Here is the latest MFP industry news, brought to you by Copitex, The Boston leader in Copier Sales, Leasing & Rentals.
– Sharp, in another effort to raise cash to pay off its huge debt, announced it will transfer its technology for producing IGZO (Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide) LCD display screens to China Electronics Corp., which will build a new plant in Nanjing, China to mass produce the screens for TVs, computers and tablets.
- Sharp will receive a payment in the “tens of billions of yen”
– Sharp’s new leader, President Kozo Takahashi, conducted a news conference in Tokyo in front of the press and shareholders, according to The Japan Times:
- “One cause of our financial troubles lies in big company disease, characterized by arrogance, conceit, a decline in the spirit to challenge oneself, and a lock of customer perspective.”
- “We forgot ourselves and the founding principles of this company as our operations expanded.”
- will cure the company by “changing everything”
- “We apologize deeply for these very severe numbers and for not being able to meet shareholders’ hope.”
- “We will do our utmost to achieve a net profit this year, and ask for your continued support.”
- One disgruntled shareholder in the crowd yelled; “Sharp is almost a bankrupt company!”
– Harris Interactive released results of recent study of worker vacations:
- 54% of workers say that their bosses expect them to work during their vacations
- 51% say they would rather get a root canal than work during vacation
- 64% admit that checking email during vacation eases return to work
- 67% say that checking email during vacation upsets family members
- 24% say they employer makes it easy to access work-related documents from a remote location
– UniPrint announced it won a secure print contract from Martin Marietta Materials:
- Martin Marietta is 2nd largest provider of construction aggregates in the U.S.
- 300 facilities across 33 states
- included a “follow you” type solution with a universal print driver
– According to ChannelPro magazine:
- 66% to 75% of enterprise-size customers have contracted for at least some managed print services support
- More than 20 million desktop printers (inkjet and/or laser/LED) are placed each year in the U.S.
- Just over half the printers placed each year are Hewlett Packard branded
- Estimated that there are 5 million desktop printers in the SMB market ready for a managed print services contract
- MPS market, according to IDC, is predicted to grow around 16% CAGR (cumulative annual growth rate) through 2016
– Justin Rattner, Intel’s CTO and Director of Intel Labs, is stepping down from both positions in compliance with company policy that block employees from serving as corporate officers after they turn 65.
– Fuji of Japan announced it is launching a color inkjet printer for photolabs, called the Smartlab Frontier S series:
- ViViDiA D-Photo ink systems
- uses 6 colors of ink (cyan, magenta, yellow, black, sky blue & pink)
- 360 (4”x6”) prints per hour
- uses piezo crystal inkjet print head technology
- 720x720dpi or 1440×720 dpi
- uses rolls of glossy or luster paper
– Fuji of Japan announced it won a document management system solution contract from the Japan Medical Association Center for Clinical Trials.
– Fuji announced it purchased Royce Photo Graphics, a wide format inkjet printer distributor, headquartered in Salt Lake City, UT.
– Xerox launched “SMARTdocument Travel Express”, a new embedded solution for its MFPs, which is actually a relabeled version of NSi AutoStore.
– Xerox may protest a decision made by the state of Illinois, after it chose to pay Accenture $41 million to managed its highway toll system, rather than the $35.4 million bid submitted by Xerox.
– Xerox announced it will hire 500 people for a call center in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and 440 in the country of Romania.
– Xerox launched the IJP 2000 wide format color inkjet printer:
- 4 colors of dye-based ink (cyan, magenta, yellow and black)
- uses 5 thermal print heads
- 70,400 ink nozzles per head
- 1.3 picoliter ink droplet size
- 1600x1600dpi
- up to 11”x42” sheet size, using rolls of paper
- top speed of 4520 feet squared per hour
- supports media types
- bond
- matte coated
- satin
- gloss
- backlit film
- fabric or vinyl
- built-in paper cutter
– Xerox announced it won a managed print services contract from the Lincoln Public School District of Nebraska:
- includes on-site personnel for print center
- 60 schools included
- included DocuShare ECM solution
– Xerox announced it won a $1.9 million managed IT contract from Orange County, CA.
– Adobe announced it will spend $600 million to acquire Neolane of Paris, France, maker of cross-channel campaign management solutions.
– Canon announced it sold an Oce’ VarioPrint 6200TP production b/w system to Classic Graphics of Charlotte, NC. In the first 45 days, it ran 9.7 million impressions.
– Canon announced it sold an Oce’ ColorStream 3000 Twin Series production color inkjet system to Financial Statement Services Inc. of Santa Ana, CA.
– Canon announced it will spend $27 million to expand its toner making plant in Newport News, Virginia, after it received a $3 million “performance-based grant” from the taxpayers of the state.
– Canon launched the Oce’ ColorWave 900 color wide format printer:
- uses Memjet inkjet technology
- 1600x800dpi
- delivers 3.4 billion 1.2 picoliter ink droplets per second
- maximum print speed of 1100 meters squared per hour
- 42” wide printing
- can hold up to 6 paper rolls
– Canon announced it won MFP contract from the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory of Stanford University, part of the U.S. Department of Energy.
– Canon announced that it won a outsourced document management and electronic discovery service contract from Lewis Brisbois LLP, one of the AM Law 200 law firms in the U.S.
– Canon preparing to launch the “Intelligent Grading Solution” as an optional embedded app for its MFPs geared for the education vertical.
– FlexPrint, a large manage print services dealer, headquartered in Mesa, AZ, announced it won an MPS contract from Hinshaw & Culbertson, a law firm on the AM Law 200 list, with 23 offices in 12 states.
– A new tax on copier/printers in Europe? The European Union is set to impose a new tax on copier/printers and consumables, according to Computing magazine:
- A publisher, named VG Wort, filed a lawsuit against Canon, Epson, Fujitsu, Hewlett Packard, Kyocera and Xerox, demanding compensation for the unauthorized printing of published works on their equipment.
- The German Court of Justice requested the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to provide a clarification in the case on points of EU law.
- The ECJ stated; “It is open to the member states to put in place a system in which fair compensation is paid by the persons in possession of a device contributing, in a non-autonomous manner, to the single process of reproduction of the protected work or other subject0-matter on the given medium.”
- “The decision will open up printer companies to a slew of compensation claims from copyright holders.”
– Ricoh announced it will offer free 30 day trials of its cloud-service to owners of its new MFPs that are equipped with web browser on panel option.
– Ricoh announced it will relabel a video conferencing system made by Vidyo Inc. Ricoh will call it the P3000 Unified Communication System. MSRP of $2200.
– Ricoh announced it is hiring “Advisory Research Scientists” for its Innovations lab in Silicon Valley, CA.
– Ricoh announced that its C901 production color systems won the “Best Production Cut-sheet Printers-Light Production” award from the European Digital Press Association (EDP).
– Ricoh announced it sold a C901 to RGB Digital Print of South Africa.
– Hewlett Packard announced it sold Indigo WS6600 production color system to Impressions Inc. of Hyattsville, MD.
– Hewlett Packard announced it won a $680 million contract from the U.S. Navy to manage its intranet.
- This brings the total revenue for HP from the Defense Department to $5.6 billion, according to the Washington Business Journal.
– Hewlett Packard launched the Scitex FB7600 color inkjet wide format press:
- up to 5380 feet per hour
- 600x600dpi
- supports media including:
- PVC foam
- PVC sheets
- polypropylene
- polycarbonate
- polyethylene
- paper
- foam board
- corrugated cardboard
- up to 65”x126” sheet size
- up to 25mm thick support
- uses UV curable inks
- 6 colors including cyan, magenta, yellow, black, light cyan and light magenta
- 312 total print heads
– HP’s VP and GM of Managed Services, Mike Weir, in an interview stated:
- managed print services is “growing in the teens”
- MFPs are “becoming really, really sophisticated in their ability to not only be printers, but also on-ramps and off-ramps as well as security devices for all of your documents”
- Managing printer, toner and service is only 10% of total opportunity
- “The other 90% is really born in the actual document management; it’s the filing, the retention, the archiving, the routing.”
- “All of that stuff is where the big, big rocks are”
– Meyers Research Center released results of study regarding value of wide format print:
- 70% of purchase decisions are made inside retail store
- 76% of customers say that they have entered a store they have never visited before based on its signs
- 68% have purchased a product because a sign caught their eye
- 75% told someone else about a store based simply on its signage
- 68% believe that a store’s signage is reflective of the quality of its products or services
- 52% are less willing to enter a store if they spot misspelled words or poorly-made signs
– InfoTrends released results of study regarding wide format:
- share of buyers who expect to increase their wide format graphics purchasing in next 12 months was 6.5 higher than the share who were expecting to decrease it
- printshop owners reported that wide format sales growth increases outnumber those reporting declines by 5 to 1
- retail value of wide format sale to experience CAGR of 7.9%, reaching $23.6 billion by 2016
- 43% of wide format buyers link printed signage with digital media
– Toshiba now shipping its “erasable” copier, aimed at those customer who are trying to prove they are “going green.” Notes on the eStudio 306LP system:
- Toshiba stated that the system is “for companies looking to make a statement, not necessarily save money”
- allows individual sheets of paper to be reused for additional print jobs
- top speed of 30ppm copy/fax/scan/print
- floor standing, A3 MFP
- MSRP is 15% more than normal Toshiba 30ppm copier
- no optional finisher, no stapling
- uses only a pale blue toner
- customer must also buy the RD30, which is a separate floor-standing device, that attempts the remove the blue toner, with MSRP of $5945
- uses fuser to reheat the toner, causing a special chemical to make the blue color disappear
- can place printed paper in the device a maximum of 5 times, as it will move paper to drawer at bottom of device if it cannot make toner transparent
- customer can not write on the copies
- when drawer is full, end user must empty paper into a recycle trash container
- Toshiba claims that if customer reuses the paper 5 times, they are saving 58 trees, and reduces carbon emissions by 50%
- Toshiba’s literature fails to mention that every tree in the U.S. cut down for copier paper is replaced by 3 new trees
– Toshiba launched the “Education Solutions Program” for the Education Vertical, including:
- MS Office Home and Student 2013 software
- ePals Learn365 software for project-based learning for STEM (science, technology, engineering and math)
- Solaro Study Guides provide practice questions and solutions for self-study & self-testing
- Solaro Validation Tool includes thousands of lessons and on-line practice assignments
- Norton Internet Security
- pricing not announced
– Toshiba announced it won a contract from the Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp. for trackwork and electrical and mechanical systems.
– Screen announced it sold a Truepress JetSX sheetfed production color inkjet system to Foremost Communications of Grand Rapids, MI.
– Lexmark announced it won a 5 year managed print services contract from the Federal Aviation Administration:
- includes placement of Lexmark C952dte color MFPs
- covers equipment at 945 offices
- number of devise reduced by 55%
- total pages printed declined by 24%
- number of color pages declined by 68%
- user to device ration of 11 to 1
– Lexmark recently held its annual dealer meeting. Notes:
- attended by 125 dealers
- claims to have a total of 260 dealers in the U.S.
- theme was “Bridge Beyond”
- has 170 factory direct branches worldwide
- invested 10% of its revenue into R&D (includes Perceptive software division)
- has 3,000 engineers and 3,200 patents
- claims to be first vendor to focus on vertical markets
- has specialized vertical market teams to support its dealers and branches
- vertical market teams include:
- banking
- insurance
- retail
- manufacturing
- government
- healthcare
- education
- 2/3s of its revenue comes from enterprise customers
- claims to be an “end-to-end provider of unstructured information solutions”
- only 3 of its dealers are selling software from the Perceptive division
- this division is still unprofitable
- announced that Toshiba is selling a $600 connector for its copiers to access Perceptive’s imageNOW DMS
- is now reselling PaperCut cost recovery software
– Hyland Software announced a partnership with DocuSign, allowing its OnBase document management system to process documents with paperless, legally binding eSignatures.
- Used by Hyland’s customer, Safe Auto Insurance.
– Samsung of Korea announced a new advertising campaign to promote its printers and MFPs, as well as other electronics.
- Theme is “Built For Business and For You” with tagline of “Introducing the New Business Experience.”
- trying to leverage the company’s popularity and brand awareness in consumer electronics to its business products
- special focus on the education, healthcare, retail and hospitality vertical markets
- will includes ads in magazines, newspapers, etc.
– Simplified Office Systems, a Kyocera copier dealer in Columbia, South Carolina, is now offering its customers the option of having their copier covered with a vinyl skin showing the logo and colors of either the University of South Carolina, or Clemson University.
- the dealership claims that 15% of the units it sold since 11/2012 have the logos
– Muratec announced it will relabel the Okidata MB471 desktop b/w MFP, and call it the Muratec MFX-3091.
– Apple stated that while the State of Maine awarded HP as the “preferred vendor” for public schools, it still sold 63,585 devices versus only 5,474 to schools in the state.
– Consumer Report magazine reported that the “maintenance mode” in desktop color inkjet printers can waste an average of $100 per year in consumables.
- Canon was cited as one of the biggest offenders
– Parts Now!, a provider of parts for printers, headquartered in Wisconsin, announced it has acquired The Bradshaw Group of Texas, which is a distributor of InfoPrint, Oce’ and HP production printer parts.
– simplifyMD announced it won EHR contract from Athens Bone and Joint Orthopedic Clinic of Georgia.
– Orion Health announced it won HIE contract from Dakota Helath Information Network.
– MEDHOST announced it won ED Info contract from Slidell Memorial Hospital.
– lifeIMAGE announced it won EMI contract from Baylor Health Care System of Texas.
– IntelliChart announced it won HIE contract from Washington Regional Medical System of Arkansas.
– Vitera Healthcare Solutions announced it won EHR contract from Women’s Healthcare Associates of Lafayette, LA.
– InterSystems announced it won a HealthShare solution contract from North Shore-LIJ Health System of New York.
– SRS announced it won EHR contract from piedmont Orthopaedic Associates of South Carolina.
– Epic announced it won EHR contracts from:
- Novant Health of North Carolina
- Yale University
- University of Colorado Health
– Siemens announced it won $100 million EHR contract from Hawaii Health System.
– Healthland Software announced it won contract from Fulton County Hospital of Missouri.
– Dr. Gil Ortega of Arizona, performed the world’s first orthopedic trauma surgery while wearing Google Glass, which will be used for teaching students.
– The federal government reports that 17% of healthcare providers who earned the initial $18,000 incentive for installing an EHR in 2011, did not complete the install to earn the second $12,000 incentive in 2012.