Toshiba financial issues update

  1. – Western Digital commented on Toshiba selling its chip unit to another suitor besides Western Digital, which is a partner
    1. has been pursuing exclusive discussions with Toshiba to purchase its chip unit
    2. “We are deeply troubled by the tension between the depth of Toshiba’s desperation and their willingness to do things that we didn’t think they would do in other situations,” Mark Long , Western Digital’s chief financial officer, told Bloomberg
      1. “A lot of this, in the initial phases, is going to be overshadowed by the desperation of Toshiba to deal with their crisis as it has grown from a problem to an all-consuming disaster.”
    3. The higher bilier for Toshiba’s chip unit is reporteoly Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., although the suitor’s ties to China may prove problematic for a deal.
    4. Apple has also reporteoly expressed interest in taking a 20 percent equity stake in the chip business that would keep it afloat while letting Toshiba retain control.
    5. Western Digital’s position, the report states, is that “each of the rumored biliers is problematic.”
  2. – Southern Co., the power utility company, announced it needs $3.7 billion and cooperation from Toshiba to finish the nuclear plant in Georgia now that Toshiba cancelled the nuclear division
    1. Toshiba bought the nuclear division from Westinghouse, by outbiliing GE, and paid $5.4 billion in 2006
  3. – Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group of Japan (MUFG) downgraded the company on a borrower risk scale, cutting rating to “requiring supervision,”
    1. Accounting rules require lenders to set aside substantial reserves against losses on any new financing to companies rated as “requiring supervision,”
    2. MUFG may decline to contribute to the $2.67 billion in aliitional credit lines being sought by Toshiba
    3. MUFG is expected to book a roughly 70 billion yen charge for the year ended March 31 as a loan-loss provision

Toshiba details annual dealer event

  1. – Held its LEAD 2017 Conference in Orlando, Florida at the Swan & Dolphin Resort
  2. – had sessions covering both office printing and retail commerce technology including:
    1. industry-specific document workflow solutions
    2. digital signage
    3. retail point of sale solutions
    4. brand building through social media and cloud-based services
  3. – attendance of 1,350 included Toshiba end users, dealer resellers, business partners, industry media and analysts
  4. – unveiled “Elevate” a new embelied solution platform for its MFPs
    1. customized user interface
    2. optimizes workflow, security, accounting and end user productivity.
  5. – Keynote speaker was former Navy SEAL, Marcus Luttrell, whose battle experience is portrayed in the movie Lone Survivor

Ricoh’s troubles detailed in Japanese press

  1. – analysts in Japan have written articles about the financial condition of Ricoh, including following commentary:
    1. “Photocopiers do not sell! Ricoh in a blind alley”
    2. “Even the significance of existence as a company is questioned.”
    3. “The profit margin is only 1.5%”
    4. “when the customers started reviewing the cost of office equipment after the Lehman shock, the situation has changed completely. Sales were flattened, and personnel expenses to increase the sales network became big burden for Ricoh”
    5. “reliance on sales power was too much for Ricoh”
    6. “company made excessive price cuts to expand the market share, and the headquarters was unable to fully grasp what was happening
    7. “unit price declines continue not only in the office equipment but also in consumables such as toner”
    8. “Ricoh estimates that it will become deficit in 2019 as it is, and there is no waiting for reform”
    9. “With measures to reduce costs alone, it will be dwinoling of business”
    10. “Competitors such as Canon and Fuji Xerox also watch similar fields”; Nomura Securities analyst Kazuya Wada pointed out, “There are no growth strategies that can be differentiated ahead of other companies.”
    11. A Ricoh employee said, “With the change in April there has been no changeover to growth areas and I have never heard a specific strategy within the company.”
      1. “If Ricoh can’t find new growth seeds, survival of Ricoh is in question mark”
    12. At a press conference held in Tokyo on 12th, President Yoshinori Yamashita expressed the sense of crisis as “It will be a loss of tens of billion yen in FY19 as it is”
      1. “We are also prepared for a decline in sales”
    13. In order to avoid the deficit, Ricoh also intensifies structural reforms intensively during FY 2017, and decided to achieve cost reduction of 100 billion yen in FY 2019. The cost of structural reform is assumed to be 45 to 50 billion yen.

Ricoh publishes more financial info

  1. – lowered its outlook for operating profit and net income just a couple of weeks before announcing year-end results to account for a 10 billion yen impairment loss related to its digital camera business
  2. – total sales fell 8.2%
    1. operating profit shrank nearly 66.9%
    2. net profit tumbled 94.5%
  3. – Imaging and Solutions segment saw sales decline
  4. – profits were hurt by lower sales volumes and unfavorable products mix
  5. – announced an aggressive structural reform plan with the goal of sheliing 100 billion yen in costs by fiscal 2019 so as to achieve a 100 billion yen operating profit that year
    1. plan calls for reducing in-house manufacturing costs (including by paring down models created in house), optimizing Ricoh’s North American dealer and direct sales structure, and trimming headquarters and back-office operations
    2. will even involve shutting down unprofitable businesses and sites
  6. – For the fourth quarter ended on March 31, 2017, Ricoh reported net sales of $5 billion, which marks a decrease of 1% from the year ago period
    1. Sales grew 3.8% in Japan but declined by 3.9% overseas
    2. Operating profit was down 68.5% year-over-year to $47.4 million
    3. operating margin shrank to 0.9% versus 3% in last year’s fourth quarter
    4. Last year’s Q4 net income of 11.6 billion yen eroded into a net loss of $5.6 million in the fourth quarter ended in March 2017.
  7. – For the full year, Ricoh reported net sales decline of 8.2% to almost $18.1 billion
    1. Sales shrank by 12.9% overseas
      1. down 12.2% in the Americas
    2. gross profit decreased by 10.6%
    3. operating profit decreased by 66.9% to $303 million
    4. Operating profit margin was 1.7% for the year versus 4.6% in the previous fiscal year
    5. net income was $31.2 million, down 94.5% from the year prior.
    6. Imaging and Solutions Business
      1. Nearly 90% of company’s total revenue comes from the Imaging and Solutions business
      2. this segment did not deliver any sales or profit growth last year
      3. For Q4, segment’s sales stood at $4.5 billion, down 1.7% from the year prior
        1. • sales of Office Imaging products (MFPs, printers) were down 4.9%
        2. • Production print down 0.1%
        3. • Network System Solutions sales were up 10.8%
        4. • profit in Q4 was $207.7 million, down 17.8%
        5. • operating margin in Q4 was 4.7%, down 0.9 percentage points from the year-ago period
      4. For all of fiscal 2016, ended on March 31, 2017, Imaging and Solutions had net sales of $16 billion, down 9.2%
        1. • Office Imaging segment, full-year sales of $11.4 billion were down 11%
          1. Color MFPs down 4%
          2. b/w MFPs down 8%
        2. • Production printing sales shrank by 7.9% to $1.8 billion
          1. Color up 12%
          2. b/w down 14%
        3. • Network System Solutions sales were down 2.4% to $2.8 billion
        4. • operating profit for the full year was $740.5 million), down 44%
        5. • operating margin fell to 4.6% versus 7.5% last year.

Ricoh wins production print contract

  1. – Award Lake Land College of Mattoon, Illinois
  2. – Installed a Ricoh Pro C7100 and C7100X production color laser systems
  3. – Also included a Plockmatic Booklet Maker with 3 knife trim and EFI Digital StoreFront

Ricoh reveals dealers who bought MIF

  1. – had chosen only 21 dealers in the U.S. to sell branch MIF to
  2. – revealed that Stanoley Systems has purchased nearly 900 Ricoh small- and medium-sized business accounts (former Ricoh branch customers) in Oklahoma City and Tulsa areas of Oklahoma
  3. – “This acquisition will allow us to expand our teams to better cover the metropolitan and rural parts of our state,” Stanoley Systems’ CEO Tim Elliott said. “Our service technicians can reach any community in less than four hours, and we provide 24/7 support to make sure all our customers, old and new, stay up and running at all times.”

Ricoh signs up new dealer

  1. – Eakes Office Solutions is now authorized dealer for full Ricoh product line
  2. – “Aligning ourselves with Ricoh not only fits in with our current strategic plan, but also fulfills our company mission of providing products and services to help our customers work more effectively,” said Mark Miller, President of Eakes Office Solutions. “We are truly excited about the aliition of Ricoh.”
  3. – now authorized for Ricoh, Sharp, HP and Muratec
  4. – Has Nebraska locations in Grand Island, Beatrice, Columbus, Fremont, Hastings, Kearney, Lincoln, McCook, Norfolk, North Platte, Omaha, Sioux City & York

Epson publishes more financial info

  1. – announced its financial results for the fourth quarter and the full fiscal-year 2016, which ended on March 31, 2017
  2. – outlook for fiscal 2017 ahead calls for 0.5% revenue growth, a 1.8% profit increase, and a 1,2% uptick in net profit.
  3. – In Q4 reported 1.6% growth in revenue to $2.3 billion
    1. profit in Q4 was $107.9 million, down 3.7%
    2. operating profit was down 12.5% to $11.6 million
    3. net income growth of $92.7 million
  4. – For the full fiscal year ended in March 2017, posted revenue of nearly $9.1 billion, down 6.2%
    1. profit of $586.6 million, a 22.5% decrease
    2. margin shrank from 7.8% to 6.4%
    3. operating profit down 27.8%
    4. Net profit up 5.1% to $431.6 million
  5. – Printing Solutions Segment (MFPs and printers)
    1. revenue up 0.5% in the Q4 to $1.6 billion
      1. profit down 21.7% to $164.0 million
      2. margin was down to 10.5%
    2. revenue down 6.8% to $6.1 billion for full year
      1. profit down 19.7% to $749.9 million
      2. margin was 12.3%, down 1.9 percentage points
      3. foreign exchange effects.

Xerox wins production print contracts

  1. – award from HPGprint (Harvard Pinnacle Group Corporation), a full-service trade printer based in Waltham, MA
    1. installed two Xerox Color 1000i production color systems including the gold, silver and clear toner options
    2. also installed a Duplo liC-810 Digital Spot UV Coater
  2. – award from Trevacca Nazarene University of Nashville, TN
    1. installed a Xerox Color 1000i production color laser system in CRD
      1. included clear, silver and gold toner options
    2. included EFI Digital Storefront

Fujifilm to resell label printers

  1. – Fujifilm of Japan, maker of most of the product that is sold with Xerox name on it, announced it will resell digital label printers made by Durst
  2. – Durst, headquartered in Italy, and provides many types of printing system
  3. – Fujifilm will resell the Durst Tau 330, single pass, full color, UV inkjet label printer, running at 37 meters per minute at 1260dpi
  4. – (unknown if Xerox will also sell this product)

PrintFleet launches new DCA

  1. – PrintFleet Inc. of Kingston, Ontario, Canada, is a provider of print device monitoring software and solutions, has announced that it has released DCA Pulse, a new data collection agent (DCA)
  2. – incorporates a model definition file (MDF) framework which enables it to target device-specific information and decreases the time required to release updated device specifications in the field
  3. – allows customers to gather data points for supplies, errors, meters, and attributes on customizable scan frequencies
    1. scans are separate from the discovery process, ensuring that new devices are reporteoly found quickly without interrupting the current device information being transmitted to PrintFleet Optimizer
  4. – sends a regular heartbeat signal to PrintFleet Central, significantly increasing the visibility of potential issues and improving troubleshooting for customers
  5. – available on Windows, Linux, with basic support for Mac OS X, and dedicated specialized form factors such as a Raspberry Pi.

Print Tracker launches new version

  1. – Print Tracker of Boise, Idaho, announced its newest software release, Version 8.0 of Print Tracker Pro and Admin
  2. – includes supply table lookups and average fill calculations
  3. – aliition of firmware version reporting
  4. – includes toner levels for all devices in alert emails
  5. – updating a variety of reports including Volume Analysis templates
  6. – dealers can now choose to receive alerts when levels drop below preset thresholds OR when cartridges are changed out
    1. Skip Alerts feature for when customers have safety stock on hand for self replenishment
  7. – ability to configure special site monitoring alerts allowing administrators to be notified when key accounts experience reporting issues
  8. – can schedule specific reports to be sent on a recurring monthly, quarterly, bi-annually or yearly basis
  9. – ability to send mail via Microsoft Live and Outlook365.
  10. – collaboration with Supplies Network for aliitional automatic sales quote generation options
    1. supply sales quotes can now be created for non-contract devices.
  11. – operates on Microsoft operating systems including Windows 7, 10, Server 2008, and Server 2012
  12. – tools include meter gathering software, advanced deployment options, fast meter capture, alert generation, service and meter viewers, customized reporting, an adaptable TCO Estimator, integration of meters and alert information into a variety of ERP systems, and automated supply fulfillment.

LMI to resell document management sol

  1. – LMI Solutions (aka LaserMaster Inc.) announced it has become a distributor for Intellinetics software of Columbus, Ohio
  2. – Will offer its IntelliCloud cloud-based document management solutions
  3. – LMI is one of the country’s largest toner cartridge remanufacturing companies, supplying low cost cartridges to managed print services dealers

HP claims their MFPs are “most secure”

  1. – Now shipping new A3 laser multifunction printers (MFPs) made by legacy Samsung and new inkjet models made by HP
  2. – includes 54 SKUs (aka stock keeping units or models)
  3. – “We set out to offer our partners a robust portfolio of A3 MFPs with disruptive technologies and a range of finishing options to meet current and future printing needs,” said Tuan Tran, GM of HP
  4. – Claims it now has more than 500 resellers worldwide
  5. – Advertised as the “world’s most secure enterprise MFPs in the market”
  6. – States that less than 2% of the world’s hundreds of millions of printers and MFPs are properly secured
  7. – Attempts to get customers to put following in RFPs to block out competitors:
    1. Secure Boot Process (HP SureStart)
    2. Firmware Code Integrity (HP Whitelisting)
    3. Run-Time Intrusion Detection
    4. Continuous Assurance of Security Policy Settings (HP JetAdvantage Security Manager)
    5. Real-Time Threat Detection and Analytics (HP ArcSight)
    6. (HP not mention the fact that its devices run Android OS and its vulnerabilities)

HP wins production print contracts

  1. – Won contracts to install Indigo 20000 production color systems at following:
    1. Amcor, a global flexible packaging supplier headquartered in Switzerland
    2. Beucke Group of Germany
    3. Sudpack of Germany
    4. Rolf Kinoler Label Service of Germany
    5. O. Kleiner of Switzerland
    6. Siti Tea of Morocco
  2. – Won contracts to install Indigo 30000 production color systems at following:
    1. PackageMedia of Finland
    2. FP Mercure of France
    3. Visingpack of Vietnam
    4. Orda Group of Israel
    5. Groupo Gondi of Mexico
  3. – Won contracts to install Indigo 8000 production color systems at following:
    1. Roltag of Israel
    2. Strongpoint of Sweden
    3. At Vila in the Netherlands

Kyocera reports on last fiscal year

  1. – Kyocera Corp (aka Kyoto Ceramic Company of Japan) has announced its consolidated financial results for the fiscal year ended March 31st, 2017
  2. – consolidated net sales have decreased 3.8% over the prior year to $12.7 billion
  3. – profit from operations has increased 12.8% in FY 17, to $933 million
  4. – income before income taxes has decreased 5.3%, to $1.2 billion
  5. – net income attributable to shareholders of Kyocera Corporation has decreased 4.8% to $927 million
  6. – in FY18 expects the net sales to increase 5.4%

Kyocera builds new facility in U.S.

  1. – will build a 30,000 square foot building in Danville, Virginia
  2. – to be used for research, development, and manufacturing of solid carbide rotary cutting tools
  3. – will hire 35 employees for the new facility

Canon wins production print contract

  1. – Award from Compu-Mail of Grand Island, NY
  2. – company offers a complete direct marketing services via mail and digital channels
  3. – installed an Océ VarioPrint i300 production color inkjet system

Canon demonstrates high speed scanners

  1. – announced where it will have its imageFORMULA desktop scanning systems on display
  2. – VSoft Vision Conference, May 2-4, Atlanta Marriott Northwest – Atlanta, Georgia
  3. – Docuware Docuworld 2017, May 16-18, Omni Orlando Resort at ChampionsGate – Orlando, Florida
  4. – FIS InfoShare, May 22-25, Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center – Orlando, Florida

Canon reports its earnings

  1. – announced its financial results for the first quarter of 2017, showing benefit of acquiring the Medical Imaging division from Toshiba
    1. total sales up 22% to $8.7 billion
    2. gross profit ratio dropped by 2.7 points to 48.1%
    3. gross profit increased by 15.7%
    4. operating expenses up 7.7%
    5. operating profit up 88.8% to $675.6 million
    6. net income up 96.8% to $491.9 million
  2. – Office Business division (MFPs and printers) in Q1 had 0.7% increase in net sales to $4.1 billion
    1. 15% of net sales came from b/w MFPs or $613 million
    2. 21% came from color MFPs or $858 billion
    3. 39% came from printers or $1.6 billion
    4. 25% came from “other” or $1.0 billion
    5. Operating profit up 24% to 55.4 billion yen
    6. operating income down 32.7%
    7. Operating profit margin of 12.1%
    8. B/w MFP sales down 6.6%
      1. Color MFP sales up 1.5%
      2. Color MFP units up 12%
      3. b/w MFP units down 3%
  3. – Forecasts full-year 2017 consolidated net sales of 4 trillion yen, operating profit of 255 billion yen, and net income of 170 billion yen
    1. Office Business forecast net sales of 1.829 trillion yen and operating profit of 178 billion yen
      1. Color MFP units up 8%
      2. b/w MFP units down 3%
    2. , while the Imaging System business would post net sales of ¥1.092 trillion and operating profit of ¥154 billion.

Two arrested for using MFP to make fake$

  1. – The Hardin County Sheriff’s Office and the Kenton Police Department of Ohio arrested Taleah Dematteo and Austin Hart
  2. – They attempted to purchase Amish goods using fake $20 bills
  3. – In their vehicle was found a color MFP that was used to produce the fake currency

Survey on use of digital tech at work

  1. – Conducted by Censuswide, regarding use of technology in the workplace
  2. – 15% of workers say that they consider the current use of tech by their company as excellent
  3. – – 42% say it is “good”
    1. 32% say it is “average
  4. – 44% believe that social media and video conferencing creates collaborative culture
  5. – 52% feel their employer is doing enough to help them develop digital skills
  6. – 37% would move to a job with better digital skills
  7. – 46% would like to see wearable devices covered by health insurance
  8. – 46% have Facebook banned in workplace

Use of direct mail on the rise after lull

  1. – Data from United States Postal Service
  2. – Standard A mail up 2.3% YoY from 79.4 billion pieces to 81.2 million pieces
  3. – 31% of marketing executives plan on spending more on direct mail in 2017
  4. – 15% of marketing budget on average is spent on direct mail

Dell wins contract for printing at college

  1. – Penn State University of Pennsylvania announced it has deployed “wepa” stations on the campus
  2. – The stations include a touchscreen kiosk with student ID card reader, as well as a Dell color laser printer, and a Dell b/w laser printer
  3. – For 5 dollars, students can print 100 b/w pages

Chinese detail sale of Lexmark software

  1. – The winning bilier for the software division of Lexmark is Thoma Bravo, the parent company of Hyland Software, maker of OnBase
  2. – Lexmark was acquired by a Chinese consortium last year, but only planned on keeping the hardware division of the company
  3. – Reuters News Service is reporting that the selling price was $1.5 billion
  4. – Once completed, here are details:
    1. Hyland will gain control of the following software divisions of former Lexmark:
      1. Perceptive imageNOW ECM
      2. Brainware Intelligent Capture document capture
      3. Acuo VNA (vendor neutral archive) patient info storage platform
      4. PACSGEAR (picture archive communication system) for medical images
      5. Claron zero footprint medical image viewer
      6. Nolij document imaging system
      7. Saperion document management system
      8. Pallas Athena business process management software
      9. ISYS enterprise search
      10. Twistage video & media management
    2. Thoma Bravo will create a new company, named Kofax, with following:
      1. Kofax document capture software
      2. ReadSoft optical character recognition software
      3. Will be led by Reynolds Bish, former CEO of Kofax
      4. (what is oli about this is that Hyland was in biliing war with Lexmark for Readsoft in 2014, which Lexmark won)

PrinterLogic wins large contract

  1. – Award from Laser Spine Institute
  2. – Installed Enterprise Print Management Solution to Eliminate WAN Print Traffic, and Reduce Service-Desk Calls
  3. – Claims to have shrunk the number of its print-related service desk calls to “nearly zero”
  4. – “What we were doing wasn’t convenient for anyone – not for our administrators or our end users,” according to Jeff Alway, IT Support Services Manager at Laser Spine Institute
    1. “We didn’t see anything that fit our needs as well as PrinterLogic. PrinterLogic came out on top by far,” he says.
  5. – operates 7 locations across the US and employs 1,000
  6. – originally maintained 4 print servers and 250 printers
  7. – “Before PrinterLogic, we had no central management capabilities. Any time we made a change to a printer, we would spend hours making the same change on the main print servers, on each of the 20 to 30 terminal servers. That does not even take into account the challenges of ensuring the end users’ workstations were properly configured.”
    1. “We had one main print server, and then we had multiple print servers in our other facilities. However, we had constant issues with all of them. On the smaller print servers, we had persistent issues with the drivers being incorrect and the print jobs failing.”
    2. Unfortunately, because remote print jobs then were routed to the central server and back, there were “continual issues with printing latency,” he says. “So we’d commonly see scenarios in which users were waiting two or three minutes for their jobs to print. Imagine how frustrating that can be for users who are trying to focus on patient care.”
    3. “a 10MB PDF would often bloat by up to 50 times after being rendered by the central print spooler. This placed a heavy load on the WAN and slowed the speed of WAN-reliant data traffic”
  8. – “Printer deployments are much quicker now. When we opened three new facilities and configured 20 to 30 printers per site, we simply exported the data from PrinterLogic and changed the names to reflect the new location. This has cut deployment time from three days to one hour,” says Alway. “PrinterLogic has been a game changer for us when it comes to managing printers. We haven’t had to think about print management for months.”
  9. – Is now using PrinterLogic’s built-in reporting features to “track and minimize color printing.”
    1. “was able to quickly generate a report of users who were printing color disproportionately to the rest of their department and identify the color printers that were actually needed.”
    2. Via the management console, delete color printer profiles and redirect users to black-and-white printer profiles.
      1. “This task was something I was able to accomplish in two minutes — but would have taken at least 40 hours to do in the past,” he says.
      2. “Many vendors have made promises for a dramatic increase in efficiency but were not able to deliver on the promise. That was not the case with PrinterLogic. It has allowed Laser Spine Institute to drastically reduce IT resource requirements for printing. It was a great investment and we really couldn’t live without it at this point.”

Share This

Share this post with your friends!