Ricoh to shed 4,000 employees?

– Reuters News Service is reporting that Ricoh plans to cut an additional 4,000 employees by end of fiscal year 2019
– Purpose of massive layoff is “to streamline its struggling, core office-equipment business”; according to the Nikkei newspaper
o reducing its global workforce by 4%
o has already cut over 5,000 jobs in North America since beginning of this year
o has reported declining profits for the past four years
o stock has shed nearly two-thirds of its market value since its peak in 2007
– The Nikkei said last month that Ricoh was “conducting impairment tests on its slumping North American business, and may have to take a related charge of about 100 billion yen ($943.04 million)”
o Reportedly will sell a copier factory in the Chinese industrial hub Shenzhen
o Allegedly planning to dispose of its equity stake in a Coca-Cola distributor for about 56 billion yen ($528.50 million)

Ricoh settles patent lawsuit

– Wi-LAN Inc., a Quarterhill Inc. company, today announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Commercial Copy Innovations Inc., has entered into a settlement and patent license agreement with Ricoh
– The license covers various printer related technology, which Ricoh allegedly used without permission

Ricoh holds PPS customer event

– The annual “Publishing Executive Symposium” was held at St. Julien Hotel & Spa in Boulder, CO
– 40 customers attended, including commercial printers, MSPs, and communications companies to learn how to boost ROI of variable data direct mail
– Speakers included:
o Mike Herold, Ricoh Director of Global Marketing for Production Inkjet
o Adam Armh2, Customer Communications & Marketing – Ricoh
o Carla Johnson, CEO of Type A Communications
o Jill Hollingsworth, Senior Director of Communications for Molson Coors Brewing Corp.
o Eric Fahey, Research Manager at Mintel Comperemedia
§ Direct mail outperforms all digital channels by 600% in terms of response rate
§ Direct mail now average 3.7% response rate
§ 98% of people still check their mailboxes daily
§ 77% still sort through their mail as soon as they get it
o Trish Witkowski, CEO of Foldfactory
§ 70% of disposable income is still controlled by “Baby Boomers” not millennials
§ 95% of decisions make are based on emotions
§ People receive average of 5,000 marketing messages per day

Visual Edge buys more dealerships

– announced it has acquired COUNSEL and Midwest Office Automations
o Both were owned by Joel Longtin
o The acquisition marks Visual Edge’s 22nd since it started acquiring companies nationwide.
o the day-to-day operations of the companies will remain unchanged, serving the western half of Iowa (COUNSEL), led by Mark Rasmussen and the eastern half of Nebraska (MOA), led by TJ Goltl. 
o In 2004, Joel and Karen Longtin bought Bro Business of Harlan, IA and changed the name to COUNSEL, a Lanier dealer
§ in 2011, the Longtins acquired MOA of Omaha, Nebraska, a Ricoh dealer
– announced that it has acquired Canton, Ohio-based CopyRight
o Will become part of Visual Edge company Graphic Enterprises
o CopyRight founder Randy Muntean is expected to retire following the acquisition
o is a CopyStar (Kyocera), OKI Data, and Samsung dealership
– acquired United Business Machines of Londonderry, New Hampshire
o all employees, and former owner, Ken Lamalfa, will stay with dealership
o markets Sharp and Kyocera MFPs

Epson wins production print contract

– award from SixB Labels of Dallas, TX
– installed a SurePress L-4033AW production 7 color inkjet label system
– will be used to produce labels, decals and bar codes
– included Wasatch RIP and Print Management Software

Epson posts last quarter earnings

– total revenue up 10% to $2.71 billion
– profit up 6.9% to $268 million
– Printer/MFP division revenue up 10% to $1.87 billion
o 84% of sales came from inkjet printing systems

Epson files patent infringement lawsuit

– filed two patent-infringement complaints against Try The Ink, LLC/InkPro2day, LLC and against E-Z Ink Inc.
– include infringing sellers of large-format printer in cartridges and remanufactured cartridges using third-party infringing circuit boards.

Brother posts last quarter earnings

– Total revenue up 12.7% to $1.67 billion
– Operating income up 94.6% to $193.3 million
– Printer/MFP division revenue up 12.5% to $981.2 million
o Hardware revenue up 10%
o Consumables revenue up 3%
o Americas revenue up 5.9% to $303.4 million

Okidata posts last quarter earnings

– Total revenue up 0.4% to $940 million
– Operating income up to $11.5 million
– Printer/MFP division hard revenue up 2.5% to $251 million

Keypoint Intelligence reports on verticals

– Total print volume in the U.S. to decline by 1% CAGR (cumulative annual growth rate) over next 4 years
– Approximately 811 billion prints were captures in 2015
– Break down of each vertical market’s share of total print volume in the U.S. (does not include production print)
o

16.8% = healthcare vertical

§ Has one of the highest adoption rates form managed print services contracts
§ Uses print job auditing more than any other vertical
§ Highest ranking for inclusion of business process automation with accounts payable and receivable
o 11.9% = education vertical
§ One of the lowest for adoption of MPS
o 11.2% = financial/insurance vertical
o 10.8% = public administration/professional services vertical
o 7.5% = manufacturing vertical
– Predicts that by 2019, 58% of print volume will come from inkjet based devices
– 45% intend to invest in a document management system
o 38% plan on investing in cloud-based document management system
– Average savings from MPS contract is 28%
– 37% use a print management software tool
o 34% use tool to monitor both print-only and MFP device volumes
– (Keypoint is now offering a service to dealers to provide them data on the size of vertical markets in their territory)

RISO launches new device

– RISO, Inc. of Burlington, Massachusetts launched new ComColor FW5000 business color inkjet printer/copier/MFP
– fixed letter-size cost per page of 2.5 cents per page (including ink and service agreement).
– prints at up to 90 ppm in color, with duplexing at up 45 ppm
– FORCEJET inkjet-printing technology with oil-based inks
– Print and scan on up to 8.5″x14″
– Optional one-pass duplexing document scanner
– Two 500-sheet paper trays; 1,000-sheet paper tray

Xerox wins PPS contract

– Award from Piedmont Graphics, a commercial printing service in the Greater Atlanta, Georgia  area
– Installed an iGen 5 production color laser system
– Includes optional white and clear toners

Xerox wins federal MPS contract

– Award the U.S. Air Force
– Will decrease the fleet of government owned devices by 2,000
– Reduced overall costs by 20%
– Includes Xerox DocuCare onsite personnel at Pentagon, Joint Base Andrews and Joint Base Anacostia-Boiling

Kyocera launches new A3 b/w MFP

– Launched the new TASKalfa 9002i, a b/w laser A3 MFP
– Top speed of 90ppm
– (not a production print device)
– 1200x1200dpi
– 9” color touchscreen LCD control panel
– Document feeder holds  up to 270 originals
o Scans both sides of original at same time
– Comes standard with 4,150 sheet paper supply
o Can upgrade to 7,650 sheet capacity
o Up to 12”x18”, up to 300gsm in bypass
– Finishing options include hole punch, booklet making, trifold, stapling and mailbox
– Black toner yield of 70,000 pages based on 5% coverage
– Max duty cycle of 450K/month
– Built-in print controller:
o 4.5GB RAM
o 320GB hard drive
o 8GB SSD
o 10/100/1000BaseT & USB ports
o WiFi support
o Support for Apple AirPrint, Google Cloud Print, Mopria
o NFC
o Comes standard with OCR board

Toshiba expects division to be sold soon

– Announced it expects the sale of its $18 billion NAND memory chip manufacturing division to be completed by June, 2018 at the latest
– Had originally hoped to complete before its 2017 fiscal year ends on 3/31/2018
– Waiting for antitrust regulatory approval from China

Sharp wins MPS contract at hospital system

– Award from Community Health Network of Central Indiana
– Claims to have saved the IDN as much as $600,000 annually
– Includes 4 hospitals and 200 sites of care
– Consolidated 1600 desktop print only devices to 300 desktops
– Included addition of Sharp MX-M365N and MX-M465N MFPs
o Web portal for electronic forms request
o LCD signage in strategic areas integrated with Prysm Media Station computers
o Touch screen large LCD panels in 3 board rooms
o Copy centers had Sharp MX-M950 MFPs installed

Sharp demos at HIMSS18 show

– Had its MFPs in the RF Ideas booth, as it did not have its own booth
– Showed integrated MFP solution that enables users to authenticate by swiping their ID badges
– Also demonstrated MFPsecure for Sharp with Levi, Ray & Shoup (LRS) for secure print release
– Showed document capture to Cerner Millennium and McKesson STAR 2000 EHRs
– Certification helps to guarantee the interoperability of Sharp printers and MFPs with leading EHR systems
– Kayleigh job accounting software helps healthcare organizations manage print security through print release and activity monitoring, and helps track and monitor all input and output activities to prevent unauthorized access and usage on Sharp MFPs. 

Canon demos at HIMSS18 show

– Nuance eCopy document capture software integrated with imageRUNNER MFPs to automate the patient intake process of Epic EHRs
– uniFLOW document capture software integrated imageRUNNER MFPs with Hyland OnBase ECM
– presentations from customers and industry experts offered insight as to:
o how end users can utilize Canon solutions to help transform communication designed for improved patient record keeping in a clinical setting
o how the HIPAA HITECH Omnibus final rules may affect how organizations in the healthcare field capture, transmit, receive, maintain, retain, collaborate and destroy information.
– Box and mxHero cloud storage solutions
– Solutions to allow users control of how information is transmitted, received, maintained and shared throughout the patient’s continuity of care, from inpatient to ambulatory settings.


For more information on purchasing a copier in Boston or to lease or rent a copier, Contact Copitex today.


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