color clicks @ $0.055 and b/w clicks @ $0.013. 11”x17” billed as one click.
- Ricoh Aficio PRO 906EX with controller/stapling finisher/hole punch/LCT for $22,000 with b/w clicks at $0.0052. 11”x17” billed as one click.
- Toshiba eSTUDIO 853 w/controller/booklet maker/cover inserter/LCT for $20,800 with b/w clicks at $0.0059. 11”x17” billed as one click.
Principal Ed Frier of the Ridgeview Global Studies Academy Charter School of Winter Haven, FL was shocked when a snake slithered out the new printer he unboxed.
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