The copier industry is constantly evolving, and staying up-to-date with the latest news and information can be crucial for businesses and professionals who rely on these machines for their daily operations. Here are the latest headlines from the Copier Industry:
Ricoh survey results on print solutions
- Executives surveyed from the commercial print industry
- 77% = looking for automation
- 80% = will be investing in production workflow automation solutions
- 66% = interested in business process automation
- 57% = believe cost saving improvements will be made with automation
- 64% = have not invested in new technology recently
Ricoh report on printing offset versus digital
- offset printing in 2015 had 90% market share
- compared to 7% for digital
- It is envisioned that by 2025, offset will decrease to a 75% share while digital printing will increase to 15.2%
- The growth of digital printing is due to:
- variable data management in transactional business and direct mail
- unusual short-run applications such as business cards, small packaging and ID cards.
Ricoh to offer new features on new A3 MFPs
- “hard toner lock” option, so end users can not change out the toner cartridge until the toner cartridge is empty
- More easily turn ports and protocols on and offer to improve security
- Network filtering
- Trusted platform module
Ricoh partners with Cisco for MFP security
- sign strategic alliance to “empower digital workplaces”
- will jointly develop solutions that deliver simpler and more secure environments across three layers (cloud, network and device) to promote digital transformation and improve productivity.
- Ricoh MFP Smart Integration and Cisco’s cloud security solutions will connect using Cisco Meraki, a cloud-based network management solution
- Will include Cisco’s information leakage prevention/detection and other advanced authentication features
- will support processes that require higher levels of security.
Kyocera joins sustainability group
- Announced that it has joined the Information Technology Industry Council Sustainability Policy Group
- Helps businesses around the world reduce their carbon footprint
Kyocera hires new PPS executive
- Also known as Kyoto Ceramic Company
- Appointed Dustin Graupman as new Senior Director of Inkjet Division
- Previously worked for Xerox
- To drive increased sales of TASKalfa Pro 15000C production color inkjet system
- Reports to CEO Oscar Sanchez
- “We didn’t enter the inkjet market to make up the numbers – we came to compete and win”
Kyocera updates features of Pro 15000C
- The TASKalfa Pro 15000C production color inkjet system now features:
- Inkjet printheads include a proprietary cleaning solution
- Solution released from a special nozzle at the end of the printhead
- Applied to the cleaning blade
- Any dried ink dissolves in the solution and surface is then wiped clean
- Waste ink tanks easily replaced
- Claims that uptime is now “more than 96%”
- Printheads have 5 year warrant
- Uses water-based inks
- Up to 3 liter replacement ink containers available
- Estimated duty cycle of 1 million pages per month
- Claims that some units in field are running up to 3 million pages per month
- Average use in field of 700K/mo
- Claims that there are now 200 units installed in the U.S.
- “In the coming weeks and months, we will be able to reveal more details about new innovations in areas such as graphic arts and textile printing”
Kyocera launches new PPS
- Announced the TASKalfa Pro 15000c/B, a b/w production inkjet system
- Based on the Pro 15000C full color system already being marketed
- Pricing not announced
Xerox CEO comments on Fujifilm
- Steve Bandrowczak, CEO of Xerox, was recently asked about current partnership with Fujifilm
- Xerox is currently Fujifilm’s largest customer for printers, MFPs and production print hardware
- “just like any other technology relationship through the years, we compete, and they are our supplier”
- “For us, this is no different than Intel/Microsoft, etc. We coexist, and we will compete in markets when they come into our territory”
- “We are planning to be long-term partners. What they do, we don’t plan on doing. We are not planning on developing A3 products, and you are not going to hear Fuji talk about data and documents”
Fujifilm launches new production print hardware
- Will be marketing these new devices worldwide, even though the hardware is available in the U.S. with Xerox name
- the new Revoria Press SC180/SC170 production color laser system
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- SIQA (simple image quality adjustment) feature scans a calibration chart to automatically correct image quality for front-to-back registration and color correction
- Top speeds of 80ppm and 70ppm respectively
- Handles up to 400gsm
- The new Revoria EC1100/ production color laser system
- Top speed of 100ppm
- Handles up to 400gsm
- The new Revoria PC1120
- Top speed of 120ppm
- Up to 6 colors of toner
- 2400x2400dpi x 10 bit
- Up to 400gsm
Digital printer sales growth
- Research published by Allied Market Research
- Market projected to reach $35.71 billion by 2028
- CAGR (cumulative annual growth rate) of 3.7%
- IMARC Group published its research:
- Market projected to reach $64.7 billion by 2028
- CAGR of 5.07%
Dealer to sponsor NBA team
- The Milwaukee Bucks of Wisconsin, announced that its new Official Office Equipment Provider is Gordon Flesch Company (GFC)
- GFC is headquartered in Madison, WI
Dealer to sponsor NHL team
- The Las Vegas Golden Knights of Nevada, announced that its new Official Office Technology Partner is Advanced Imaging Systems (AIS)
- Sponsorship package includes ads on in arena digital signage, practice facility, and commercials during TV show
Dealer expansion, merger/acquisition update
- Pulse Technology (formerly known as Des Plaines Office Equipment), headquartered in Schaumburg, IL, announced it is opening new location in Brookfield, Wisconsin
- Will be run by Bill Koon, reporting to CEO Chip Miceli
- Novatech, a mega dealer headquartered in Nashville, TN, announced it has acquired Carolina Business Equipment (CBE)
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- CBE is authorized for Sharp, Toshiba, and Kyocera
- Has locations in Columbia and Ladson, South Carolina
- Purchase price not announced
- Novatech already has locations in Tennessee, Mississippi, Texas, Georgia, Virginia, Louisiana, Missouri, South Carolina, Wisconsin, Florida, Arkansas, Illinois, Colorado, North Carolina & Oklahoma
- Rev.io of Atlanta, Georgia, provider of automated billing solutions, announced it has acquired Tigerpaw Software of Bellevue, Nebraska, provider of business automation software for dealers.
Production solution provider makes acquisition
- Tecnau, headquartered in North Andover, Massachusetts, announced it has acquired Sitma Machinery, headquartered in Spilamberto, Italy
- Tecnau is maker of paper handling and finishing systems for production print systems
- Sitma is provider of packaging systems, inserting systems, paper wrapping, etc.
HP wins production print contract
- Award from Zumbiel Packaging of Hebrew, Kentucky
- Installed new PageWide T470S production color inkjet system
- Will be used to produce packaging
Sharp’s parent pulls of $ billion project
- Foxconn (aka Hon Hai Precision), and owner of Sharp, announced it is pulling out of a $19.5 billion joint venture with Vedanta
- Were going to build a manufacturing facility that makes semiconductor and display components in Gujarat, India
- The original plan was to build plant to reduce dependence on facilities in the country of China
Tech company down plays employee meetings
- Shopify announced it has added a plug-in to its employees’ Google calendar app
- The tool shames workers for holding pointless meetings
- Counts down the cost of the meeting
- Uses staffers’ compensation data to put a price tag on the prospective meeting
- 30 minutes costs up to $1600 of the company’s money
- “Imagine if Van Gogh had to paint Starry Night while perpetually being interrupted every 20 minutes”; stated COO Kaz Nehatian
Signs of recession?
- Microsoft announced a another set of layoffs
- Included 276 people from headquarters in Redmond, Washington
- 10,000 were laid off in January, 2023
- CoreLogic reported on the residential real estate market:
- US homeowners lost $108.4 billion in equity so far this year
- 213,000 homeowners are at risk of going “underwater” if property values fall another 5%
- Average home equity drop of $5,400 in Q1
- $74,300 in Washington
- $59,600 in California
- $37,700 in Utah
- Costco executives interviewed stated:
- Cost of personal care products are up 7%
- Shaving and hair products are up 8.5%
- Americans are buying fewer personal hygiene products and opting for cheaper brands
- Suggests a recession is emerging
- Unit sales of toothpaste, laundry detergent and toilet paper are down 3%-4%
- Shipment volumes have declined for Crest toothpaste, Andrex, Cottonelle, Huggies and Kleenex
- Bloomberg News reported on the decrease in the value of the US dollar:
- Sank to a 14 month low
- Swiss franc rose to the strongest level since 2015 against the US currency
- Japan’s yen climbed more than 1% on the day to consolidate its gains below 140 per dollar
- Euro spiked to $1.11
- British pound touched $1.30
- Reuters News Service reported on interview with JP Morgan Bank, CEO, Jamie Dimon:
- warns of much bigger threats than recession, more banking turmoil, and downsides of working from home
- “We all want to be in a position where banks can fail and the world doesn’t go down the tubes.”
- “There was a problem in plain sight, which was some interest-rate exposure, some of these uninsured deposits that ran like a flock of birds. It’s over for now, most of it’s been handled. If rates go up from here, and they might, it could rear its ugly head again.”
- “I’m much more worried about some of these other serious things getting worse: the war in Ukraine spreading out, nuclear blackmail; if food doesn’t get delivered, starvation in Africa. All these things may mitigate and go away, and we’ll all breathe a deep sigh of relief. I wouldn’t count on that.”
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- “I can’t get past the notion that we’ve never had it before. We’ve never had quantitative easing like this before, we’ve never had quantitative tightening before. I think the effects on that in the market may be more serious than other people think.”
- US economy has grown by less than 2% a year over the last two decades or so, instead of 3%.
- On working remotely; “It doesn’t work for younger kids in apprenticeships. It doesn’t really work for creativity and spontaneity. It doesn’t really work for management teams. There are real flaws. To the extent it works, I’m okay with it. If it doesn’t work, I don’t mind getting rid of it. We’re not going to make that decision because we’re pandering to employees — that is not the way to build a great company. So count me as a skeptic.”
- “I completely understand why someone doesn’t want to commute an hour and a half every day, totally got it. Doesn’t mean they have to have a job here either.”
Bugcrowd report on hackers’ mindset
- 84% believe that less than half of companies understand the true risk of being hacked
- 93% are fluent in at least 2 languages
- 84% say there are more vulnerabilities now than before pandemic
- 94% plan on using AI to hack
- 96% are men
China ramps up the cyber attacks
- Microsoft announced that hackers in China have gained access to email accounts of 25 organizations, including the U.S. government.
- This includes the email account of US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo
- “We assess this adversary is focused on espionage, such as gaining access to email systems for intelligence collection”
- “gain access to data residing in sensitive systems”
Malware in MS Office Documents
- Fortinet Security published warning about the LokiBot hacking gang embedding malicious macros within Microsoft Office documents
- The macros drop the LockBot ransomware onto victim’s systems
- Allows hackers to control and collect sensitive information
Use a tax prep firm? You may be exposed
- A US Congressional probe, led by US Senator Elizabeth Warren, is accusing 3 firms of exposing personal financial info of “tens of millions” of taxpayers in the U.S.
- “On a scale from 1 to 10, this is a 15”; stated David Vladeck, former consumer protection chief at the FTC
- Firms involved are:
- H&R Block
- Tax Act
- Taxslayer
Cost of ransomware attacks on finance firms
- Comparitech published results of study
- Ransomware attacks on the finance vertical have cost the industry $32.3 billion in downtime since 2018
- Aware of at least 32.3 million customers who have had their personal finance info exposed in last 5 years
RISO wins production print contract
- Award from EMC Insurance of Des Moines, Iowa
- Installed new Riso ComColor GL 7430 production color inkjet printer
- to print an expected volume of 80,000 envelopes a month
Toshiba to build wind turbines
- Toshiba announced plans to establish a domestic supply chain for offshore wind power equipment together with General Electric
- Japan’s offshore wind power market is set to grow as the government aims to install up to 10 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind capacity by 2030, and up to 45 GW by 2040
- Toshiba plans to start production in 2026
- GE will manufacture a total of 134 wind turbines with 13 MW capacity each for the three offshore wind projects, which Toshiba will then assemble, according to Japan Wind Power Association.
CYBERSECURITY & HEALTHCARE VERTICAL NEWS
Fax solution vendor offers new feature for HC
- etherFAX, headquartered in Holmdel, New Jersey, is provider of fax solutions for the healthcare vertical
- announced new email fax feature for Google Workspace users
- provides HIPAA compliant solution
- announced new slogan; “off ramp from fax, the on ramp to interoperability”
- pricing not announced
Fax solution vendor endorsed by Epic EHR
- Lane Software of San Antonio, Texas, announced it is now part of the Connection Hub (fka App Orchard) program from Epic
- Provider of integrated fax messaging solutions
- Includes audit and diagnostic logs
Epic wins EHR contracts
- Award from Garrett Regional Medical Center of Oakland, West Virginia
- Includes MyChart patient web portal
- Award from Habersham Medical Center of Demorest, Georgia
- Award from Albany Medical Health System of New York
Epic provides details on its employee meetings
- Epic, headquartered in Verona, Wisconsin, is owned by founder, Judy Faulkner, and one of the largest providers of EHRs (electronic health records) to healthcare industry
- In a recent interview, Judy gave details on how she communicates with her 13,000 employees:
- A mandatory 2 hour meeting is conducted for all once per month
- 11,500 employees onsite in Verona, attend in person in large onsite auditorium
- The rest remote in to the meetings
- Meeting topics include:
- WWDWWD (why we do what we do) to discuss what employees are working on
- Customer success stories
- Introduce new customers
- Celebrate “Go Lives” (aka system install completions)
- Commemorate milestone anniversaries
- “Hills” section for leaders to discuss areas where team excels
- “no unsupported superlatives allowed”
- Grammar section to discuss; “me and I, who, whom and that”
NextGen EHR partners with association
- Corroboration with the American Podiatric Medical Association
- Providing solutions for foot doctors
NextGen pays large amount to settle fed allegations
- Electronic health records (EHRs) vendor NextGen Healthcare Inc (NXGN.O) has agreed to pay $31 million to resolve allegations that the company violated the False Claims Act
- NextGen made the alleged violation by misrepresenting the capabilities of certain versions of its EHRs
- Provided unlawful bonuses to its users as an inducement to recommend the company’s software
eClinicalWorks wins EHR contracts
- Award from the Pediatric Cardiology Center of Oregon
- Includes PRISM search engine
- Award from Primary Care Joliet of Illinois
Document management grows in healthcare
- Report published by Technavio Research
- Medical document management systems market size to grow by $412.5 million between 2022 and 2027
- Cumulative annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.13%
Square9 Softworks now HIPAA compliant
- Headquartered in New Haven, CT, and provider of document management and enterprise content management solutions
- Successfully recertified in compliance with HIPAA and SOC 2 (System and Organization and Controls)
HIPAA/cybersecurity breaches in the news
- Gates Corporation, headquartered in Denver, CO, a fluid power transmission manufacturer, notified 11,090 people that their info was stolen after a ransomware attack.
- The Town of Jackson, Ohio, notified an unknown number of citizens that their info may have been exposed after a cyber attack.
- Microsoft published warning that Russian hackers are actively exploiting security vulnerabilities in Windows and Office software
- Possible remote code execution to launch ransomware
- Politico magazine is reporting that the number of patients who have had their PHI exposed as of today, is as many as the entire year of 2022, or over 52 million.
- edgeMED Healthcare Software of Boca Raton, FL, provider of revenue cycle management solutions, notified an unknown number of patients that their PHI was exposed after cyber attack.
- Limbach Facility Services, headquartered in Warrendale, PA, a construction/engineering firm, notified 1,392 current and former employees, that their info was exposed after cyber attack.
- Johns Hopkins Health System of Baltimore, MD has been hit by large lawsuit, alleging negligence after PHI was stolen during ransomware attack.
- Partnership Health Center of Missoula, Montana notified 8,331 patients that their PHI was exposed after email phishing attack.
- South Suburban Surgical Suites of Munster, Indiana notified 5,340 patients that their PHI was exposed after email phishing attack.
- LockBit ransomware gang claims to have stolen PHI from:
- Panorama Eyecare in Colorado
- Eye Center of Northern Colorado
- Denver Eye Surgeons of Colorado
- Cheyenne Eye Clinic & Surgery Center of Wyoming
- 2020 Vision Center of Colorado
- Kansas Medical Center notified an unknown number of patients that their PHI was exposed after ransomware attack.
- Lansing Community College in Michigan notified 757,832 students that their info was exposed after a FERPA cyber breach.
- D’Youville University of Buffalo, New York notified an unknown number of students that their info was exposed after FERPA cyber attack.
- QuickBlox, a provider of telemedicine solutions, headquartered in Holburn, England, notified millions of patients in the U.S., that their PHI may have been exposed after a cyber attack.
- East Houston Medicine and Pediatric Center of Texas will be notifying an unknown number of patients that their PHI was exposed after 200 boxes of printed paper medical records were left behind in a storage unit that was sold.
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