- Microsoft reportedly is moving Windows 9 operating system (code-named “Threshold”) launch date from 2015 to later this year, since the Windows 8 launch has been unsuccessful.
- Xerox published results of survey of decision makers who answered the question, “Will printing ever truly vanish from the workplace?”:
- 76% = “No, print will always exist in some form”
- 18% = “Yes, but not within the next decade”
- 6% = “Yes, within the next decade”
- Xerox’s Lynn Blodgett, an executive VP, agreed to pay $464,000 to resolve Federal Securities & Exchange Commission charges, steaming from an investigation into accounting practices, that included inflating company revenues. Mr. Blodgett announced he will retire on 12/31/2014.
- Xerox now shipping the WorkCentre 5945/5955 series of A3 b/w MFPs:
- Made by Fuji
- 45ppm and 55ppm top speeds respectively
- Document feeder scans both sides of originals at same time
- Top speed of 100opm
- Scan in color or b/w
- Max duty cycle up to 200K/month
- 7 second first copy out time
- 1200x1200dpi
- Uses Emulsion Aggregate (polymerized) toner
- Comes standard with 100 sheet bypass, two 500 sheet universal drawers and 3600 sheet letter size drawer
- Optional envelope tray kit
- Finishing options include stapling, booklet making, and hole punch
- EIP platform to allow integrated apps into control panel
- Fax board option
- Built-in print controller
- Actual maker unknown
- Comes standard with McAfee data security kit
- 2GB RAM
- 250GB hard drive
- 1GHz processor
- 10/100/1000BaseT & USB ports
- PCL and PS print drivers standard
- Samsung is denying a report from China Labor Watch, that a plant in Huizhou, Guandong, China is employing children between the ages of 14 and 16 years old, and is paying them $1.38/hour, including overtime.
- Samsung launched two new desktop color A4 laser products:
- MFP ProXpress C2620 and C2670
- Equipped with NFC (near field communications) technology for printing from smart phones and tablets (just tap device to the MFP
- XOA enabled for optional integrated applications
- ReCP (rendering engine for clean page) image technology
- Polymerized toner
- Top speed of 26ppm
- 3” color touchscreen LCD control panel
- Photizo Group published ink and toner forecasts for 2014 and 2015:
- Worldwide single color ink cartridge shipments to increase in single digits
- Worldwide single color ink cartridge revenue to increase in single digits
- Single color ink cartridge usage per machine will rise over next 5 years 14%
- There were approximately 43 million color laser printers and MFPs in use in 2013
- There were approximately 376 million machines in 2013 that uses single color ink cartridges
- Forecasts a decline worldwide in 3 areas:
- Color toner cartridge shipments down
- Color toner cartridge revenue down
- Color toner cartridge use per machine down 20%
- Apttus released results of study of Fortune 1000 companies regarding sales process:
- 20% = could not state their sales win rate percentage
- 40% = need 3 or more days to get proposal to customer
- 49% = need more than a week to get a contract signed
- 33% = do not manage contract renewals effectively
- 20% = have chronically inaccurate sales forecasts
- Canon announced it sold a Dreamlabo 5000 production color inkjet photo printer to Edathadan Digital Press of Kochi, India. (Base MSRP is $1 million)
- Canon announced it won a uniFLOW (from NTWare of Germany) solution contract from the Winthrop & Weinstine Law Firm of Minneapolis, Minnesota:
- Document capture solution that integrates with the firm’s iManaged document management system
- Follow you printing with authentication
- Canon announced it sold an Oce’ ColorStream 3900 production color inkjet system to Access Direct Inc. of Farmingdale, NY to produce variable data direct mail pieces.
- Canon announced it placed an Oce’ JetStream 5500 and ColorStream 3000 production inkjet presses at MBO Digital in England, to produce books on demand.
- Canon launched Mobile Scanning For Business, which allows its MFPs to scan to an Android-based mobile device.
- Canon announced it will resell a cloud-based version of document management system from Therefore Software of Austria. Pricing not announced.
- Flexprint, a multilocation managed print services dealer headquartered in Mesa, Arizona, announced that was named to Inc. Magazine’s 5000 Fastest Growing Private Companies list for 2014.
- Hewlett Packard announced it will layoff 800 employees in Bangalore, India due to cost cutting.
- Hewlett Packard announced that a former assistant, Holli Dawn Coulman, who worked for a senior HP VP, was arrested for fraud, and is facing a possible sentence of 20 years in prison:
- Expensed nearly $1 million on trips and purchases
- Trips to Hawaii and Europe
- Had several HP American Express credit cards
- Expensed purchases at Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom
- Spent $100,000 at La Costa Resort & Spa
- Spent $43,000 at The Lodge at Pebble Beach and Casa Palmero at Pebble Beach
- Expensed purchases at Apple Store
- Spent $350,000 at her brother’s painting business
- Hewlett Packard announced that it surpassed IBM as No. 1 in computer server sales last quarter:
- IBM sales fell 10%
- HP recorded $3.2 billion in worldwide server sales, or 25.4% of market, up 4%
- In addition to going after former Autonomy Corp. executives, HP also plans on suing Deloitte over its role in auditing Autonomy’s books.
- Hewlett Packard announced it is recalling 6 million power cords from owners of the company’s computers, due to risk of the cords melting of charring.
- Huddle Software announced it won a document management solution contract from Hardesty & Hannover Engineering. Used for:
- Project calendars
- Workflow for project approvals
- Create PDFs of drawings and calculations
- Archival of final versions
- Engineering knowledge base
- Human resource documents
- Engineering bulletins
- IDC reported more data on large format printer sales during last quarter:
- Market up 5.3%
- More than 77,000 units shipped
- Total value down 0.5% to $786 million
- S. market up 6.2%
- The aqueous color inkjet market will grow in single digits for next 2 years
- Technical segment up 2.1% to 46,000 units or 60% of market
- Graphics segment up 10.3% to 31,000 units
- HP shipped 30,700 units of 39.9% marketshare, up 7.4%
- Kodak announced it sold a Timson T-Press Digital Inkjet Web Press (top speed of 650 feet per minute) to Bang Printing in Brainerd, Minnesota, for on demand book production.
- Apple will conduct a press conference on 9/9/2014, and reportedly will unveil:
- iWatch wearable device
- HealthKit health and fitness app
- HomeKit app for controlling connected devices at home remotely
- iPhone 6 with a 5.5” color touchscreen LCD display
- iPad with a 12.9” LCD screen as large as a sheet of paper
- InfoTrends released new study of commercial production printing:
- 2% of shops reported revenue growth
- 6% say revenue is unchanged
- 1% experienced a decline
- The print service providers that grew 10% or more attributed it to value added services
- The print service providers that shrank attributed it to decrease in conventional printing (i.e. offset)
- The print service providers that grew, have 24-33% of their revenue coming from variable data jobs
- CompTIA released results of managed print services survey:
- 86% of dealers that provide managed print services, expect their MPS business to grow over the next 12 months
- 33% anticipate 10% or more growth in MPS
- 98% of workers in U.S., printed at least once during past quarter
- 50% of companies in U.S. categorize their print volumes as moderate to very high
- 36% of firms in the U.S. have some type of managed print services
- 49% of firms say they are familiar with managed print services contracts
- Of those with a MPS contract in place, 84% say they are satisfied
- Top attributes of managed print services to customers are:
- 90% = consistency and reliability of service
- 90% = quality of customer service
- 87% = freeing up staff time to do other tasks
- 84% = reporting and visibility of device usage
- 83% = speed of service/support
- Interquest published a study of printing in a connected world:
- 85% of adults use Internet
- Smart phone penetration is well over 50%, and growing double digits
- Mobile traffic accounts for 25% of total Internet traffic
- Tablet computer usage increasing 52%
- Internet advertising grew 16% in 2013
- Mobile advertising up 47%
- 90% of the revenue of direct marketing print providers generate is from print
- Expect in 3 years that non-print services will be 20% of their revenue
- 47% of merchants now using QR codes
- 84% of mail received in U.S. households is either a bill or statement
- S. households pay an average of 4.8 bills per month via mail
- 24% of adults have not read a book in past year
- Overall revenue from eBooks is down 1% in past year
- Celent published a study which says that the insurance vertical will have an increase in IT spending of 4.4% CAGR(cumulative annual growth rate) to $176.7 billion by 2016.
- “Simply put, this means investing in technology to attract clients, retain clients and maximize the underwriting result.”
- Best Buy reported a 2.7% drop in sales during last quarter.
- Industrial Inkjet Ltd. announced it will launch a range of high speed production color inkjet label printing systems using printheads from Konica Minolta, during Labelexpo Americas show on 9/9-11/2014 in Chicago, IL.
- The S. Patent and Trademark Office agreed to review the patents owned by patent troll, MPHJ Technology Investments, which pressures companies to write checks for $1000 or be sued for using their copiers to scan.
- A 3 judge panel ruled that there was a “reasonable likelihood” that petitioners Xerox, Ricoh and Lexmark would prevail on the arguments that the patents are invalid
- Reuters released results of survey regarding people who have stopped looking for work:
- Only 62.8% of the adults who are able to work, are actually employed,
- While the feds report that that unemployment rate is only 6.3%, the feds do not count people who have stopped looking for work
- Of those who have stopped looking:
- 34% are discouraged by poor job market
- 44% have not worked at all in past 5 years
- Of those who say they are retired:
- 40% would have preferred to continue working
- 30% would like to return to work if a job comes along
- Copiercareers.com released results of survey regarding relationship between sales and service:
- 30% believe that their communication between sales and service is reason for their dealership’s success
- 28% said they have enough communication to get by
- 31% say that currently do not have good communication
- 11% wish that they knew the other one existed
- Fuji of Japan announced it has developed a robot laser printer that receives your print job, then travels over to your cubicle, where you swipe an ID badge, and then the device outputs your print job while you wait. (Roomba to sell?)
- Xerox announced it will sponsor a webinar on 9/11/2014 entitled; “Electronic Health Record Divorce Rates On The Rise”.
- Xerox is being sued by a group of 6 insurance brokers who say that the state of Nevada’s ObamaCare website owes them money for enrolling Nevada residents into health plans offered on the site, but never received compensation.
- The state of Texas filed a second lawsuit against Xerox, for allegedly failing to turn over client Medicaid and health records.
- Xerox, who held a contract to managed the state’s Medicaid program, was fired by Texas after Xerox staff approved thousands of requests for braces that weren’t necessary
- The first lawsuit was over the alleged mismanagement, while 2nd suit was filed when it was found out that Xerox removed 244 boxes of records after it was fired.
- “Once again, the reckless and irresponsible actions of this company (Xerox) put Texas tax dollars at risk. It really makes you wonder what they are trying to hide.”; stated Kyle Janek, Texas Medicaid Executive Commissioner
- The state of Oregon filed a lawsuit against Oracle Software over its mothballed $240 million ObamaCare website.
- KLAS Research reports that 24% of large and small ambulatory practices are considering dumping their current EHR.
- Premier, one of the largest GPOs, announced it has purchased Aperek Software, maker of supply chain technology. Purchase price of $48.5 million.
- Premier reported that during last quarter, its revenue increased by 17%.
- Premier published survey which states that clinical health care IT spending is expected to reach $26.1 billion by 2017, and take up to 35% of a hospital’s budget.
- 41% of C-level decision makers say they are either dissatisfied or indifferent about their current EHR
- Access Software of Sulphur Springs, TX, announced it won an electronic forms contract from Kaweah Delta Health Care of California.
- Greenway has begun implementing its EHR in 8,200 Walgreens locations.
- Quality Systems Inc. announced it won a NextGen EHR contract from North Carolina Pediatric Associates.
- eClinicalWorks has begun implementing its EHR into CarePoint Health System of New Jersey.
- Also won EHR contract from Integrated Health Network of New Jersey.
- Greenville Health System of South Carolina reported it will issue $91 million in bonds so it can pay for the $97 million Epic EHR it installed.
- Sharp Healthcare of San Diego, CA announced it will drop out of the Pioneer ACO (accountable care organization) program, saying that local wages rose 8.2% in San Diego, and that the Pioneer model does not adjust payments accordingly.
- The federal Department of Defense finally issued an RFP for a new EHR, rumored to be worth $11 billion.
- Apple changed is privacy policy for HealthKit, meaning that personal health data collected by Apple devices (like the forthcoming Apple iWatch), will not be monetized or reused.
- Ralph Lauren’s company plans to launch the Polo Tech Smart Shirt, which has an accelerometer, gyroscope and heart rate monitor embedded into the shirt.
- The federal Office of National Coordinator (oversees implementation of EHRs) announced the following:
- Leaves the 365 day attestation period for 2015 unchanged (proving meaningful use of EHRs, so healthcare facilities can receive taxpayer funding)
- Stage 3 (the highest level that EHRs must achieve) is moved back a year to 2017
- Medicare’s online rating of nursing homes was found to be irrelevant and misleading, according to article in the New York Times:
- One nursing home that received a 5 star rating, was found to have killed a patient in a medication error, is involved in a dozen lawsuits, and has twice the average number of consumer complaints
- 2/3 of the 50 nursing homes on a federal watch list for quality issues have 4 or 5 star ratings on the website
- HIPAA/Data Security Breach news:
- Joshua Hippler was arrested by Longview, Texas police, and indicted by Judge John Love of Eastern District Court of Texas for illegally obtaining the PHI of patients while he worked for a healthcare facility. He faces 10 years in prison.
- Dairy Queen disclosed that a number of its stores were hit with a data breach that exposed customers’ credit card info.
- JPMorgan Chase Banks reported that it has been breached by Russian hackers, unknown how many customers are affected.
- Elizabeth’s Medical Center of Massachusetts notified 595 patients that their PHI was exposed when a laptop and thumb drive were stolen from an employee’s home.
- Cedars-Sinai Health System of Los Angeles, CA notified 500 patients that their PHI was exposed when a laptop computer was stolen from an employee’s home.
- Forbes magazine predicts that the total cost of the recent breach at Community Health Systems IDN will reach $150 million.
- A woman is suing Rady’s Children’s Hospital of San Diego, as her daughter was one of the 20,000 patients impacted by recent data breach.
- Orthopaedic Specialty Institute Medical Group of California reported that thieves took 742 boxes of X-rays that were sent to a local Iron Mountain facility.
