Ricoh holds its latest dealer show
– Held their ConvergX event at Aria Casino & Resort in Las Vegas, NV
– 1,400 dealer attendees
– h2 focus on 10.1” Smart Operation Panel on new MFPs (Android based color LCD touchscreen that used to be in option in previous models
– America’s CEO, Martin Brodigan discussed Ricoh’s current financial challenges
– On show floor, used inflatable pods to serve as presentation rooms
– Dealer sales account for 37% of U.S. sales
– Keynote speaker was former boxer, Sugar Ray Leonard
– Awards given out to dealers for performance, including TGI Office and Pacific Office Automation (highest production color sales)
Ricoh wins production print contracts
– Award from Direct Solutions, a commercial printer in Clacton, England o Installed a Pro C7100X production color system
o Reasons given by Allistair Hunter, managing director, for choosing: § Top speed of 80ppm
§ Handle up to 360gsm
§ Print at resolution of 1200x4800dpi
o Will be used to produce variable data direct mail pieces
Ricoh expands media choice for Pro C7100
– Added certification for media from Masterpiece Graphix for the Pro C7100 production color laser system
– Includes 0.008 synthetic paper, 0.010 synthetic paper, 0.010 onyx white opaque styrene, 0.006 white vinyl, 0.008 white polyester
Ricoh gets rid of 147 employees in U.S.
– In what could be the start of large cost cutting moves to fix its financials, the company announced that it would lay off 147 workers in California
– The employees worked in a facility in Tustin, CA
Kyocera posts dismal numbers
– Net income for first half of fiscal year down 28.8% to 36.15 billion yen ($358 million)
– Profit from operations down 45.5% to 33.79 billion yen ($335 million)
– Net sales down 9.6% to 653.24 billion yen ($6.47 billion)
PowerDMS wins doc management contract
– Award from Winder Police Department of Georgia
– PowerDMS is headquartered in Orlando, FL
– WPD is paying $3300 per year in annual maintenance costs for 75 users, for a cloud-based system
Conga wins doc management contract
– Award from Temple University’s Fox School of Business in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
– Used in admissions department
– Merges multiple fields from Salesforce.com to produce single 30 page PDF
– Cleared out 15 filing cabinets
Samsung to recall more products
– Will recall 2.8 million washing machines
– Back in September, federal safety regulators advised owners of Samsung washing machine owners after customers complained about violent, almost explosive, vibrations
– The recall covers 34 different model numbers of Samsung top-loaders sold since March 2011
Samsung faces environmental crisis
– A result of a recall of smartphones that exploded or started on fire
– Now has 4.3 million Galaxy Note 7 phones that need to be disposed of
– Enough to fill 28 massive shipping containers
– Reason why disposing of them is an issue as they contain: o 20 metric tons of cobalt
o 1 ton of tungsten
o 1 ton of silver
o 100 kilograms of gold
o 60 kilograms of palladium
One dealer buys another
– Doing Better Business of Altoona, Pennsylvania announced it has acquired Total Service Inc. of Latrobe, PA.
– Both are Sharp dealers
– Total combined customer base of 7500 firms
Mega dealer buys another dealer
– Visual Edge Technology, Inc. announced it has completed the acquisition of Premier Business Products, Inc. of Detroit, Michigan
– Premier is dealer for Konica Minolta, Kyocera, Toshiba and Muratec
– Former owner, Craig Zimmerman, will stay on to run dealership
Laser printer is actually a cell tower?
– Engineer John Oliver announced a new invention called the Steal Cell Tower
– Is a converted HP LaserJet 1320 so that it is now a GSM 900 Base Station
– When phones connect to the tower, which acts like a regular cell phone service provider, it sends those phones SMS messages written in such a way that they appear to be from someone that recipient knows
– With response to SMS message, a transcript is printed revealing captured messages
Production print page growth
– Research published by Smithers Pira Inc.
– Digital pages to have 7% CAGR (cumulative annual growth rate) worldwide between 2015 and 2020 in production print market
– “We see the penetration of digital pages growing from 2.6% in 2015 to 3.7% of all production pages (analog plus digital) by 2010”
– “Digital pages are of higher value than analog (offset press) page and the digital penetration of retail value of total production print will grow from 15% in 2015 to 18% in 2020. This digital growth will be led by inkjet page growth at 13% CAGR with laser page growth of 3% CAGR”
– Inkjet pages are expected to represent nearly 60% of all digital pages printed in U.S. by 2019
Sharp’s parent to make parts for Apple
– Foxconn, aka Hon Hai Precision, announced it is making wireless charging modules
– Will apparently go with Apple iPhone’s 10th anniversary range of product to be released in 2017
– May also include Sharp-made OLED display panels
Sharp advertises “Pantone Color Match”
– Claims that its new A3 color laser MFPs now support Pantone Color Matching licensing
– (Sharp did not mention that using an EFI Fiery print server provides a Pantone color reference dictionary for any connected color MFP, and that color matching is very difficult if the customer does not utilize a spectrophotometer to color calibrate the output device)
FM firm wins new contract
– Novitex, formerly known as Pitney Bowes Management Services, announced it won 3 year contract from Nomura America Services
– Includes scanning, reprographics, mail services, reception and managed print services for offices in New York City, NY
Lexmark offers new fax solution
– Its MFPs will now integrate with babyTEL, a provider of Voice over IP, SIP trunking, and T.38 solutions
– Works with Lexmark MFPs that offer T.38 capabilities
Hospital installs 3D printer
– Installed at Phoenix Children’s Hospital in Arizona
– New Cardiac 3D Print Lab run by Justin Ryan, a digital art major from Herberger Institute for Design and Arts
– The models produced on 3D printer are used by surgeons to prepare before performing operation to remove tumors
Toshiba to launch new models
– Press conference held in Japan with Takayuji Ikeda, president of TEC division, which makes printers/MFPs
– Has started development of color A4 laser engines
– Will launch new color A4 MFPs at end of fiscal 2018
– Also has plans to “expand into vertical markets”
Canon launches online storage service
– Canon announced launch of Therefore Online SMB, a cloud storage solution
– $3,560 per year for five named users
– the cost is $59 per user per month for 10GB of cloud
– annual Therefore Online subscription starts at $520 for one named user which is $43 per month, but there is also a $225 one-time activation fee, regardless of the number of initial users.
– to enable scanning on a Canon imageRUNNER ADVANCE MFP, there is a $130 one-time fee plus a $525 per MFP annual fee and a $525 per year fee for the related capture software.
Sindoh of Korea to enter A3 MFP market?
– Sindoh Company Ltd. announced series of A3 b/w MFPs, the N610, N611, N612 and N613
– Top speeds of 26ppm, 30ppm, 35ppm and 40ppm respectively
– drum yield of 100,000 pages
– developer yield of 250,000 pages
– toner cartridge yield of 20,000-pages (based on 5% coverage per page)
– 9” color LCD touchscreen control panel
– 1200x1200dpi
– Optional fax board
– Comes standard with two 500 sheet paper drawers and 100 sheet stack bypass o Can increase to 2100 sheets
– No finishing options
– Document feeder holds up to 90 originals o Top speed of 55opm
– Does not scan both sides of original at same time
– Built-in print controller o Sourced from Global Graphics
o optional WiFi kit with NFC
o optional OCR board
o 2GB RAM
o quad core Marvell processor (dual 800 MHz cores and dual 533 MHz cores)
o Gigabit Ethernet and USB device and host ports are standard
o PCL, PostScript print drivers standard
HP wins production print contract
– Award from Kaweah Container of Visalia, CA
– Installed an HP PageWide Web Press T400S production color inkjet system
– Used to produce packaging for food, wine, industrial, agricultural and software industries
Xerox launches new A4 MFPs
– Now shipping the WorkCentre 3335 and 3345 b/w laser MFPs
– Top speeds of 35ppm and 42ppm respectively
– Are actually made by Samsung (since HP is buying Samsung’s MFP division, are these the last Samsung made models that Xerox will relabel?)
– Base MSRPs of $349 and $449
– Replace the 33 and 37 ppm WorkCentre 3315 and 3325
– 13 second first copy out time
– 30,000-page drum unit that sells for $50
– 2,600-page cartridge is $100
– 8,500-page cartridge is $190
– 15,000 page cartridge is $270
– monthly duty cycle at 50,000 pages
– recommended average monthly page volumes are 4,000 pages for the 3335 and 6,000 pages for the 3345
– fax board standard
– 250-sheet letter/legal paper cassette, a 50 sheet bypass o 550-sheet add-on paper tray is $199
– 50 sheet document feeder o Scan color at 8opm
– built-in print controller: o 1GHz dual core processor
o 1.5GB of RAM
o USB and Gigabit Ethernet ports standard
o $50 NFC enablement kit
o PCL and PostScript drivers standard
Okidata to offer MFP integrated solutions
– new sXP2 firmware in its new MFP will allow integration with following 3rd party solutions available as options:
– Presto 2 mobile printing
– PaperCut MF cost recovery
– Drive Image document capture
– SENDYS scan and document management application (from Alidata of Portugal)
– Ringdale’s FollowMe.
