Toshiba to dump 7000 employees, cut costs

– According to Nikkei News, Toshiba targets 200 billion yen ($1.77 billion) in cost cuts over the next 3 years and plans to liquidate a risky U.K. nuclear venture, part of an effort to shore up its finances

– Plans will be included in a 5-year management plan starting fiscal 2019 to be released

– Chairman and CEO Nobuaki Kurumatani, who took the helm in April, has indicated that substantial cost reductions are necessary to ensure Toshiba stays on its feet.

– payroll will be lowered by roughly 7,000 workers, or about 5%, over the next five years

– will offer early retirement packages, particularly in divisions with low growth potential, such as power systems.

– will look to improve efficiency by redistributing employees and investing 100 billion yen in information technology

– seek to spend less on procurement by negotiating better terms with suppliers

– now forecasts sales of 3.6 trillion yen this fiscal year, down 40% from a decade earlier

– will target an operating profit margin of at least 10% in fiscal 2023

– operating profit margin came to just 1.6% last fiscal year

Toshiba gives out awards to dealers

o Brookfield, Wis. reseller, James Imaging Systems = 2018 Dealer of the Year

o Houston reseller, Stargel Office Solutions = All Star

o Oklahoma Copier Solutions, located in Norman, Okla = Rookie of the Year

o regional award winners include:

  • Atlantic Tomorrow’s Office, headquartered in New York (East region)
  • Chicago-based Proven IT (Midwest region)
  • Kelley Imaging Systems located in Kent, Wash. (West region).
  • Vanco Systems of Texarkana, TX (South region)

 

Toshiba launches new A4 MFPs

– introduction of three A4 desktop copier/MFPs that start at base MSRP of $3,575

– color 40-ppm e-STUDIO389CS, color 50-ppm e-STUDIO479CS; and b/w 50-ppm e-STUDIO478S

– reportedly are actually manufactured by Brother

– A Google Drive app enables users to scan and print documents from this popular cloud-storage and file-backup service directly from the MFP’s 7-inch front panel

– Solution Composer app further equips resellers with the capability to create custom workflow applications based on a client’s specific business processes

o app’s drag and drop design

– Security Held Print Jobs feature

– Hard disc drive encryption and wiping

 

Canon supports university film

– Creighton University in Omaha, NE and Canon welcomed students, faculty, and special guest, Stephanie Sinclair, to the premiere of a documentary film, The Displaced

– film was created by students of the University’s Backpack Journalism program

– group traveled to the border of South Sudan and Uganda on a five-week mission to produce the film

– film focuses on the area’s nearly 1.5 million refugees, who have fled war and violence

– the team shot the film using Canon equipment and will provide large format printing services to produce still images for display

 

Canon wins production print contract

– award from BIP Printing Solutions (BIP) of Beachwood, Ohio

– installed an Océ ColorStream 3900 production color inkjet system

– will be used to produce books on demand

– also included Océ PRISMAproduction print workflow and output management system.

 

Dealer expansions and acquisitions

Woodhull,

a Ricoh dealer headquartered in Dayton, Ohio, announced it is opening up new location in Columbus, Ohio

Ray Morgan Company and UBEO Business Services

announced they have merged

o combined businesses will represent more than 700 employees and an installed base of 135,000 machines in field (MIF)

o Ray Morgan, a Ricoh/Canon dealer in Northern California/Nevada, is projected to have about $120 million in sales this year

  • Headquarters in Chico, CA

o will focus aggressively on acquisitions in both the copier and IT channels.

o UBEO, with locations in Texas/Louisiana, is a portfolio company of private equity firm Sentinel Capital Partners based in Texas

Marco,

headquartered in St. Cloud, MN, has announced the acquisition of

Phillips Office Solutions

o Phillips has 140 employees in 10 offices across Pennsylvania and Maryland

o will operate as Phillips for “a short time”

o Bill Shuey, former Phillips president, is now Regional President of Copier & ECM Solutions and serves on Marco’s executive leadership team

o With the addition of the Phillips’ team, Marco now has 1,360 employees serving over 35,000 customers from 61 locations nationally

CDS Office Technologies

, headquartered in Illinois, announced a merger with Tech Guy Consulting, Anna, IL.

 

Kodak to codevelop 3D printing technology

– Eastman Kodak and Evolve Additive Solutions, Inc. announced a technology partnership where Kodak will supply Evolve imaging systems, parts and consumables based on the KODAK NEXPRESS production color LED platform

– companies also signed Joint Development Agreements for equipment and materials with the goal of developing Evolve’s Selective Thermoplastic Electrophotographic Process (STEP) technology

– STEP is Evolve’s proprietary 3D printing technology for additive manufacturing

– The first STEP system has shipped under an alpha development program and has been installed at a strategic partner location

 

HP exec discusses strategy

– HP Inc. commemorated its anniversary as an independent company devoted to printing and PCs at a press event in Palo Alto, CA

– Enrique Lores, president of HP Inc.’s Imaging and Printing group, outlined HP’s growth strategies:

o “Reignite” HP’s home printing segment with new models such as Tango, billed as the world’s first smart printer and controlled by voice or phone

o Grow profitable office print/copy share.

o Disrupt the contractual copier business

o Continue to grow as well as expand in the graphics-printing industry

o Lead in 3D printing for industry and manufacturing.

o Improved Financials

– In the home-printing segment, the adoption rate for HP’s Instant Ink automatic ink-cartridge fulfillment program was up 20% percent in current fiscal-year

– Claims that A3 copier/MFP market share was 9%, up 2 points year-over-year.

– In the graphics-printer segment, HP page growth was up 10 percent year-over-year.

– expecting printing-as-a-service to drive growth in fiscal-year 2019 and beyond.

– Claims to have grown its A4 office market share 1% to reach 47%

– Claims to have grown its managed print services (MPS) share to 10%

– “The A3 market is critical to bringing print back to growth. That’s the $55 billion market opportunity for us to go after—to go after aggressively with technology and differentiation.”

 

Sharp hires new executive

– Sharp, a division of Hon Hai Precision of Taiwan (aka Foxconn), announced that Bob Madaio has joined the organization as its new Vice President of Marketing

– will report directly to President and CEO Mike Marusic

– will be responsible for the organization’s B2B marketing efforts across networked multifunctional printers, professional displays and its growing smart office and IT solutions business.

– Previously worked for Hitachi and EMC

 

Sharp sells off solar division

– NantEnergy, a Scottsdale, Ariz.-based energy storage company, has acquired the energy systems and services business of Sharp Electronics Corp.(a division of Hon Hai Precision of Taiwan)

– According to NantEnergy, Sharp’s energy systems and services business develops and delivers energy management products for the U.S. market. Included in the acquisition is the SmartStorage behind-the-meter energy storage system

 

Ricoh gives large dealer award

– Impact Networking, headquartered in Lake Forest, Illinois, was given the 2019 Ricoh Circle of Excellence Award

– Impact has received this distinction for the last seven years

– also had seven Service Engineers achieve the Ricoh Prestige Certification.

– award honors the top dealers in the United States based on technical expertise and quality of service, model certification, efficiency, response time success rates and overall customer satisfaction

 

Flex hires another executive

– Flex Technology Group (FTG), headquartered in Mesa, AZ, has announced the expansion of its executive team with the addition of Scott Blitz as vice president of marketing

– Blitz will support FTG’s ongoing growth and scale by forging closer relationships with OEM partners and managing the brand across the country.

– “Our vendor partners are critical to our growth, and one of Scott’s primary areas of responsibility will be to work with them to ensure we are maximizing their capabilities so that Flex Technology Group provides the highest possible service wrapped around the best product portfolio for our customers,” said Tom Callinan, president of Flex Technology Group.

– Blitz brings to FTG more than 25 years of industry leadership having previously served as the president of Global Imaging System’s Arizona Office Technologies (AOT), a Xerox subsidiary

– Prior to his time at AOT, Blitz was a regional sales manager for Sharp Electronics and an area sales manager at Danka Office Imaging, subsequently acquired by Konica Minolta.

 

OpenText cloud strategy

– OpenText, headquartered in Ontario, Canada, announced the launch of OpenText Business Network Cloud 16.10

– For Enterprise Information Management (EIM) deployments, with options for AI, automation, IoT and content services for on-premises, across public, private, and hybrid cloud deployments.

– New OpenText applications built on OT2 include:

o OpenText Legal Center – a cloud-based, process-centric approach to addressing specialized legal use cases like client onboarding, external sharing & collaboration, and document management.

o OpenText Quality Center – building on OpenText Documentum for Life Science and Opentext Life Science Express to deliver secure collaboration solutions for the highly-regulated life sciences sector.

o Extended ECM for SuccessFactors Public Cloud Edition – the latest collaboration between SAP and OpenText, delivering secure content management solutions for SAP’s popular talent management platform.

– Announced it has selected Google Cloud as its first partner to support OpenText Anywhere, making OpenText solutions and managed services available in the Google Cloud.

 

Brother reports earnings for last 6 months

– total revenue down 0.8%

o operating profit was up 21.5%

o net income was up 25.9%

o Sales were down 27%

– Printing & Solutions group, sales were down 0.3%

o operating profit was up 29.0 percent.

o b/w laser printers and MFPs decreased slightly

o Color laser printers and MFPs:are expanding steadily.

o Label-printer business is tracking above plan on a global basis.

 

RISO names new executive

– promoted John Vavra from Vice President of Dealer Sales to VP of Sales

– will oversee the Dealer operation as well as the Direct and Reseller Divisions at RISO Inc.

 

Xerox wins production print contract

– award from the Fitch Group of New York City, NY

– installed two Xerox Iridesse production color laser systems

– used to produce color books, booklets and marketing materials

– technology

– Medicare will pay providers for new communication technology-based services, such as brief check-ins between patients and practitioners

– pay separately for evaluation of remote pre-recorded images and/or video

– expanding the list of Medicare-covered telehealth services.

 

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