December 4, 2015
Sharp’s financial situation update

– Sharp Corp. has regained $433 million of market value in past week as it was reported that some banks in Japan may forgive Sharp’s loans

– Sharp’s debt has mounted to more than 5 times the value of its equity, the most for any non-financial company in the Nikkei 225 Stock Average

– The Kyodo News agency reported that Mizuho Financial Group bank and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial bank may forgive loans to secure on investment from the Japanese government through its Innovation Network Corporation (government bailout?)

 

Sharp launches new A3 b/w MFPs

– Now shipping the MX-M266N, the MX-M316N and MX-M356N

– 26ppm, 31ppm and 35ppm top speeds respectively

– MSRPs of $6700, $7650 and $8400

– 7” color touchscreen LCD display control panel

– Top of MFP’s exterior is medium gray plastic, with bottom half in off-white plastic

– 27,500 page toner yield based on 5% coverage

o 75,000 page yield for OPC drum and developer

– Base configuration weighs 112 pounds

– Comes standard with two 500 sheet paper drawers and 100 sheet bypass

o Can add up to three more 500 sheet drawers for $625 each

– $1885 for inner stapling finisher

– $1360 for fax board, with $570 to add Internet fax

– Built-in print controller

o Actual maker unknown

o $500 for 250GB hard drive option

  • $420 for data security kit

o 600MHz processor

o 2GB RAM

o 10/100/1000BaseT and USB ports

o PCL print driver is standard

  • PS print drive is $780 option

 

Sharp previews new copier models

– Future product shown at recent trade show on the island nation of Malta

– Will most likely show same prototypes at its upcoming event in San Antonio, TX on 12/3-6/2015

– The MX-M1055 and MX-M1205 are new production b/w system running at 105ppm and 120ppm top speeds respectively

– Will launch 13 new 30-60ppm A3 color laser MFPs

– All based on same engine

o New simplified color touchscreen LCD display interface

o Built-in pull printing

o Connectors for cloud based repositories

o Direct printing of Microsoft Office files via the USB port

 

Toshiba shows 3D printer prototype

– Demonstrated a prototype 3D metal printer that supposedly will deliver 10x faster output speeds than the most commonly used powder bed fusion sintering printers

– Uses laser metal deposition (LMD) technology which deposits metal powders then melts then with a laser to build up a 3D form

– Uses an innovative powder depositing nozzle with a much smaller focused area than competitors

– The prototype with an 800 watt laser beam can fabricate 3D objects with a speed of 100cc per hour

– Stainless steel, Inconel and iron can be used

– Launch date some time in 2017

– Pricing not announced

 

Toshiba’s financial troubles continue

– Company’s CEO, Masashi Muromachi, held press conference to discuss plans to raise cash

– Company is considering selling part of its semiconductor business

o “It is a core business for us, so we won’t completely detach the business from the group”

o The semiconductor business has been main money maker for the company with customers including Apple and other smartphone makers.

– Also considering selling a stake in its nuclear power division

o Toshiba is struggling to find a buyer that would be willing to accept a minority share.

– “The presented business outlook is unrealistic in many aspects.”; stated Hideki Yasuda, analyst with Ace Research Institute.

– A group of influential lawyers, led by Hideaki Kubori, is calling for Toshiba to investigate the company’s accounting practices, and does not trust the recent third party audit

o “The probe is the worst I have ever seen.”

o “Toshiba has the choice of redoing the third party prove or continuing to window dress.”

o “The company appears to be opting for the latter.”

– The Tokyo Stock Exchange placed Toshiba on a watch list, making it difficult for the company to issue new shares or debt

 

Study of law firms released

– Ari Kaplan Advisors published results of interview of law firm executives

– 67% believe that paperless law firms will be the norm by 2020

– 75% believe using mobile devices in the courtroom will become the norm

– 17% believe it is already normal to use mobile devices in the courtroom

– 44% use mobile applications for eDiscovery

– 60% say efficiency is one of the most exciting aspects of mobile technology

– 100% believe that mobile access is an essential part of job

 

 

3 copier dealers in Texas merge

– Three office equipment dealers in Texas merged together to form new dealership called “Function4”, including:

o Star Graphics of Beaumont, owned by Paul Skinner, and sells Kyocera, Sharp, Okidata, KIP and Konica Minolta

o Digitec Office Solutions of Sugar Land, founded by Bill Patsouras and Bob Evans, and sells Kyocera and Konica Minolta

o Office Equipment Center of Paris, founded by Jim Thomas, and sells Konica Minolta

 

Canon wins production print contract

– Award from CPI, the biggest book printer in England

– Installed 5 each of the Oce’ VarioPrint 6320 production b/w systems and one Oce’ VarioPrint 110 production b/w system

 

Canon exec comments on production print

– During recent press conference, Canon’s VP and GM of Marketing and Professional Services, Dennis Amorosano, gave out details of its production print division in the U.S.

o “one of the largest, if not the largest growth areas for the company”

o 30% year-over-year growth for the cut-sheet segment in the U.S.

o “Production was a great story for us in 2015, making a significant contribution for us in terms of increased revenue and profitability”

  • (Canon does not certify its numbers for its division in the U.S.)

o The imagePRESS C700 (70ppm) and C800 (80ppm) were key drivers of the company’s growth in 2015

  • Canon believes it has 30% market share in the low end of the cut sheet production segment

o So far, company has sold 12 each of the new VarioPrint i300 production color inkjet system, all sold by Canon factory direct branches

  • Average selling price between $700,000 and $800,000
  • Runs between 2 million and 4 million impressions per month

 

Canon fails in acquisition attempt

– Apparently attempted recently to acquire Sigma Corp. of Japan

– Sigma CEO, Kazuto Yamaki, rejected the offer made

– Sigma is the largest independent manufacturer of lenses

– Sigma also owns many patents, including those for layered sensors

 

Ricoh to expand managed IT services

– Company announced it is partnering with Vakrangee Corp, which is a provider of managed IT services

– Ricoh will resell these services to augment its business in the country of India

 

 

Canon exec comments on solutions

– During recent press conference, Canon’s Director of Marketing, Tom O’Neill, gave out details of its Enterprise Solutions Division in the U.S.

– Solutions service business grew by nearly 50%

– “uniFLOW (NTWare) and Therefore experienced big growth”

– “Dealers can use those tools as the platform for their consultative services”

– “From a market standpoint, customers really like the technology, but technology that doesn’t help them accomplish something is not worth a penny.”

– “Between the business analytics and workflow analysis tools offered by Therefore, in addition to the ongoing reporting that uniFLOW can provide, we are seeing our customers embrace the knowledge”

– “Cloud Portal will be expanding to all areas, for both Canon-developed and third-party solutions”

– “As we do more cloud services, we need to provide our customers with more flexibility in accessing these services”

– New Canon Business Solutions Platform (CBSP) is an infrastructure platform providing dealers with “the ability to manage ongoing subscription based services, accounts, contracts, and other things people were not ready to manage”

– “We have a vertical market approach from a marketing and support standpoint”

– Canon will employ vertical market specialists who put together the message of how the technology can be applied to those markets”

– Will launch “My ADVANCE” on future imageRUNNER MFP models that will allow users to customize the MFP’s control panel

 

Xerox wins production print contract

– Award from Vision Press of Mafikeng, North West Province, South Africa

– Installed a Versant 80 production color system

– Will be used to produce annual reports, and other documents for the government vertical

– Owner Tumi Molosiwai stated reasons he chose the Versant 80 over competitive models was its ability to:

o 80K/month duty cycle

o Run media up to 350gsm

o 2400x2400dpi imaging resolution

o 1200x1200dpi by 10 bit rendering resolution

o Simple Image Quality Adjustment tool

o Density Uniformity Adjustment

 

Xerox publishes results of survey

– 54% of consumers say they would pay more money for better customer care from their preferred brands

– 31% do not want any form of personalization using personal data

– 50% of those over 50 years old were uncomfortable with brands’ use of their personal data

– 56% express comfort with alternative methods of digital communication

– 51% of consumers in 3 sectors surveyed expect to buy into a single brand

– 32% still view call centers as the channel of choice for customer care

– 42% believe that there will be no call centers by 2025

– 38% prefer a retail store as most preferred route for signup

 

Xerox suing the state of New Hampshire

– Claims in court that the state acted in bad faith when it awarded an electronic toll collection contract to one of Xerox’s competitors

– Xerox had the contract since 2004, and has enjoyed 3 contract renewals, the last of which is set to expire on 9/30/16

– Company is protesting the award of a 6 year, $51.9 million contract to Cubic Transportation Systems

– Xerox claims that its bid was $3.6 million cheaper

 

 

Xerox launches new solutions

– Digital Alternatives 2.0 is a desktop and mobile assistant application that automates paper-based workflows

– DocuShare 7.0 is a new release of the company’s ECM solution that includes new content rule and reporting capabilities

– Pricing not announced

 

Xerox management being challenged

– Famous investor, Carl Icahn, announced he is now the second largest shareholder of the company

– According to CNBC, he has demanded a meeting with Xerox management to discuss the future of the company

– Carl Icahn is known as a “corporate raider”, where he pushes companies to break apart, as he believes that they are worth more as separate companies, rather than as one

 

HP Inc. gives out its first quarterly numbers

– Total revenue down 9% to $25.7 billion

– Net income was down 1% to $1.3 billion

– Total printing revenue down 14% to $5 billion

o More than double the decline that analysts had projected

o Unit sales of commercial printers down 23%

o Printer/MFP supply revenue down 10%

o Total printer/MFP units down 17%

 

Man held up to steal his toner

– Washington D.C. area police are looking for two men who stole two toner cartridges

– On Tuesday night, two men with a gun, stopped a man who was leaving a Staples store, and grabbed a bag he was holding that contained the two cartridges

 

Ricoh wins awards for its PPS products

– Buyers Labs Inc.(BLI) gave out its 2016 PRO Award for “Outstanding Mid to High Volume Color Production Device” to the Ricoh Pro C9110

– BLI gave out its 2016 PRO Award for “Outstanding Light to Mid-Volume Color Production Device” to the Ricoh Pro C7110X

 

WiFi to be supplemented by LiFi?

– According to the International Business Times newspaper, researchers are trying to bring LiFi to market for more secure wireless networking

– LiFi was invented in 2011 by Professor Harald Haas, of the University of Edinburgh in England

– The technology transmits data by flickering light through a single LED light

– LiFi has achieved data transmission speeds of up to 1GB per second, making it 100 times faster than WiFi

– “We are doing a few pilot projects within different industries where we can utilize the VLC (visible light communication) technology.”; stated Deepak Solanki, CEO of Velmenni Corp. of Estonia.

– Because visible light cannot pass through walls, it is thought that LiFi is more secure than WiFi

 

 

AIIM publishes ECM survey results

– AIIM is the Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM)

– 44% of companies that switched from an on-premises ECM (enterprise content management) deployment to its cloud counterpart were able to reduce operating costs

– 75% believe that cloud services offered similar or better security than they could provide for their own servers

– 24% of the largest organizations felt that their own servers offer better security

o 17% of small companies feel that their own servers offer better security

– 70% of users have a positive outlook towards ECM in cloud

o 38% of company leadership have positive outlook towards ECM in cloud

– 84% achieved payback from their paper-free projects within 18 months

o 26% did so in less than 6 months

– 20% stated that their paper consumption is increasing

o 49% say it is decreasing

o 17% claim to work in a paper-free office

– 49% said main reason that paper processes are still used is due to lack of management initiatives and staff preferences

o 39% said there is a lack of understanding of paper-free options

– 57% stated that they are committed to digital transformation

– 56% are still wed to signatures on paper for contracts and other forms

 

Cabinet Software launches DM in cloud

– Launched SAFE CLOUD 10, a document management system that is cloud-based

– Solution includes OCR (optical character recognition) engine

– Full text searchable

– Indexes and routes to repository and/or workflow

– Can build rules based workflows

– Ability for users to check-in/checkout documents

– Maintains full document version history

– $750 one time setup fee

– $300 per month for 6 named user licenses and maintenance

 

Ricoh wins production print contracts

– Award from Marlin Digital Imaging Inc. of Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada

o Installed a Ricoh Pro C7110X production color system and a Pro 8100 production b/w system

– Award from Edwardthompson, a commercial printer in Sunderland, England

o Installed a Pro C9110 production color system and Duplo DC-616 slitter/cutter

o Will be used to produce promotional games (bingo cards), leaflets, stickers, labels and flyers

 

Ricoh launches new A4 color laser MFP

– The new MP C306 replaces the MP C305

– 4 tandem OPC drum design

– Top speed of 31ppm (MP C406 will offer 35ppm color and 40ppm b/w)

– Comes standard with Android-based Smart Operation Panel (a 10” color touchscreen LCD display which sells as a $340 option on its A3 models)

– MSRP of $4419

– Fax board standard

– $70 for keyboard, but it does not attach to MFP

– Comes standard with 250 sheet drawer and 100 sheet stack bypass

o Can add two 500 sheet drawers for $629 each

– Document feeder holds up to 50 originals and scans one side at a time at 32opm

– Black toner yield of 17,000 pages based on 5% coverage per page

o Color toners have yield of 6,000 pages each based on 5% coverage per page

– Built-in print controller

o Actual maker unknown

o PCL and PS print drivers standard

  • $115 for XPS print driver

o $200 Java VM kit to run ESA apps

o $170 for web browser kit

o $370 for 320GB hard drive

  • $530 for data security kit

o $339 for NFC option

o $800 for WiFi option

o $335 for OCR board

o 533MHz RM7035C processor

o 2GB RAM

o 10/100/1000BaseT and USB ports

o $817 file format converter required to store jobs on hard drive

 

X-Rite Corp. to make technology donation

– Will donate i1 calibration and ICC profiling tools for color management

– Recipients are Cal Poly University of California and Rochester Institute of New York

– The technology will support G7 Certifications from Idealliance

 

Kyocera under pressure from stockholders

– A Hong Kong hedge fund is stepping up pressure on Kyocera Corp. to pay back more than $4 billion to investors

– Seth Fischer, chief investment officer at Oasis Management, in an interview, is demanding that Kyocera sells its $8.3 billion stake in telephone carrier KDDI Corp.

– Kyocera is the largest shareholder of KDDI, and share the same founder, Buddhist priest and billionaire Kazuo Inamori

– “Cross-shareholding are a license to laze. They are a clear demonstration of a calculated disregard for the shareholders with attractive growth prospects.”; stated Nicholas Smith, a Tokyo-based strategist at CLSA Ltd.

 

Amazon.com to deliver toner?

– Company is planning on adding printer/MFP cartridge delivery to its Dash Replenishment Service

– In future, users would be able to pay $4.99 and stick a “Dash Button” to their printer or MFP, and push it when they need supplies delivered

– Alternative, is to add DRS code to the device’s firmware, to allow the printer of MFP to send Amazon.com a signal when it is low on supplies

– Once Amazon.com receives a signal either from DRS code or Dash Button, user receives a confirmation email, to confirm or deny the order

– Amazon.com claims that Brother and Samsung have already agreed to partner in the project

 

Dell launches new color A4 MFPs

– All are actually made by Fuji of Japan (which also supplies products to Xerox)

– Dell S2825cdn has top speed of 30ppm for $479 MSRP, and directly scan documents to Microsoft SharePoint

– H625cdw has top speed of 25ppm for $399

– H825cdw has top speed of 30ppm for $529

– All have 4 tandem OPC drum design

– All use low melt temperature polymerized toner

– Black toner for $71 has yield of 3000 pages based on 5% coverage per page

o Color toners sell for $106 each and have yield of 2500 pages based on 5% coverage

– All have 250 sheet paper drawer and 50 sheet stack bypass

– All have document feeder that holds up to 50 originals and scan both sides of page at same time

 

Hyland Software opens new data center

– Company announced it has opened a new data cloud center in Mexico

– Now has a total of 8 data centers to support Hyland OnBase Cloud including Japan, London, Australia and the Netherlands

 

Samsung launches new color A3 MFPs

– Previewed the SL-X3220NR and SL-C3280NR

– 22ppm and 28ppm top speeds respectively

– Replace the CLX-9201NA and LCX-9251NA

– Comes standard with two 520 sheet paper drawers and 100 sheet bypass

o Can add two more 520 sheet drawers

– Optional inner stapling finisher

– Document feeder can hold up to 100 originals, and scan one side at a time for 45opm top speed

– OPC drums have yield of 50,000 pages

– Black toner has yield of 25,000 pages based on 5% coverage per page

o Color toners have yield of 15,000 pages based on 5% coverage per page

– Recommended monthly page volume of 3.5K-5K per month

– Built-in print controller

o Actual maker unknown

o 1GHz processor

o 2GB RAM maximum

o 10/100BaseT & USB ports

o No hard drive

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