Fujifilm sees no breakup with Xerox
– Reuters New Service reported that Fuji president Kouichi Tamai stated; “I’m confident a breakup will not happen because that wouldn’t make sense (for Xerox) in terms of the energy, money and time it would take to do so,”
– Believes that escalating dispute between the partners will not lead to the venture’s dissolution.
– For Fuji, a breakup with Xerox could result in the loss of over $1 billion in revenue, but Tamai said turning to other vendors would be disadvantageous for Xerox.
– “That would increase costs for Xerox,” he said. “It is my responsibility to convince Xerox that it is cheaper and more reasonable to source products from us.”
– “My mission is to persuade Xerox executives that the merger would be the best solution for both companies,” he said. “Daily interactions with them actually have given me a feeling that many at Xerox actually support the merger.”
– Xerox and Fujifilm are locked in a legal battle over the termination of their acquisition deal, which was agreed in January this year.
Fujifilm wins MPS contract
– award from Department of Human Service in Australia
– 3 year contract worth $32.7 million
– Includes printers and MFPs
Xerox to sell off leasing unit?
– Reuters News Services is reporting that Xerox is attempting to sell of its leasing division
– Sources indicate that the company thinks it will be more attractive to potential bidders without the unit weighing down its debt load
– “would relieve Xerox of roughly $3.6 billion in debt”
– “would allow private equity firms to place more debt on the company to juice returns”
Xerox exec interview
– CRN magazine interview with Pete Peterson, president of Xerox channels
– Sales last year dipped 4.7% from the year prior, to $10.3 billion
– For the period ending March 31, sales totaled $2.44 billion compared to $2.45 billion one year ago.
– Gartner said, “the market is expected to post a five-year CAGR of negative 0.7% through 2022.”
– Statista expects the number of printers and copiers sold worldwide to fall to 11.9 million units in 2021 from 12.38 million in 2017
– Xerox currently has 500-600 sales agents and concessionaires that represent Xerox exclusively to their clients around the globe
o Also has 500-or-so document technology partners (DTPs), including office-products dealers that represent, in many instances, several printer/copier brands.
o 2,500 IT resellers that belong to the Xerox Velocity partner program and are supported by the company’s leading distributors, which include Tech Data, Ingram Micro and Synnex
– dozens of dealer partners have recently become certified to resell Xerox managed print services within the last six months, including:
o AIS of Las Vegas
o Allied Business Solutions from Boise, Idaho
Xerox launches new solutions
– Xerox Workplace Solutions includes print management and mobility offerings available in cloud or on-premise server versions
– Content Security monitors all content that is printed, copied or scanned
o automatically notifying content owners or administrators if sensitive information is being printed or shared
– Mobile Phone Unlock enables a mobile phone to unlock and authenticate Xerox MFPs
o eliminates the need for card readers and their proximity cards
o Users are authenticated by the Xerox Print Portal app on their phone and the Near Field Communication built into the devices’ user interface
o can also authenticate by scanning QR codes found on the UI of Xerox printers.
– Reporting dashboard aggregates network-printing statistics in one place for analysis and monitoring
– Essential print rules restrict access to devices or features at the user or group level
– Support for the Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2 government encryption standard
– Pricing for these new solutions not announced
Xerox wins production print contracts
– Award from Romax, a direct mail firm in Greenwich, London
o Installed an iGen 5 production color laser system
o Reasons given for choosing include:
§ extra-long sheet capacity
§ optional 5th toner station that can take orange, green, blue, white or clear inks
§ top speed of 150ppm
§ 2400x2400dpi
§ Handles up to 550gsm
– Award from Branders Printing Co. of South Aftica
o Installed Versant 180 production color laser system
o Top speed of 80 ppm on all media
Lexmark offers new solution for A4 MFPs
– Announced now offers Ringdale FollowMe integration for new Lexmark A4 printers and MFPs
– secure document output management solutions
– available across the new A4 color CS622de Series, CX520 Series, CX620 Series and large workgroup mono MS820e Series, MX720 Series and MX820 Series devices
Lexmark toner recycling
– Lexmark, owned by Ninestar of China, claims that it collected 7,634 metric tons of returned toner cartridges from its customers in 2017
– 97% of materials reclaimed from these cartridges were reused or recycled
– 40%t of total Lexmark toner cartridges shipped worldwide last year were returned
– Reclaimed plastic is incorporated into 40 Lexmark components
Epson announced new factory
– reported that it’s completed construction work on a new factory at its Hirooka Office in Shiojiri, Japan
– began constructing in the autumn of 2016
– will be used to produce Epson PrecisionCore print chips, a core component of Epson’s production color inkjet print heads for printers and MFPs
– will begin operations in Epson’s 2018 fiscal year (that will end on March 31, 2019), will triple Epson’s current PrecisionCore print-chip production capacity.
– plans to roll-out sales of its PrecisionCore print heads for large-format printers worldwide
– will house a factory for prototyping and volume-producing large commercial and industrial printing systems
– also serve as a test laboratory for Epson digital textile printing.
Caught making fake currency with MFP
– Police arrested Helena Lucky & Clinton Curry, both from San Francisco after an attempt to make a purchase at Home Depot using fake currency
– Following the arrest, police found thousands of dollars in counterfeit bills — mostly 20s and some 100s — in the suspects’ vehicle
Ricoh ends stadium naming contract
– Coca-Cola announced it is taking over naming rights from the Ricoh Coliseum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada
– The stadium is renamed the Coca-Cola Coliseum, home to the Toronto Marlies hockey team and Royal Winter Fair
Ricoh fights labor law suit
– Ricoh recently filed a motion to remove to federal court a lawsuit claiming the company violated California Labor laws by not allowing employees to take meals and breaks and failing to reimburse or pay overtime wages.
– complaint alleged nine counts for “failure to pay minimum wage and overtime, failure to provide meal periods, failure to permit rest periods, failure to reimburse business expenses, failure to pay final wages, failure to provide accurate, itemized wage statements, failure to maintain accurate records, unfair competition, and relief under the Private Attorneys General Act of 2004.”
– representative for approximately 380 former service technicians
– plaintiffs are seeking damages, civil penalties and penalties
– total amount in controversy for plaintiff’s overtime claim alone is approximately $34,642,572
Ricoh VP of Marketing interview
– during recent Ricoh ConvergX dealer meeting in Las Vegas, Glenn Laverty, Ricoh USA’s senior vice president, marketing, shared services and president and CEO, Ricoh Canada, Inc. gave interview
– claims that according to IDC, Ricoh has the best security ratings in the industry, and dealers must “take advantage of that”
– dealers’ should focus on providing workflow solutions for customers
– 90% of all companies are considered SMBs
– “We need to speed up our execution and that is our biggest challenge in our game plan,” he added. “We are 100% confident our approach will win out.”
– Will launch a new production product at SGIA on October 18th in Las Vegas
– “We are expanding the world of print,” emphasized Laverty about the company’s production print product pipeline.
BLI gives out PaceSetter Awards
– Canon & Sharp both win for “Ease of Use: Enterprise Devices 2018–2019” awards
o Canon’s control panel was ranked extremely easy to use and offers several customizations through presets, screen design, and favorites
– Sharp offers a standard integrated keyboard, making data entry at the MFP as fast as it would be at a computer
Samsung to have largest phone factory
– Samsung has announced that it will be expanding one of its mobile phone factories in India making it the largest in the world
– 120 million devices per year to be produced out of its Noida, Uttar Pradesh, facility — which currently produces 68 million units each year.
Samsung phones continue to explode
– Odessa, Florida resident Dave Warden III reported that his Samsung phone began to start smoking on the kitchen counter as he was finishing up dinner.
– “There was popping, cracking, tingling.” Warden said.
– the smoke quickly turned into flames
– attempted to throw the phone in the sink, but missed the sink altogether
– was left with burns on his hands from the incident
– “It burned for so long that we actually had enough time to grab my phone and actually get video of it burning up.”
Samsung under investigation again
– South Korea’s top financial regulator said Thursday it had found intentional breaches of accounting rules at Samsung’s Biologics division
– will bring the case to prosecutors and ask Samsung Biologics to dismiss executives in charge of accounting breaches
– will also penalize an accounting firm that audited Samsung.
– company failed to notify investors of crucial information related to its joint venture agreement with Biogen, a U.S. biotechnology company.
– “The company clearly violated accounting rules and it was intentional when it did not disclose the information in regulatory filing,” Kim Yongbeom, vice chairman of the Financial Services Commission, told reporters.
Supplies Network to offer Innovolt
– Supplies Network, distributor of copiers, MFPs and printers, and leading MPS provider in the U.S., announced new partnership with Innovolt, maker of intelligent power protection and analytics for businesses
– Through Innovolt’s fleet-wide monitoring and analytics capabilities, service managers and technicians will be equipped with information to resolve issues in the field
Tom Johnson wins award
– The Cannata Report announced that it gave out a 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award to Tom Johnson
– “Tom has had an enormous impact on the viability of the independent copier dealer channel. Mention the name Tom Johnson to people in the industry and many will remark that he created a business model that became the bible for successful dealers.”
– History include:
o served in the United States Marine Corps from 1966-1968.
o Harvard Business School and received an MBA in 1976.
o hired by Alco as an assistant to the president
o worked for Danka before forming his own consulting firm and began teaching dealers his business model
o In 1995, Carl Thoma approached Tom to start another copier business acquisition company, which became Global Imaging
§ took Global public in 1998
§ acquired 100 companies and was generating $1.3 billion
§ sold the company to Xerox in 2006
Does open office kill productivity?
– Harvard Business School professors studied an office setting before and after an open-plan renovation at a Fortune 500 company
– had employees wear badges that tracked when they had a face-to-face conversation, and also kept note of the amount of email and instant messaging sent in the same settings
– found that staffers spent 72% less time interacting in person
– 56% more time sending email
– number of instant messages increased by 67%
– Face-to-face interaction declined to 1.7 hours per day from 5.8 hours per day
– Executives reported that productivity also declined
– “It is not necessarily surprising that productivity declined due to a substitution of email for (face-to-face) interaction. What is surprising is that more open, transparent architecture prompted such a substitution,” the authors said.
– Employees look to find a way keep their privacy through “virtual interaction,” the authors said.
– Simply removing walls does not make employees collaborative, the study concluded, and might actually discourage it.
Solution vendor hires new exec
– Psigen Software Inc. of Madison, Alabama, announced it has hired Robert Esquivel as new Director of Channel Enablement of Western U.S.
– Maker of document capture, cloud, business process automation and document management solutions
– Robert previously worked at Kofax, Fujitsu and Epson
Kyocera to use Amazon Dash for toner
– Kyocera announced it has joined the Amazon Dash program for automated toner replenishment of Kyocera printers and copier/MFPs in England and Germany
– Kyocera devices that support Amazon Dash Replenishment include:
• ECOSYS M5521cdn • ECOSYS M5521cdw • ECOSYS M5526cdn • ECOSYS M5526cdw
• ECOSYS P5021cdn • ECOSYS P5021cdw • ECOSYS P5026cdn • ECOSYS P5026cdw
Kyocera starts reselling Ricoh b/w PPS
– Kyocera (aka Kyoto Ceramic Company) announced the launch of the TASKalfa 13600 Series, which are relabeled Ricoh b/w production laser systesm
– The TASKalfa 13600, TASKalfa 11100, and TASKalfa 9600 black & white production MFPs offer print, copy, and scan functionality, with print speeds up to 136, 111, and 96 ppm respectively
Kyocera to use Java OS in MFPs
– Kyocera (aka Kyoto Ceramic Company) announced it awarded contract to Azul Systems of Sunnyvale, California
– Kyocera has implemented Azul Zulu Embedded builds of OpenJDK (Java)
– For MFPs and printers built using both Arm and PowerPC-based microprocessors
– (many publications have detailed security vulnerabilities with Java)
BLI gives out achievement awards
– Summer 2018 Pick awards in the Scanner category
o Brother ADS-2200
o HP ScanJet Enterprise Flow N9120
o Panasonic KV-N1058X, KV-S1026C-MKII, KV-S1037X & KV-S7097
o Plustek eScan A250 & eScan Sharepoint
o Visioneer Patriot P15
o Xerox Duplex Portable Scanner
– Summer 2018 Pick awards in printer/MFP category
o Brother MFC-L2750DW
o Canon imageCLASS LBP214/215 & MF525DW
o HP Color Laserjet Pro M254DW, LaserJet M607, M609, M631 & M633
o HP PageWide color E7516DN HP Accessibility Assistant & Smart Print App
o Lexmark CS923DE
o Sharp MX- B455W
– Winners of the Reliability award
o HP Inc. – Most Reliable Business Printer & MFP Brand 2018–2021
o Kyocera – Most Reliable Color Copier MFP Brand 2018–2021
o Sharp – Most Reliable Monochrome Copier MFP Brand 2018–2021
Dealer acquisitions
DEX ImagingInc. announced the acquisition of Cavin’s Business Solutions, Inc., a Kyocera (Copystar), Konica and Xerox dealer with offices in Fayetteville, Greenville, Jacksonville and Wilmington, NC and additional service coverage in Charlotte, NC, Columbia and Charleston, SC.
-Oval Partners of San Francisco, CA (private equity firm) announced acquisition of Marimon Business Systems
o offices in Houston, Dallas, and Fort Worth, Texas
o Canon and Lexmark dealer
o Now part of the Flex Technology Group, run by CEO, Frank Gaspari
o Former owner, Anthony Marimon, is now an equity holder in FlexPrint, LLC
Heidelberg wins production print contract
– Award from The Fox Co., a commercial printer in Kennesaw, Georgia
– Installed a Versafire CV production color laser system (relabeled Ricoh Pro C7200 system)
– Reasons for choosing include:
o Top speed 90 pages per minute
o print five colors including white, clear varnish, or fluorescent neon yellow and pink
HP exec discusses strategy
– Enrique Lores, head of HP’s printer business, gave interview with CNET magazine
– end of this year, HP will launch printers for printing on fabric and garments such as sportswear
– printer business is $20 billion per year, making up about 45% of HP’s total revenue
– and 80% of total profits
– voice-activated printer may be extended to enable easier photo printing
Billions still spent on faxing PHI
– EHR Intelligence magazine interviewed WEDI (Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange) chair-elect Jay Eisenstock
– “So much of the data is unstructured because so much of it is not in a standardized format.”
– “because of the way that the data is transmitted and exchanged, there is often a lot of frustration involved”
– “$9 billion was spent in healthcare in faxing information between entities”
– “interoperability is the holy grail”
– “a few years ago the government had required use of the Direct protocol, through meaningful use, as a way to exchange information.”
– “It required that all EHR systems were compliant with meaningful use to be able to exchange using that Direct protocol”
– “Although faxing still happens, now there is technology that does that essentially behind the scenes within a computer system”
