Xerox to cut more jobs:
- Company announced it will lay off 36 people in Webster, NY
- Employees are unionized trucking and loading dock personnel
Xerox wins production color contract:
- Sold an iGen 150 production color system to Al Khat Printing, a commercial printer in the country of Kuwait
- Will be used to produce on-demand brochures and other marketing materials
Xerox introduces new Hyland solutions:
- Company recently announced it would resell ECM solutions from Hyland
- Loan Application Processing
- Health Records Information Management
- Human Resources Onboarding
Xerox files for 3D printing patent:
- Filed by Patricia Donaldson and Jeff Folkins
- The patent, Digital Manufacturing System for Printing Three Dimensional Objects
- Instead of moving the printhead across a static print bed, the surface moves
Canon reports on first quarter financials:
- First quarter net profit dropped 28.7% to 33.9 billion yen
- Net sales decreased 1.3% to 857.4 billion yen
- Gross profit ratio rose 1.4 points year on year to 51.1%
- Gross profit increased 1.6%
AIIM releases results of study on Sharepoint:
- AIIM is the Association of Image & Information Management
- 26% of IT professionals say their SharePoint project has stalled
- 37% are struggling to meet original project expectations
- 63% are limping along with sub-optimum installations
- 11% say their project has been clearly recognized as a success
- Biggest reason for lack of success = failure by senior management to endorse project
- Only 14% have SharePoint connected to and ECM (enterprise content management system)
- 48% have work to do in aligning SharePoint with corporate governance policies
Kyocera reports last fiscal year’s financials:
- Net sales up 5.5% to 1,526,536 million yen
- Profit from operations decreased 22.5% to 93,428 million yen
- Income before income taxes decreased 16.7% to 121,862 million yen
Kyocera makes acquisition:
- Has acquired Garsdalo Madienos Technology of Lithuania
- Is a maker of woodworking tools
- Sells to the processing building material and furniture markets
- Purchase price not announced
Salesforce.com to be acquired?
- Salesforce.com is a very popular CRM (customer relationship management) software
- Reportedly has hired financial advisor to field takeover inquiries
- Stock closed up 12% to $74.65 per share
- Company has market value of $50 billion
- Possible suitors are SAP, Microsoft or Oracle
Toshiba will resell 3rd party finishing systems:
- Toshiba recently announced it will relabel production print b/w systems made by Sharp
- Now the company announced it will resell finishing systems from Spiral Binding
- Includes; offline punching, lamination, binding, cutting and bookletmaking
Toshiba to donate 250 erasable copiers:
- Toshiba announced new Sustainable Schools Program
- The first 250 schools to join program will get a free eSTUDIO 306LP/RD30 system, which is a copier which uses blue toner, and a separate heating unit that can take the blue toner off paper 5 times
DocuWare reports on FY14 revenue:
- DocuWare is maker of DM (document management) and ECM (enterprise content management) software solutions
- Founded in 1988, and headquartered in Germany
- Growth of 29.1%
- Overall revenues of 27.75 million euros
- DocuWare Cloud now has 3,486 users from 68 different companies
- Need 200 companies as customer for this division to break even
- Revenue from U.S. now 54% of total
Software firm takes advantage of user guilt:
- PrintReleaf comes out with product for those who feel guilty about using paper
- The software works with print management solutions to measure paper consumption per device in real time
- The software then determines the number of trees that were used for that paper volume
- Information on trees used is then sent to various reforestation projects around the world so the number can be offset with new tree growth
- Companies can track the progress of new tree growth and receive a certificate of authentication for trees planted
- Uses calculation that 8,333 sheets of paper equals one tree
- What the software company does not volunteer is:
- In the U.S., when one tree is cut down for paper, it is replaced by an average of 3 trees
- Every year the U.S. forest products industry plants 1.7 million trees
- There are 12 million more acres of forest now in the U.S. then there was in 1987
Ricoh launches cloud services:
- Launches Cloud IT services for Ricoh dealers who are part of CHAMPS program
- Product from its mindSHIFT division (which is acquired from Best Buy)
- Allows dealers to resell services such as Total IT Help Desk, Server Management, Hosted Exchange Email and Email archiving
Ricoh to build new data center:
- For its mindSHIFT division
- Location is Commack, New York
- “Since mindSHIFT became part of Ricoh family, we have been working diligently to deliver enhanced products and services to our growing customer base. Today’s expansion announcement is a wonderful testament to that effort – providing access to a world class technologically superior data center to support our customer’s complex IT and cloud demands”; stated Mona Abutaleb, president and CEO of mindSHIFT.
- Will have a 20,000 square foot raised floor and office space
- 24/7/265 Network Operations Center (NOC)
- 6 megawatts of electrical capacity
- 2N uninterrupted power systems
- N+1 emergency generator support with 20,000 gallon fuel tank
Ricoh reported financial results:
- Sales for FY14 up 1.7%, but profit down 5.8%
- Sales down 1.9% for last quarter to 602.1 billion yen ($5.06 billion)
- Profit down 44.9% to 16.2 billion yen in quarter ($136.2 million)
- Imaging & Solutions sales up 1.6% to 1,997 billion yen
- Office imaging sales (MFPs/printers) up 2.2% to 1,509.7 billion yen ($12.7 billion)
- Production Print sales up 6.6% to 191.9 billion sales ($1.6 billion)
- Network System Solution sales down 4.1% to 295.4 billion yen
- Forecasting net sales will be up 7.5% in 2015
Kodak loses partnership:
- UniPixel has “exercised its right to terminate” its InTouch touch sensor manufacturing and supply agreement with Kodak
- “concluded that the risks required to achieve a viable business model in a reasonable time frame were too great”
Kodak hires former Xerox/HP exec:
- Named Allan Brown as new GM of its Unified Workflow Solutions division, which includes the PRINERGY solution for the commercial print industry
- Spent 22 years at Xerox, including part of the DocuTech and DocuSP (nka FreeFlow) programs
- Recently led the Exstream business at Hewlett Packard
Xeikon to display its production color systems:
- Will be Gold sponsor for the INFO*FLEX 2015 and FTA Forum
- Trade show for package printing and converting industry
- 5/4-5/2015 at Music City Center in Nashville, TN
Xeikon wins production color install:
- Won contract from Bassett Direct, a commercial printer in Toronto, Canada
- Installed two Xeikon 5000s and a Xeikon 8600
- 8600 has top speed of 207ppm
- Handles stock up to 16 point board
- Uses to product postcards and point of sale signage
Lexmark reports first quarter financials:
- Combined enterprise software and managed print services revenue up 13%
- Annuity revenue up 5%
- Annualized subscription contract value up 108%
- Deferred software revenue up 35%
- Total revenue dropped 9.9% to $852 million
- Gross profit margin down to 38.7% from 38.9%
- Imaging Solutions and Services revenue down 6% to $766 million
- MFP/printer sales down 9% to $152 million
- MFP/printer supplies down 6% to $568 million
- MPS revenue up 3% to $185 million
- Total revenue is expected to decline in 2015 from 3% to 5%
- Total liabilities, including $699.7 million in long term debt, is $2.2 billion
Indiana police arrest two counterfeiters:
- North Vernon, Indiana police arrested William Riffe and David Roybal
- Both allegedly made fake $20 bills using color MFP
- Were caught when they attempted to use the fake currency to buy lunch at the North Vernon China Buffet
Epson and Laserfiche conduct ECM workshops:
- Workshops will demonstrate Epson high speed scanners, and ECM software from Laserfiche
- Locations on workshops include:
- Dallas, TX
- Milltown, NJ
- McAllen, TX
- Glenwood Springs, CO
Sharp to offer cloud IT services:
- Announced a partnership with Continuum of Boston, Massachusetts
- Will allow Sharp dealers to resell remote network monitoring and management (RMM) services
- Manage cloud and on-premise IT environments
- Can provision additional services like infrastructure as a service and backup/disaster recovery
- Continuum also employs Ed McLaughlin, who used to be in charge of Sharp’s copier division in the U.S.
- Sharp will conduct a roadshows in May & June to launch to its dealers. Locations of shows are Boston, New Orleans, San Diego, Seattle, St. Louis and Orlanda
Social Print Paper to enter the U.S.:
- Makes copier paper from waste wheat straw instead of wood fiber
- The raw materials come from India
- Hope to move manufacturing to Canada to reduce costs
- Hopes to win bids from Fortune 1000 companies or account in government verticals with its green messaging
One copier dealer buys another:
- Advanced Imaging Solutions of Las Vegas, NV announced it has acquired iTECH of San Diego, CA
- AIS is owned by Gary Harouff, and is dealer for Kyocera, Konica Minolta,
- AIS already had locations in Santa Ana and Riverside, CA
- iTECH was owned by Bob Wurzelbacher, who will remain with company
- iTECH is a Sharp dealer
- purchase price not announced
Hyland to issue dividend to shareholders:
- According to Crain’s Cleveland Business newspaper, Hyland Software, maker of OnBase ECM, will issue a $150 million dividend to its shareholders
- Will use cash on hand and increase its debt load by $120 million
Former Canon executive hired by dealer:
- Tod Pike was in charge of copier division in U.S. for Canon, and then copier division in U.S. for Samsung
- Now hired as Chief Sales Officer of LDI Color ToolBox, a large Canon dealer in New York
- Also named president of KOTA, which was formed by The Mohegan Tribe of Indians of Connecticut and LDI Color ToolBox.
- KOTA is a minority business enterprise serving the southern New England region
Iron Mountain buys competitor:
- Iron Mountain, headquartered in Boston, MA is a document storage and data protection company
- Paid $2 billion to acquire Recall Holding Ltd of Norcross, GA
- Recall supports 80,000 customers in 24 countries
Copier surge protector maker is raided by FBI:
- The FBI raided the offices of Smart Power Systems in Houston, TX
- Two men arrested; Bahram Mechanic and Tooraj Faridi
- Part of an investigation that led to 9 defendants indicted for allegedly supplying high tech electronics to the country of Iran
- “The nine defendants charged in the indictment allegedly circumvented U.S. sanctions and illegally exported controlled microelectronics to Iran”; stated John P. Carlin, Assistant Attorney General for National Security
