Weekend MFP Industry Notes Newsletter
12-20-09
- Xerox to launch new versions of the iGen production color systems. Details:
- Will be available in an 80ppm and 100ppm versions
- Unlike current iGen models, will use polymerized toner (Xerox EA), instead of pulverized toner
- EA stands for “emulsion aggregate”
- Unlike current iGen models, will not use fuser oil
- Offers a fifth toner, called “Clear Toner” to provide glossy finish or watermarking,
similar to the Kodak NexPress, as an option for the 100pm model only
- Uses a belt fuser, instead of fuser rollers
- Will handle up to 350gsm paper weights
- Systems will not slow down when handling heavier paper weights
- Newly designed organic drum and transfer belt will supposedly last twice as long as compared to previous models
- Possible list prices will be around $500,000 and $400,000
- Xerox announced that its PagePack program for managed print services, will now integrate with ConnextWise, which is a program commonly used by computer network service resellers to bill their customers.
- Xerox announced it won a contract from the University of British Columbia in Canada. The 6 year facilities management/managed print services contract will supposedly save the college $8 million over the life of the contract.
- Xerox announced that its research division in Canada, received its 100th U.S. patent in regards to making toner.
- Xerox announced it won a contract from the Galesburg Public School District in Illinois. The 5 year contract will supposedly cut the school district’s copying costs in half, and allow for color clicks of 5 cents each.
- Xerox’s sent out press release regarding its document management program, DocuShare:
- won KM World magazine’s “Trend Setting Product of 2009” award
- won Document Manager magazine’s “2009 Content Management Product of the Year”
- won PC World magazine’s “Best Integrated Document Solution”
- InfoWorld Green 15 Award went to DocuShare customer, Niagara Catholic School District Board
- Computerworld magazine’s Laureate award to DocuShare customer, Tulane University
- AIIM magazine’s Carl E Nelson Best Practice award to DocuShare customer, OwnerGUARD
- Xerox announced it sold a 700 Digital Color System to Print Allianz, a print shop in Gauteng, South Africa.
- Yielding to complaints from Hewlett Packard, and the Federal Trade Commission, Kodak agreed to modify its ads on its color inkjet printers. The ads originally claimed that customers would save $110 per year on ink costs if they used Kodak printers and AIOs. Now the ads will say; “Save an average of $110 per year on ink based on just four pages per day”
- PODi (Print On Demand Initiative) announced that sponsors for its AppForum trade show in Las Vegas (on 1/25-27/2010) are:
- Konica Minolta
- Canon
- Kodak
- PageFlex software
- Xerox
- The Konica Minolta bizhub PRO C6501 received the coveted Fogra Certification (standard in Europe) for color quality.
- During the recent Copenhagen United National Climate Change summit, the delegates printed out their presentation on 30 different Konica Minolta bizhub color MFPs. The units were chosen due to their eco friendly design.
- Adobe Corp, announced its 4th quarter’s financials:
- total revenue of $757.3 million, as compared with $915.3 million in previous fiscal
- operating income of $153.6 million, as compared with $273.2 million in previous fiscal
- Predicts revenue of $800 million for first quarter of 2010
- Business Research & Testing Laboratories (BERTL) gave out its “BEST” awards to the following products:
- ABBY PDF Transformer software
- Canon imageFORMULA DR-X10C scanner
- Cima DocuClass Express document management software
- Colortrac SmartLF GX+42 large format color scanner
- docSTAR 3Ten document management software
- Drivve Image 3.0 imaging workflow software
- eCopy Paperworks desktop office utility
- Konica Minolta/eCopy integrated scanning solution
- Lexmark SmartSolution web-based application solution
- Mutoh ValueJet 1618A wide format color inkjet printer
- MWAi M2M asset management solution
- Nuance OmniPage 17 OCR solution
- Oce’ Plotwave 300 wide format color wax printer
- Ricoh PRO C900 production color system
- RISO ComColor high speed color inkjet system
- Roland VersaArt RS Series wide format color inkjet printer
- Sharp MS-M503/M363/M283 digital b/w MFPs
- Toshiba eSTUDIO 855 Series digital b/w MFPs
- Xerox Phaser 7500 color laser printers
- PC Magazine gave out is “Editors Choice” awards to the following desktop laser printer/MFP/AIO devices:
- Brother HL-5340D
- Brother MFC-8480DN
- Canon Color imageCLASS MF8530cdn
- Konica Minolta magicolor 1600 series
- Xerox Phaser 6280dn
- Xerox Phaser 7500dn
- IKON, a division of Ricoh, won the reseller of the year award from Kofax, maker of document management software.
- Former IKON executive, Rob Welcome, is now VP of National Accounts for New Leaf Brands Inc., a maker of healthy beverages in New York.
- Former IKON executive, Robert Rusnack, was named the new CFO of LaJobi, a children’s furniture maker in New Jersey.
- Ricoh announced it is now offering an embedded version of the Equitrac cost accounting software for select Aficio MFPs.
- Ricoh announced that it will offer AccuRoute scanning software from OmTool, as an option for its Aficio MFPs.
- Toshiba announced that it will resell cost accounting solutions from Pharos as options for its eSTUDIO MFPs.
- Toshiba is bidding on a 4 trillion yen project to build a bullet train system for Brazil. The project involves construction of a railway system over a 510 kilometer route connecting Rio de Janerio and Campinas, in less than 2 hours. Brazil wants the new system up and running in time for the 2014 World Cup soccer tournament.
- Toshiba introduced 64GB flash memory chips that it hopes will be in the next generation of Apple iPhone.
- Zoran Corp, maker of generic print controllers, announced it will source fax modem technology from LSI Corp. to incorporate it into new print controllers it will launch in 2010.
- A recent study gives bad press to hospitals that adopt electronic medical records software:
- conducted by Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School
- reviewed 4,000 hospitals
- adoption resulted in no cost savings
- negligible quality of care improvements
- administrative costs increased slightly
- To promote use of electronic medical records technology, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act passed the federal government provides:
- $17.2 billion in incentives through Medicare and Medicaid
- Large hospitals can receive payments for a 4 year period starting in 2011
- Physicians can receive incentives up to $44,000
- Medicare is the biggest health care payer in the U.S.
- the CMS-1500 is the most commonly scanned form in the medical industry
- Most common documents in healthcare are:
- ID cards and insurance cards
- patient records
- lab instructions
- insurance claims (CMS-1500 and UB-04 forms)
- EOB benefit forms (acknowledgement of payment by insurance company)
- medical supplier invoices
- X-ray, EKG, MRI and other test results
- Kodak announced that it will restate its 401K match and pay raises in 2010 for its employees.
- Kodak announced that Heidelberg’s factory direct branch in Australia will resell its Digimaster and NexPress production print systems.
- Kodak announced that it has sold a NexPress SE3600 production color system to Cohber Press, a print shop in Henrietta, New York.
- Kodak announced that it has sold its New York state based water treatment plant to Monroe County for $9.5 million.
- Kodak announced it sold it OLED (organic light emitting diode) division to LG Electronics of South Korea.
- Kodak announced it is relinquishing a lease it has held for last 22 years for a large hangar at the Rochester International Airport. It was paying $112,000 per year for the lease for its company airplanes.
- Kodak added executives for its scanner division, hiring Tony Barbeau as General Manager and Russell Hunt as Regional Business Manager.
- Doc It Inc. announced version 3.3 of its Doc It document management software, featuring:
- automatically recognizes large batches of files and place them in correct folder
- intelligent scan cover page
- universal search
- integration with CCH Tax software
- PDF editor enhancements, such as watermarking, redacting, etc.
- Hewlett Packard announced that it has certified an 18point thick stock for its Indigo production color system. HP now approves running the Masterpiece Premium 18pt CIS Board Stock for the HP Indigo WS6000 system.
- Oce’, (which Canon is attempting to acquire), announced that it won a facilities management contract from Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP, a large law firm with offices in Atlanta, Houston, Washington DC and New York.
- Large Oce’ shareholder, Orbis Portfolio Management, is still rejecting the proposed takeover bid by Canon, claiming that the purchase price is too low.
- Pitney Bowes announced that it would lay off up to 10% of its workforce to cut costs due to declining revenues.
- A group of independent copier dealers has been formed to fulfill managed print services contracts. For example, if a copier dealer A wants to offer a managed print services contract to a customer that has offices outside of copier dealer A’s territory, then it can use another copier dealer in this network, who agrees to provide service for a fixed dollar amount and parts markup. The new group is the National Printer Repair Network (NPRN), and it has also formed a partnership with BEI Services, for advanced national service call routing and service performance measurements.
- Management shakeup at Samsung of South Korea. Details:
- CEO, Lee Yoon Woo is out, and replaced by Choi Gee Sung, who was in charge of Samsung’s TV and cell phone business.
- In addition, it has hired Lee Jae Yong as COO, who is son of former Samsung chairman, Lee Kun Hee.
- Lee’s appointment shows that Samsung execs expect no further fallout from the tax evasion scandal, which led to a 3 year suspended sentence for former chairman Lee and the resignation of former CEO, Yun Jong Yong.
- During last quarter, Samsung reported a huge operating profit of $3.2 billion, as the Korean currency, the won, has not risen against the U.S. dollar as the Japanese yen has, thus giving the company a huge advantage over its Japanese competitors.
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