Weekend MFP Industry Notes Newsletter
11-1-09
- Hewlett Packard loses one of its largest distributors in Australia, Phoenix Toner. The general manager, Don Bentley, stated; “The business didn’t want to have that amount of cash tied up in something that was not profitable”, referencing the HP printer supplies that it sold. The company will now concentrate on other brands.
- Hewlett Packard has filed an injunction with the U.S. International Trade Commission in an attempt to bar Asian companies from importing print cartridges into the U.S. that violate HP’s patents and work with HP printers. The companies involved include Ninestar Technology of China, InkTec of South Korea and Acer of Taipei.
- Hewlett Packard announced a partnership with the University of Michigan to sell physical copies of over 500,000 rare books, while making digital versions available online for free. HP’s BookPrep service will take in raw scans of books, clean them up, and then offer print-on-demand copies for sale.
- Canon reported its last quarter’s financials:
- 56% drop in net profit
- Total revenue dropped 22%
- Office equipment division income dropped 45.5%
- Office equipment sales account for 60% of revenue, and 80% of profit
- Digital camera sales account for 30% of revenue
- Digital camera unit sales down 14% (predicts it will grown 10% in 2010)
- 7th straight quarterly profit drop
- More tentative details on the new Canon imageRUNNER ADVANCE series of color MFPs:
- Outside of units have new off-white plastic shell called “cashmere beige” (Canon has yet to adopt a darker coloring scheme as most of its competitors have)
- Units have “soft rounded corners” called the “Round Square” design
- Back of copier is now covered and called “omni-directional design”
- Uses recycled plastic in coverings
- Uses 8.4” color LCD touch screen on some models that pulls out, and then tilts downward for Section 508 compliancy.
- Other models use a 10.4” color LCD touch screen on an armature (PRO series only)
- Background of the LCD display can be changed by customer to fit personal preference
- Paper drawers have sensor to detect paper size
- End user must push a button to open paper drawers
- Has Advanced Smoothing Technology (AST) and Super Smoothing Technology (SST) to improve color letters and lines
- Uses fuser belt heated by ceramic element in the fuser section, rather than traditional fuser lamp heating
- Uses “pQ” toner, same pulverized toner technology used in imagePRESS C7000VP
- Document feeder can scan up to 120ppm, and be loaded with up to 300 originals in the C7065 model
- When using the duplex mode, the document feeder can scan both sides of original at same time, at 140ipm top speed full color (70 originals per minute)
- With the C5051 model, top speed when using duplex scan is 100ipm, (50 originals/minute)
- To the left of the LCD control panel, optional IC card reader takes SD memory cards and memory stick media, infrared (IrDA) or cell phone via email text
- When using OCR option, can scan right to MS PowerPoint format or searchable PDF
- Optional hard drive data encryption kit
- Optional Universal Send Expansion Kit for scan to email/LDAP
- Optional PDF Encryption kit
- Optional Web Brower kit
- Optional single or dual line fax boards
- Standard generic print controller offers PCL print driver standard, and Adobe PostScript is an option
- Models from 30ppm to 50ppm, do NOT offer toner on the fly replacement (IR-ADV C5030, C5035, C5045, C5051)
- IR-ADV C7065 and C7055 offer on the fly toner replacement
- In an effort to increase sales, a Canon & Ricoh dealer in England, named ABT Office Supplies, announced that it will now sell its copiers at cost. The only catch is that customer must sign up for a minimum annual service/supply contract. (wonder what Canon and Ricoh think about one of their dealers revealing what wholesale cost is…….)
- Ricoh reported that during the last quarter, its net profit declined 89.5%
- Ricoh announced its IKON division sold a Ricoh Aficio PRO C900 production color system to Alphagraphics of Fort Worth, Texas.
- According to some industry authors, Ricoh is planning on launch a replacement for the C900 in summer of 2010 that will NOT use fuser oil, and use polymerized toner instead of pulverized toner. Also supposedly in the works is a 120ppm color unit.
- Ricoh is touting the fact that its Aficio PRO C900 production color system won a “5 Star” award from Business Equipment Research & Testing Labs (BERTL)
- IKON, a division of Ricoh, announced it won a bid to provide scanning services for the Pittsburg County Assessors office. The winning bid was $16,950 to scan 226,000 documents.
- MyFax Inc. announced that end users can download a free program that will allow anyone to fax from an application, using Internet Fax. The free software, MyFax Print-to-Fax Assistant, allows end users to Internet fax, by choosing Print from their application. End users must have an Interfax service, which MyFax can provide for a monthly subscription fee.
- Kofax, maker of document management software, announced that when businesses acquire a Fujitsu business scanner, they can get 50% off on Kofax Express software.
- Williams Lea announced it won a huge facilities management contract from Elizabeth Arden, a worldwide cosmetic company.
- A Chicago area man faces up to 20 years in prison for falsely claiming he was reselling high speed production print systems. Matthew Scott, owner of Gelsco Inc. of Northlake, Illinois, started as a printer repair company. However, in last 9 years Mr. Scott supposedly bilked 60 investors out of $28 million, claiming he was buying printers worth more than $100,000, and was able to resell them in under 90 days for 20% profit.
- A printshop fires one of its largest customers. R.R. Donnelley announced that it would incur charges of $130 million to terminate a contract it had with one of its customers. The early out would allow the company to “end their contractual relationship allowing Donnelley to exit from certain unprofitable operations.” The customer was not named.
- A study conducted by Harris Interactive reveals that two out of three Americans prefer print media to email ads:
- 58% believe that the paperless office will never happen
- 64% prefer reading print on paper versus computer screen
- 67% would rather save money than save the environment
- 11% believe their company is now less likely to “be green”
- 26% say their company outsources print jobs at least once per year
- 19% say their company orders print over the Internet
- Kyocera announced two new options for its MFPs:
- ColorLock allows businesses to control color printing, achieved by offering a log-in screen that requests users to enter a passcode before they can use MFP, and allows color only to authorized users.
- AccessLock allows IT managers, through Microsoft Windows Active Directory, to set parameters to allow users access only to features need by their employee job functions
- Toshiba announced it is now reselling new solution software from Prism:
- deskRecord
- deskSystem
- deskForm
- Toshiba released its last quarter’s financials:
- Net loss of $2.2 million
- Sales fell 14%
- Will cut fixed costs by 10% on top of existing plan to cut 300 billion yen
- Will cut 3900 employees
- Will reduce research & development costs by 15%
- Will cut spending on equipment and factories by 59%
- Toshiba is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for allegedly trying to fix prices and rig bids for computer optical disk drives.
- Toshiba launched a new battery it hopes to be used in cell phones. The Dynario is palm sized, and uses a mixture of methanol and ambient oxygen. The chemical reaction between the two generates electricity.
- Lexmark released its last quarter’s financials:
- total revenue down 15% over last year but up 6% over last quarter
- supplies revenue up 4% over last quarter, but down 12% over last year
- hardware revenue up 13% over last quarter, but down 24% compared to last year
- hardware units shipments up 4%
- laser unit sales down 22%
- inkjet unit sales down 38%
- operating income down 54%
- net income down 73%
- will cut another 825 employees
- Lexmark announced it has hired former Ricoh executive, Ken Owen, as Value Print Channel Development Director. This new position’s goal is to increase channel awareness of Lexmark’s managed print services program.
- University researchers trying to find way to remove toner from paper. Thomas Counsell & Julian Allwood of the University of Cambridge, claim that when they expose a printed image to 60% demethylsulphoxide and 40% chloroform, followed by ultrasound, toner is removed, and paper is reusable.
- Athens-Clarke County police in Georgia are on the lookout for someone who is making fake $20 bills on a color copier. Most recently, the fake currency was used to buy Halloween figures from a local retailer.
- EFI announced that its products, including Fiery print servers and MicroPress print systems, would immediately support Microsoft’s new operating system, Windows 7.
- EFI announced details on its last quarter’s financials:
- revenues of $100.9 million, down 30%
- net loss of $12.2 million
- net income of $1.2 million
- 22% growth in inkjet business
- Fiery revenue down 38% to $42 million
- Gross margin was down 57%
- EFI, in an effort to boost value of its stock, announced it will buy back $70 million worth of its shares.
- IDC announced that the enterprise publishing market (transpromo VDP production print) grew 8.3% in 2008, and “will continue to post strong growth over the next 5 years”.
- BEI, a company that tracks service data for copier dealers and market service management software, announced it has hired former Global/Xerox executive, Steve Rolla. Previous to Global, he was an executive with IKON.
- Xerox now shipping to new A3 b/w copiers, the WorkCentre 5135 and 5150 featuring:
- 35ppm and 50ppm top speeds respectively
- Actually made by Fuji of Japan
- Replaces the WorkCentre 5030 and 5050 models
- 36,500 page yield toner cartridge (based on 6% coverage per page)
- 125K/month and 200K/month maximum duty cycles
- Base MSRPs of $5499 and $10,999
- Optional print/scan controllers
- Optional fax boards
- Advertised as being manufactured using reused components from previous model copiers
- Optional searchable PDF (OCR)
- Document feeder holds up to 75 originals
- Top scan speed of 85ipm
- 600x600dpi
- 1,100 sheet paper capacity standard (two 500 sheet drawers and 100 sheet stack bypass)
- Maximum paper capacity with options of 4,700 sheets
- Auto duplex standard
- Optional finishers offer hole-punch and stapling
- Do not support the EIP embedded solution platform
- More info on Xerox/ACS merger. According to paperwork filed with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission, if the acquisition failed to go through, Xerox would have to pay a breakup fee of $323 million, and ACS would have to pay $194 million. To help pay for the $6.4 billion purchase, Xerox received a commitment for up to $3 billion from JPMorgan Chase in part to refinance ACS’s $1.8 billion in debt. Both companies are now fighting numerous lawsuits that have been filed to prevent the deal from happening.
- Also benefiting from the Xerox/ACS deal are the banks involved:
- Citigroup, which advised ACS, will take home $32.5 million
- Evercore, which advised ACS, gets $16 million
- Blackstone Group, which advised Xerox, gets $20 million
- JPMorgan Chase, which advised Xerox, gets $20 million
- In a speech at the Rockerfeller Center in New York last week, former Xerox CEO, Anne Mulcahy, stated that while at Xerox, the three planks she identified to turn around the company were to make Xerox:
- environmentally conscious
- services led
- technology enabled
- Xerox announced it won a managed print services bid from Universal Orlando Resort. The bid included Universal Studios theme park, Islands of Adventure theme park, Universal CityWalk, Loews Portofino Bay Hoel, Hard Rock Hotel and Loews Royal Pacific Resort.
- Xerox scientists in Norwalk, CT, announced they have invented a way to imprint electronic circuits on materials, such as plastic and fabric. In theory, this technology could pave way for products like:
- Smart pill boxes that track how much medication a patient has taken
- Display screens tha troll up to fit into a briefcase
- Clothing that monitors body temperature or heart rate
- Xerox launched its new Enterprise Print Services initiative, including:
- Supports employees of its customer who use remote or home use printers, via phone, email or Web
- New universal print driver for remote employees to access printers when working in corp. offices
- Print routing based on analysis of employees work habits
- Setup up guidelines to direct documents to most appropriate device
- Allow print requests to be sent to internal provider via web interface
- Xerox announced that it won a “Certified Excellent Image Quality” award from Industry Analysts Inc. for its WorkCentre 7400 series of color MFPs.
- Monday, November 2nd, is the 10 year anniversary of the shooting at Xerox’s office in Honolulu, Hawaii that left 7 dead. Former Xerox service technician, Byron Uyesugi, was arrested for the murders.
- The Meridian Public School District, of Idaho, will restart its copier bid in November. This is after is was forced to cancel the award it gave to Xerox, after local dealer, Fisher’s Document Systems, filed a complaint. The school board hopes to give out a new award in January, 2010.
- One leasing company buys another. EverBank Financial’s CEO Rob Clements, announced that the company acquired Tygris Commercial Finance Group. Purchase price not revealed.
- Bank of America, which took money from the federal government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), is now not being allowed to repay the $45 billion it borrowed. Apparently, the Obama administration’s pay czar, Kenneth Feinberg, wants to first review the firm’s compensation policy for top employees.
- Another obscure company acquires patents and sues for licensing fees. St. Clair Intellectual Property Consultants, of Michigan, is now suing Apple Computer as it claims the company is violating patents it owns regarding digital camera technology. The company already has won the following lawsuits:
- $25 million from Sony Corp.
- $34.7 million from Canon
- $3 million from Fuji
- Other deals were struck with HP, Kodak, Verizon, Motorola & Sanyo
- Red Bend Software Inc. of Israel, is suing Google for patent infringement, claiming that the company violated a patented algorithm in Google Chrome Web browser.
- A managed print services company gets purchased. MyPrint Corp. of Irvine, CA, announced that a majority interest in the company was purchased by Triton Pacific Capital Partners, a private equity firm in Los Angeles. MyPrint’s president, Jeff Carlson, stated; “We are all excited about the opportunities to work closely with the Triton Pacific team in growing MyPrint to the next level”
- Sanyo, which is about to become a part of Panasonic, announced it sold its battery plants to Fujitsu for $71 million.
- Sharp reported its latest financials:
- net loss of $196 million for first half of fiscal year
- operating profit fell 96.9%
- total revenue fell 17.5%
- copier sales revenue down 19.2%
- Panasonic launched a new desktop b/w A4 MFP, called the DP-MB350 offering:
- 35ppm top speed in b/w only
- Can scan in color or b/w up to 9600dpi
- Scans in TIFF, PDF or JPEG formats
- Scan to email/TWAIN/PC/FTP
- Copy/print/scan/fax right out of box (PCL print driver only with 128MB RAM)
- 3.6” full color LCD control panel
- first copy out time of 15 seconds
- 10/100BaseT and USB ports standard
- Provides incoming fax previews
- Junk fax filter
- Fax forward to email, PC or FTP
- 50 sheet document feeder
- Auto duplex standard up to 24lb. bond
- OPC drum cartridge yield of 20,000 pages
- Toner cartridge yield of 8,000 pages based on 5% coverage per page
- 1200x1200dpi printing (interpolated to 2400dpi)
- Comes standard with 520 sheet paper drawer (legal size maximum, up to 44lb. bond)
- Can add second 520 sheet drawer
- Has Quick ID Copy function for copying insurance cards or drivers licenses
- Comes with READiris Pro 7.0 OCR software
- Base MSRP of $1995.00
- Kodak reported its last quarter’s financials:
- revenue fell 26%
- net loss of $111 million
- revenue in production print fell 18%
- Oce’ announced it sold a VarioPrint 6160 monochrome production print system & CS665 Pro color system (relabeled Konica Minolta bizhub PRO C6501) to Fry Communications, a print shop in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. The equipment will be used to print variable data direct mail pieces.
- Oce’ announced that the president of its Production Printing Systems division, Mel Babolyian, was named to the board of directors of NPES, the association for suppliers of printing, publishing, and converting technologies.
- Konica Minolta is partnering with companies in Russia to develop nanotechnology. The partnership with Sun Innovations and RUSNANO Corp, will apparently use industrial inkjet printers to make special coatings for solar panels.
- The Japan Industrial Design Promotion Organization (JIDPO), has given Konica Minolta four “Good Design” awards for the bizhub C220, C280, C360, C452, C552, C652, PRO 1051 and PRO 1200.
- Whack an old printer for a dollar. Students, faculty and staff at Purdue University were given the chance to use a sledgehammer to smash an old printer to raise money for the computer graphics department.
- The Equipment Leasing and Finance Association (ELFA), which tracks lending practices, stated that equipment leasing revenue fell 30.9% in September from the same month in the previous year to $4.7 billion. This is because of increase in delinquencies.
- Image Print & Sign Ltd. of New Zealand was fined by local government for illegally making copies of copyrighted books.
- PrintFleet is partnering with De Lage Landen in Europe to help copier dealers sell managed print services with a cpc lease program.
- In a survey of independent copier dealer service managers, Office Products Analysts found:
- average scanned pages per month on a scan-enabled MFP is 3,000 pages per month
- favorite brand based on reliability was Kyocera
- 54% admitted that they use Non factory original parts when they fix their copiers in the field
- 52% admitted that they provide their customers with Non factory original toner
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