Here is the latest news from the copier industry.
– Xerox gave out details of its 4th quarter financials:
- profit fell 8.7%
- total revenue down 3.4%
- seventh straight quarter of year-over-year revenue declines for the company
- net income down 9%
- services revenue down 1%
- first time that managed services revenue has not increased since 2009, when Xerox acquired ACS
- operating margin down 1.3% to 9.3%
- selling, administrative and general expenses were 18.6% of revenue
- document technology division (copier/printers) revenue down 6%
- printer/MFP hardware sales revenue down 4%
- margin down 6% to 11.7%
- expects sales revenue in 2013 to be “down mid-single digits”
- printer/MFP hardware sales revenue down 4%
- services operating margin down
- managed services contracts up 20%
- ended year with $700 million in share repurchases
- document outsourcing revenue up 4%
- spent $64 million on restructuring costs of laying off 1600 employees
- R&D down to 2.7% of revenue
- $8 billion in debt currently
- $1.1 billion in debt comes due in 5/2014
– Xerox announced some management changes:
- Jeff Jacobson is now COO of Technology
- previously employed by Presstek and Kodak
- Andrew Copley is now President of Graphic Communications Operations
- previously employed by Precision Valve Technologies
– Xerox announced it sold an iGen3 150 production color press to Bolger Vision Beyond Print, a commercial printer in Minneapolis, MN. It will be used to produce booklets, brochures, pocket folders, newsletters and variable data direct mail pieces.
– Xerox announced that the managed print services contract it was awarded by British Telecom, is saving the communication services company $17 million over 4 years.
- covers 600 locations covering 170 countries and 96,000 employees
- contracts include FM contract for CRDs
– Xerox preparing to launch two new Nuvera branded production b/w systems:
- actually made by Fuji
- off-white plastic exterior, with dark blue main bodies
- EA (emulsion aggregate) polymerized toner
- 157 EA Production System
- 157ppm top speed
- tentative MSRP of $239,700
- 314 EA Perfecting Production System
- actually is two 157 systems bolted together to produce 157 doubled sided sheets per minute
- tentative MSRP of $408,820
– Fuji (maker of most Xerox-branded MFPs) announced it is changing its corporate slogan to “Value From Innovation”
– Canon was sued by Industrial Print Technologies LLC, for allegedly infringing on its patents related to production color inkjet printing on its Oce’-branded digital presses.
– Canon announced it reached an out of court settlement to stop Parsia International of England from manufacturing and marketing low cost toner cartridges for Canon-made MFPs and printers that violate Canon’s patents.
– Kodak announced it sold a Versamark DS6240 production inkjet system to EarthColor, a commercial printer in Houston, TX.
– The Dick Smith Productivity Study concludes that a survey of office workers reveals:
- 90% name mundane technical glitches such as paper jams, print and photocopier issues are the biggest office time wasters
- average worker spends more than 2 working weeks each year grappling with technical issues
- 22% have spent a whole day trying to solve a problem
- 30% have had to re-do documents after computers crashed
- 20% have been late to meetings due to printer/MFP issues
- 88% of workers believe investing in new technology will increase productivity
- 52% believe their boss is not convinced that new tech will help
- 40% say boss will not upgrade technology if it still works
- 25% of workers have felt like smashing their PC or laptop
- 7% have cried due to lost document after computer crashed
– Intel Corp., in a cost cutting move, announced it will not complete its newly constructed $5 billion plant in Chandler, AZ, and will lay off more than 5,000 employees worldwide during 2014.
– Dell Inc. announced it ordered 5,000 3D printers from Zortrax Inc. of Poland, which it plans on reselling, as a home office use device.
– Dell launched a new managed print services program, called Dell Print Page Service:
- for its printers and MFPs, which are sourced from Fuji, Samsung and Lexmark
- apparently the on-site service is provided by Xerox Partner Print Services
- devices have low toner alert that triggers automatic supply replenishment
- fixed monthly payment covers a set print volume on a given device, with overage charges
- Dell can escalate the cost per page charges if toner page coverage exceeds 5% per color
- Dell can raise cost each year in its 3, 4 or 5 year agreements
– Ricoh announced it has purchased the managed IT services for business division of Best Buy:
- division is named “mindSHIFT”
- mindSHIFT was founded 15 years ago, and was acquired by Best Buy in 2011 for $167 million in attempt to expand its “Geek Squad” group (which focuses primarily on home users)
- has 6,900 existing customers
- provides managed IT, cloud, data center and professional services to small and mid-sized businesses
- will continue to operate with its own name, and be run by Mona Abutaleb, current CEO
- 650 employees currently (500 engineers)
- operates out of locations in:
- Boston, MA
- Chicago, IL
- Long Island, NY
- New York City, NY
- Minneapolis, MN
- Morrisville, NC
- Philadelphia, PA
- Washington, DC
- Austin, TX
- Houston, TX
- San Antonio, TX
- Dallas, TX
- purchase price unknown
– Memjet, which is trying to get copier dealers to sell its 60ppm desktop color A4 inkjet MFP, announced it has signed up another distributor, Image Star, to boost its presence in the U.S.
- the other current distributor is Parts Now Inc.
– Printware of St. Paul, MN announced it will show its new iJetColor Digital Press, a production color inkjet system, utilizing printheads from Memjet.
- will be unveiled at the upcoming Graphics of the Americas Show in Miami, FL
- is a desktop design
- will handle up to 8.5” x 17” sheets
- handle up to 0.5 mm thick media
- designed for producing labels and packaging materials
– UbiComm Inc. of Delaware, announced it has settled out of court with Sharp, Print Audit, and Pharos, after the three companies were sued by UbiComm for allegedly infringing on some of its document management/cost recovery patents.
– The U.S. International Trade Commission dismissed a patent infringement lawsuit filed by Technology Properties Limited against Canon, Epson, Brother, HP and others regarding printer technology.
– Lexmark was awarded a grand total of $34 million in damages by the U.S. District Court in Ohio from 7 companies that were making and selling print cartridges for use in Lexmark printers and MFPs that violated Lexmark patents.
– Lexmark launched “My Pages”, a new managed print services program:
- for small to medium sized businesses
- customers pay per print, or buy print bundles
- devices included have a low supply alert that automatically generates an order for replacement supplies
- customers must buy the device first
- $19 for 200 pages
- $299 for 8000 pages
- pricing includes supplies and on-site service
– IDC projects that that the managed print services market will cross the $6 billion annual revenue barrier by 2017. Comments from Jessie Lee, Research Manager:
- “IDC sees fundamental transformation taking place in both vendor offerings and customer expectations”
- “Future success in the MPS market will come as a result of tapping into new opportunities by providing best in class services and expanding into sweet spots across the enterprise to midmarket segment.”
- “Vendors will use MPS to drive more transformative opportunities revolving around digital capture, workflows, cloud integration and mobile printing.”
- “growing focus on vertical and line of business solutions”
– Staples, the office supply superstore chain, announced that it has integrated with ReactorNet, allowing automation of printer management and supply ordering for customers using Staples’ managed print services program.
– Hewlett Packard announced that it will market Microsoft Windows 7 operating system, even though Microsoft has launched version 8. HP claims it “was brought back by popular demand”, since many consumers have a negative perception of version 8
– EFI announced that it had a record number of attendees for its recent Connect Users Conference held annually in Las Vegas, NV, devoted to print technologies.
– EFI announced it will be exclusive provider of print server technology for the upcoming LANDA production color systems using nano technology ink.
– Printing Industries of America (PIA), announced that in a cost cutting move, it has closed the 53,000 square foot production print training center in Sewickley, PA.
- the world-famous training center, was opened in 1924 by the former Graphic Arts Technical Foundation (GATF) which merged with PIA in 1999.
– IDC reported that PC shipments took a 5.6% dive in the 4th quarter of 2013, with only 82.2 million units sold worldwide.
– Nuance Corp., maker of eCopy, Equitrac and Dragon solutions, announced it has hired former Symantec Corp. sales EVP as its new sales chief.
– Duplo launched the DC-646 offline finishing device for production print:
- slitter/cutter/creaser
- performs up to 8 slits
- performs up to 25 cuts
- performs up to 20 creases
- top speed of 30 sheets per minute
- optional rotary tool
- optional cross perforating modules
- can create up to 24 up business cards on 12”x18” sheet
- can create slit-score greeting cards, micro-perforated coupons, direct mailers with tear-away cards
- includes PC controller, and save jobs on hard drive
- built-in CCD scanner for reading bar codes on sheets to automatically set up job
- Bar codes can be applied to sheets with Fiery System 10 or newer
– Hewlett Packard announced it has made decisions on how to address shareholders’ securities fraud claims over its $8.8 billion writedown for its $11.1 billion purchase of British software company, Autonomy., but wants 6 more weeks to decide what legal course to pursue.
– Hewlett Packard will repay $459,000 in incentives it received from the state of Arkansas, after it failed to hire the software programmers it promised for an office in Conway.
– Hewlett Packard, which purchased Palm Computing for $1 billion in 2014, announced it has sold 1,400 Palm smart phone patents to Qualcomm Inc. of San Diego, CA for an unknown amount.
– Sharp announced it will carry power filters made by ESP, to market through its branches and dealers as accessories for its MFPs.
– In a cost cutting move, Sharp announced it will close a solar panel manufacturing plant in Memphis, TN, and lay off 300 employees.
– Morgan Stanley’s survey reveals:
- U.S. CIOs plan on spending 4.8% more on IT products and services in 2014 than 2013
- focus budgets on cloud computing, ERP (enterprise resource planning) and analytics software
- 70% of application workloads reside in on-premises servers, but expect that to shrink to 61% by end of 2015
- plan to increase share of workloads in clouds from 10% to 18%
- plan on increasing spend on PCs to refresh installed base due to Microsoft’s end of support for Windows XP
– IBM’s CEO, Ginni Rometty, announced that she and her team will forego their annual incentive payments for 2013, as the company’s total revenue fell 2% to $99.8 billion in 2013.
- 4th quarter revenue was down 5%
- hardware revenue down 26%
- software revenue was up 2.8% to $8.14 billion
- Ms. Rometty’s salary is $1.5 million/year, and annual bonus was supposed to be $4 million.
- will invest $1.2 billion to expand it cloud storage business
– Lenovo of China announced its intention to buy the low end computer server business from IBM for $2.3 billion.
- expects to offer jobs to 7,500 IBM employees as part of its acquisition of the so-called x86 server business.
– Cisco revealed results of survey that shows that 99% of all reported malware is targeted for mobile devices running Android operating system.
– Toshiba was sued by operators of the Burns Lake sawmill in British Columbia, Canada, claiming that a defective Toshiba-made motor caused a fire in 2012 that killed 2 men and seriously injured 20 others.
– Toshiba, which has invested a large amount of R&D to bring to market 3D televisions, had a spokesperson respond to the lack of sales:
- “No, there is not still demand for 3D”
- “We have not seen a huge demand for 3D and we do not see that trend extending its lifeline much further.”
– Kyocera (aka Kyoto Ceramic Company) announced it own contract to build a 725 kilowatt solar plant and install 2,900 solar modules on a soccer stadium in The Hague, in The Netherlands.
– Screen announced it sold a Truepress Jet520EX production b/w inkjet press to Total Printing Systems of Newton, IL.
– Harvard Business Review published study indicating that smartphone use after 9pm makes workers less productive the following day.
– Nuance Corp., maker of eCopy document capture solutions, released results of survey of healthcare providers:
- Have you evaluated or implemented new solution for clinical documentation?
- How disruptive do you find post patient discharge coding queries (so that doctor can be reimbursed)?
- 18% = extremely disruptive
- 47% = very disruptive
- 33% = some disruptive
- Will the new ICD-10 coding system make it better or worse?
- Would you be more responsive if Clinical documents were delivered in real time?
– Allscripts announced it won EHR contract from South Nassau Communities Hospital of New York.
– GE announced it has acquired API Healthcare of Wisconsin, maker of workforce management and analytics software for the healthcare vertical.
– Xerox announced it will hire 77 employees for a call center in Lexington, KY as it won a health insurance exchange support contract from the state.
– Martin Hospital of Stuart, FL announced that its $80 million Epic EHR system crashed recently, forcing employees at 3 hospitals and all of its clinics to revert back to paper records.
– Epic announced it won contract from Wellmont Health System of Ohio to replace its McKesson EHR.
– A federal judge ordered St. Luke’s Health System of Idaho to sell off its Saltzer Medical Physician Group is acquired, claiming that its $200 million Epic EHR would give it an unfair competitive advantage as compared to other facilities in the area.
– Fox Rothschild LLP launched a new application for Apple mobile devices to help healthcare management in responded to HIPAA breaches.
– Federal regulators approved San Francisco General Hospital’s plans to beef up its security procedures after a patient was found dead in a stairwell more than 2 weeks after she went missing from her room.
– HIPAA/Data Security Breaches:
- San Francisco General Hospital announced that it has fined and put on administrative leave 4 employees who illegally accessed the PHI of a patient who was found dead in a stairwell.
- Officials of Elyria, Ohio notified 15,000 patients that their PHI may have been exposed after a desktop computer was left behind when Dr. Chuka Onyeneke moved to a new office and did not take it with him.
- Medicentres Family Health Care Clinics, which operates 25 clinics in Canada, notified 620,000 patients that their PHI (personal health information) was exposed after a laptop computer was stolen .
- CaroMont Regional Medical Center of Dallas, TX notified 191 patients that their PHI was exposed after paper files were stolen from an employee’s car.
- Phillip Schaefer, a 54 year old man from Minnesota, inadvertently received free treatment for $45,000 worth of care from Dixie Regional Medical Center, when he told staff he was David Gilmour of the rock band, Pink Floyd, and that his agent would come and pay the bill.