Weekend MFP Industry Notes
- According to security vendor, MS Lab Inc., the company is still detecting malware distribution related to Xerox MFPs. The trojan poses as an automatic message from Xerox WorkCentre Pro MFPs, to look like a scan to email. Cybercriminals are behind this attack, and hope end users are tricked into opening up the email message and clicking on the attachment labeled; “Scan from Xerox WorkCentre P9275821”, which would then launch an executable file to steal data from end user’s computer. Since this is not the first time that this has been attempted, it would indicate that it must have a high rate of success.
- Xerox announced it sold an iGen4 production color system and two 700 Digital Color systems to Scottish Police Services Authority of Scotland.
- Xerox’s ACS division announced it has purchased Spur Information Solutions of England, which makes software for parking enforcement.
- Mr. Copy, a Xerox owned dealer in San Diego, CA, announced it will offer DocuShare on Demand, which is a hosted document management solution, connected to its customer’s Xerox MFPs. Pricing starts at $39.95 per year for 5 users.
- Xerox announced that its research & development spending is now only 3.5% of revenue, or $189 million per quarter.
- Xerox copier history trivia:
o The first Xerox copier, the 914, was introduced in September, 1959, and put on sale in March, 1960
o Main competitors were 3M Thermofax and Kodak Verifax (thermal coated paper machines), which sold for $350 each, with copy sheets costing 19 to 25 cents each
o Cost for Xerox to build 914 was $2000 each
o Xerox only rented the devices, with monthly fee including a set amount of copies, and then overages were 5 cents each
o Machine weighed 650 pounds
o Top speed of one copy for every 26.4 seconds or 136 copies per hour
o Max original size of 9”x14”
o By 1962, had placed 10,000 machines
- The Secret Service claims that it has pulled $182 million in fake bills from circulation in 2009, more than double the $79 million it pulled in 2008. Almost 62% of this counterfeit U.S. currency was made using color MFPs
- Okidata now shipping new desktop A4 b/w MFPs that it is sourcing from Lexmark. The new B700 series are actually based on the Lexmark X650 series, which offer a large 9” touch screen color LCD control panel.
o Speeds range from 42ppm to 52ppm
o Base MSRPs range form $625 to $1249
o (so while Okidata touts its own LED technology in its color engines as superior to laser, it uses Lexmark laser engines for its b/w products)
- The Flagstaff, AZ fire department reported that a fire in the University of Northern Arizona Student Union was caused by an overheating copier.
- Fuji announced it has opened a new research and development lab for printing technology, called the R&D Square in Yokohama, Japan. Other details mentioned:
o In 1985 is made its first laser printer for relabeling by other vendors
o In 1986, launched first printer that it marketed on its own, called the Fuji Xerox 4105
o In 2001, purchased laser printer business from NEC Corp.
o Its other R&D lab for printers is the Ebina Center in Kanagawa, Japan
o Tadahito Yamamoto is President and Representative Director
o Has developed new technology called “SLED”
o SLED is “Self-scanning Light Emitting Device”
features an electronic pulse each time the opening is only one point of light-emitting LED light, LED light points, one by one, move to the front.
A line of LED light-emitting operations signal to control an input.
Each SLED chip has a total of 57 LEDs
In conventional LED printer, to offer up to 1200dpi, it needs to double the drive chip and twice the signal line, but the multi-chip Fuji ASIC drive can operate 14, 592 light points
Traditional LED technology print images with color transitions that are not natural
- Canon announced that in India, it will open up a store called “Canon Image Square”, which will showcase all of its imaging products, similar to Apple’s retail store concept.
- Canon will spend $184 million to build a new inkjet printer plant in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand. It will employ 5,000 workers, and make 5.5 million units per year.
- Canon launched the imageRUNNER C1030 desktop A4 color MFP featuring:
o 22ppm color and 30ppm b/w print speeds
o Base MSRP of $2595 (the “iF” model is $500 more, and provides PCL print driver and fax board)
o 600x600dpi (advertised as offering 2400dpi with interpolation)
o Document feeder scan speed of 20opm
o 3.5” color LCD display that tilts (not touchscreen, instead uses scroll dial)
o 100 sheet stack bypass
o 250 sheet paper drawer
o Can add two more 250 sheet paper drawers
o Built-in print controller
Actual maker unknown (most likely NetSilicon)
UFR II LT printing standard (similar to Windows GDI)
PCL print driver optional
PostScript print driver optional
768MB RAM standard
10/100BaseT & USB ports (no 1000BaseT Gigabit available)
Windows LDAP authentication standard for scanning
o Optional uniFLOW v5.0 for server-based authentication, cost tracking and print release
o Fax board optional
- Canon has announced its “Power of Five” to highlight 4 of its solutions partners:
o Therefore Corp., a provider of document management system that integrates with Canon MFPs
o Nuance eCopy
o IRIS of Belgium, which Canon owns 17%, for OCR
o NT Ware, which apparently is the supplier of uniFLOW
- FMAudit of Jefferson City, Missouri, announced version 3.2 of its managed print services software, that it claims has 180 new features.
- Sharp announced it paid $305 million to complete acquisition of Recurrent Energy of San Francisco, which develops solar projects. (however, the company apparently still has not yet spend any R&D for production print products for its copier dealers and branches to sell)
- Sharp’s VP of Marketing, Mike Marusic, gave out more details on the design of the document feeders on its new Frontier “Scan-Centric” series of color and b/w A4 MFPs:
o Color version has base MSRP of $8945
o b/w version has base MSRP of $5695
o Top print speed of 40ppm
o Ruggedized rubber feed tires that can handle thicker card stock
o Rollers can also handle the raised letter of plastic credit cards or ID cards
o Cards pass straight through to the other side of the document feeder (unlike when feeding normal paper originals) so the cards are not bent or damaged
o Viable alternative to production scanners
- Sharp gave out details of its last quarter’s financials:
o Company slashed its full year profit projection by 20%
o Warned of “increasingly severe business condition”
o Net profit of $175.2 million for last 6 months
o Revenue up 16.7% to 1.5 trillion yen
o For full fiscal year expects net profit of 30 billion yen
o Big decline in demand for large size color LCDs
o No mention made of its office equipment division
- Digitex Corp, a Canon/Ricoh dealer owned by Mark Kinley in Houston, has purchased Capco Systems, another Canon dealer in Houston. Capco was previously owned by Constantine Pontikes, and was originally named Houston Typewriter.
- According to some authors, Google Docs will soon have a new feature that will allow users to print documents to any Internet-connected printer, anywhere in the world. For it to work, users will have to install small piece of software on a computer that’s on the same network as the printer. The computer has to be turned on and connected to the Internet for the print service to work.
- Microsoft launched a beta version of Microsoft Office 365, which is a cloud based package that offers a complete set of business functions.
- Artifex Software Corp., maker of print drivers, announced version 9.0 of its Ghostscript drivers featuring:
o PostScript Level 3 compatibility
o PDF 1.7
o PCL 5e, 5c & XL
o Microsoft XPS
o PostScript to PDF conversion
o XPS to PDF conversion
o ICC based color rendering workflow
o Stores two separate color space settings
o Support for optional content to the PDF interpreter
o Claims to have 100 OEM customers
- Toshiba announced that it has submitted an application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to certify its Advanced Boiling Water Reactor design.
- Toshiba announced a reorganization:
o Peter Davey is now Director of Professional Services and Advanced Technical Support
o Chris Applegate is Director of Client Services
o Sally Anderson is Director of Marketing and Communications
o Make Briante is Director of Service Operations
- Toshiba was awarded the “First In Class For Dealer Support” award from Marketing Research Consultants.
- In an interview, Toshiba’s VP of Marketing, Bill Melo said that its Professional Services Group focuses on:
o Document Output Management
Optimization of customer’s fleet of printing devices and their document workflow
Assessment conducted
Consolidation of hardware
Move customer to managed print services instead of traditional copier lease
Reduce total customer spend
Minimize customer disruption
Solve needs of security and compliance
o Managing Print Infrastructure
Pull printing (aka “follow you” printing)
Reduce waste
Claim that 30% of print jobs in typical office are abandoned on exit tray
o Document Capture and Workflow
Digital storage
Archival and records management
Fujitsu scanners
Solutions from Nuance eCopy, Docuware and Drivve
o Security
Fastest growing area
Securing documents
Hard drive encryption
Securing sent documents
- Scan capture software maker, Kofax, reported that last quarter it had revenue of $216 million, which was up 27%. (Kofax is very popular in the healthcare market, and its leading reseller is IKON/Ricoh)
- Kodak was ordered by government in England to pull its TV ads claiming that its color inkjet printers would save end users money as compared with using other brands. The agency claims that the Kodak ads were misleading.
- eCareme Technologies Inc. announced it will launch a cloud printing service that will allow end users to send their print jobs to any 7-ELEVEN store in Taiwan that has a connected MFP. Pricing not announced.
- Ricoh announced it will provide 32 MFPs and printers for the upcoming Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Yokohama, Japan.
- Ricoh announced the launch of “Ricoh intelligent invoicing” or i-invoicing, which allows customers to outsource the receipt and production of all invoices to Ricoh. Ricoh claims that this will save customers 70-90% using the system. The initial launch will only be in Europe.
- Ricoh announced it is the “Official Document Solutions Partner” for the Philadelphia Eagles football team.
- Lexmark, whose CEO last week announced his is departing, now announced that it is combining its laser and inkjet divisions into one, called Imaging Solutions and Services or ISS, led by Executive VP, Marty Canning, reporting to new CEO, Paul Rooke.
- Business Research & Testing Laboratories (BERTL) gave out Fall 2010 Best Awards to:
o HP LaserJet PRO P1606dn b/w laser printer
o Ricoh InfoPrint 1357EX b/w production print system
o Sharp MX-M753N b/w laser MFP
o Kyocera Copystar FS2026/C2126/FS3040/3140 MFPs
o Konica Minolta bizhub C35 A4 color MFP
o Ricoh Aficio MP 4001/5001 b/w MFPs
o Xerox 7755/7775 MFPs
- Former IKON executive, Jim Gallagher, was hired as VP of Sales for McGrath Systems, a human capital management firm.
- Hewlett Packard sold an Indigo 7500 production color system to Group Momentum, a printshop in Sydney, Australia. It also sold an Indigo 5500 to ASAP Digital of Sheffield, England.
- Apple sued Motorola, alleging that the company’s smartphone lineup and operating system it sues infringe on iPhone patents.
- Kyocera (aka Kyoto Ceramic Company) announced it will buy the Software Engineering division of Epson in the Philippines. This office employs 70, and currently writes software for Epson printers and MFPs.
- Hitachi announced it has developed a new continuous inkjet print head technology, called “RX”
- Kaiser Permanente Healthcare reported that last quarter’s revenue was up 5.7% to $11.1 billion with profit up 11.4% to $634 million.
- Saudi Arabia announced it will provide EHR systems for 300 hospitals. (this will most likely benefit Cerner the most, as it has installs in the country already
- Hewlett Packard’s VP of Healthcare Business, Mike Humke, is being replaced by Matt Smith. While Mr. Humke was named as on of the “Top 25 Channel Sales Leaders” by Computer Reseller News, no reason was given for his dismissal.
- A study conducted by Reboew & Co., found that the Jefferson Parish public school system of Louisiana could have saved more than $258,000 had all of its principals acquired copiers under the state contract rather than negotiating their own leases. The school board is now considering whether to take legal action against the dealers who sold to the schools without acknowledging the state contract.
- According to the Department of Health & Human Services, more than 5 million Americans have been affected by HIPAA data breaches since, 9/2009.
- According to The Ponemon Institute, hospitals spent $6 billion annually because of patient data breaches, and Federal regulations (i.e. HIPAA) have not improved the safety of patient records. Research showed:
o hospitals are not protecting patient data
o hospitals admit to being vulnerable to data breaches
o breaches are occurring frequently and often go unreported
o only a small percentage of healthcare organizations rely on security technology
- ScImage Inc. of Los Altos, CA announced that it has developed software to integrate EMR software systems with Konica Minolta ImagePilot digital radiography systems, using HL7 communications and web-viewing technologies.
- Former employee, Cam Giang, pled guilty to stealing personal information (name, date of birth and Social Security numbers) from 218 coworkers while at University of California San Francisco Medical Center. Mr. Giang was sentenced to 12 months and one day in prison.
- A skin printer? The Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine and the Armed Forces Institute for Regenerative Medicine announced they have developed an inkjet printer that deposits skin cells directly onto a wound to help it heal faster.
- Results of survey conducted by CompTIA:
o 34% of healthcare providers report using EHR system
o 16% report using a partial EHR system
o 29% are evaluating their options
o 20% have not yet started research
- More reason why healthcare firms should use biometric finger vein reader options:
o 100 times more accurate than finger print scans
o Nearly impossible to hack
o Scanner converts subcutaneous vein pattern into thousands of zeroes and ones
o All data encrypted and hidden behind firewall
o Encrypted to AES 128 bit
o You can not leave your vein pattern at a crime scene
o Prevents medical records overlays and merging
o Prevents identity theft
o Prevents lack of ID for unconscious patients
- Allscripts announced it won an EHR system contracts from:
o United Hospital Systems of Kenosha, Wisconsin.
o Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital of New York
o Martin Memorial Health Systems of Florida
- Allscripts CEO, Glenn Tullman stated that the federal government will spend as much as $27.4 billion between 2011 and 2021 to encourage health professionals to install EHR systems.
- Epic wins more EHR contracts:
o $56 million from New Hanover Regional Medical Center (which is receiving $13.7 million in federal incentive money)
o $450 million system at the 28 hospital Sisters of Mercy Health System in Arkansas
o Fairview Northland Medical Center in Minnesota
o Fairview Lakes Medical Center in Minnesota
o Pen Bay Healthcare of Maine
- According to survey conducted by KLAS, the most popular EHR providers for community hospitals:
o For small hospitals of 1 to 150 beds = Meditech
o 151 to 300 beds is Cerner
o 300+ beds is Epic
- Meditech reported that its last quarter’s revenues were up 23%.
- Meditech announced it has certified Canon & Kyocera MFPs as printers for its system.
- Sage Intergy wins contract for 90 radiation therapy centers in 16 states for 21st Century Oncology, headquartered in Florida.
- NextGen announced:
o wins EHR system contract from ACT Health Management Services of North Carolina with 400 locations and 70 clinicians
o wins HER system contract from Methodist Hospital of Texas (5 hospitals and 289 physicians)
o reported that its revenue was up 14% to $81.5 million during last quarter.
- Athenahealth wins a EHR system contract from Holy Cross Hospital of New Mexico.
- EHR federal government timeline:
o Fall of 2010 = certified EHR technology available and listed on ONC website
o January, 2011 = Registration for EHR incentives begin
o January, 2011 = State Medicaid providers may launch the programs
o April, 2011 = Attestation for EHR incentive programs begins
o May, 2011 = incentive payments begin
o November 30th, 2011 = last day for hospitals to register and attest to receive incentive payment for FY2011
o February 29, 2012 = last day for physicians to register and attest to receive incentive payments for CY2011
o 2014 = Last year to initiate participation in program
o 2015 = Medicare payments are reduced for those that have not installed EHR system and shown meaningful use
o 2016 = last year to receive incentive payments and last year to initiate participation
o 2021 = last year to receive incentive payment
- Microsoft reported that only 150 hospitals worldwide are connected to its HealthVault personal health platform.
- McKesson, provider of EHR systems, announced it is buying US Oncology for $2.16 billion. US Oncology of The Woodlands, Texas, makes EHR systems for 1,300 community-based oncologists.
- Cerner wins contract for EHR system at Regional Medical Center in South Carolina. Also has install at Eastern Maine Medical Center.
- After originally not being selected, Missouri healthcare officials are giving Cerner a second change after the Kansas City based company failed to make a two-state list of preferred EHR vendors.
- eClinicalWorks announced it won an EHR systems contract from the San Francisco Department of Public Health, for its 800 doctors.
- A survey of hospital medical records departments conducted by CapSite found:
o 3M Health Information Systems has 30% marketshare
o Meditech has 22% marketshare
o 41% plan to invest in new applications during next 24 months
- The 2010 HIMSS (health information management systems society) Security Solutions Survey found:
o 50% spent 3% or less of their IT budgets on security
o 14% of hospitals have yet to conduct a risk analysis
o 33% of clinics have yet to conduct a risk analysis
o 31% have encrypted data on laptop computers
o 16% have not encrypted any laptop computers
o 69% have plan in place to respond to a data breach
o 33% of hospitals have fulltime chief security officer
o 8% of clinics have fulltime chief security officer
o 38% have designated a staffer to handle security responsibiities
- Surescripts Inc., which operates a nationwide e-prescribing network, announced that it will now support and enable the electronic exchange of all types of clinical information.
- Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller has sued health insurer WellPoint Inc. for $300,000, alleging the firm took too long to notify Indiana residents affected by a HIPAA data breach, affecting 32,000 people. The breach was related to a website that inadvertently exposed personal financial info and SS#’s.
- FormFast Software announced it won contract for electronic forms software from Capital Region Medical Center of Jefferson City, MO.
- Scientists from the University of Oxford have shown that they can improve a person’ math abilities for up to 6 months by applying an electrical current to the human brain.
- A document management survey conducted by Version One revealed:
o 86% of senior IT professionals are still reliant on paper records
o 51% stated that they are “very reliant” on paper based records
o 1% stated that they “hardly ever” rely on paper
o 13% stated that they are “occasionally reliant” on paper
o 32% would switch to document management system (DMS) to improve customer service
o 20% said that assurance that electronic documents are legally admissible would be key driver for eliminating paper
o 48% want to be assured that DMS would provide enough security
- WorkflowOne announced it won a document management solutions contract from the Albert Einstein Healthcare Network in Dayton, Ohio.
- Survey results from Medical Group Management Association (MGMA):
o Hospitals with EHR systems reported $49,916 greater total medical revenue after operating cost per physician than practices using paper
o After 5 years of use, practices reported an operating margin 10.1% greater than practices in their first year of EHR
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