WEEKEND MFP INDUSTRY NOTES
5-31-09
The following is a quick review of copier/MFP industry news from various trade publications.
- EFI announced that it won a “Hot Pick” award during a major print for pay tradeshow. PacPrint takes place every year in Australia or New Zealand. The award was given by Print 21, a magazine dedicated to the industry, and based on the new EFI Fiery Command WorkStation version 5.0.
- When deciding between an embedded EFI Fiery, and an external EFI Fiery, the advantages of the external usually include:
- tab insertion
- quick document merging
- supports PPML for high speed variable data printing
- Optional Graphic Arts Packages, for high end color control
- In another cost cutting move, Hewlett Packard announced it is closing factories in Scotland and Germany, and moving work to existing factory in Czech Republic. This will result in loss of 5,700 jobs in Europe.
- In an effort to compete against cheap generic substitute cartridges, Hewlett Packard’s Giovanni Sabio announced the results of a study comparing its HP toner cartridges versus compatibles. Mr. Sabio claims the study by Quality Logic Inc. revealed; “Based on research, remanufactured products are actually a lot more expensive in the long-run because of poor quality and other hidden costs, apart from the fact that they are not friendly in the environment. SMB’s who think they can achieve cost savings by choosing remanufactured cartridges are making a mistake by not factoring in the hidden costs from reprints, replacement cartridges, and additional labor costs from having to diagnose and fix printing problems.”
- Canon’s CEO says he sees signs of business bottoming out. Mr. Fujio Mitarai said; “performance has been considerably better than originally anticipated in March and April.”
- Canon announced is finishing construction on a 700,000 square foot building in Virginia. The building will be used to refurbish imageRUNNER 5000 and 3300 b/w digital copiers.
- What is it like to work for Canon in Japan? In an article in Gizmodo magazine, Canon plant manager, Hisashi Samaki is the author of a book proposing some of the same measures he instituted at his own company. He has removed all the chairs, as that he believes that forcing employees to stand not only saves money, but increases productivity and enhances employee relationships. In the hallways, if an employee walks slower than 5 meters every 3.6 seconds, an alarm and flashing lights are set off, reminding the poor worker that he is operating inefficiently. He also installed a sign on the floor that reads; “Let’s rush: If we don’t, the company and world will perish.” Mr. Sakamai, however, has a nice relaxing chair.
- Microsoft is being sued by end users who claim they were misled because their new computers couldn’t run all the new features advertised for Windows Vista.
- Oce’ announced it sold two high speed color production systems. Jeppesen, a division of Boeing Corp., purchased two of the Oce’ ColorStream 10050 rollfed units to produce aircraft manuals. The company expects average monthly volume of 25 million sheets.
- Oce’ announced it won an FM bid from Dickstein Shapiro LLP, a large law firm in New York. The contract is a 3 year, multi-million dollar deal, including locations in Washington C, New York and Los Angeles.
- A student in Maine, who took a computer printer home from school made a shocking discovery. Inside was a boa constrictor snake, which had escaped from its cage at the school.
- Kodak announced that it signed an agreement with Konica Minolta in Australia, allowing the company to be a reseller of the Kodak NexPress production color system.
- Toshiba announced plans to reduce fixed costs by an additional 10%. It will cut costs by $3.5 billion, in hopes it will secure a profit this year.
- Competing against the new Toshiba eSTUDIO 6530CT? Important points:
- 65ppm color and 75ppm b/w top speeds
- Advertised as offering 1200x1200dpi (however, it does not offer true 8 bits per pixel image quality)
- The built-in print controller apparently does not offer RIP while print. In other words, it will not start processing a print job, until it has completed printing the job that it received first. In a busy environment, this means that print jobs may back up into the customer’s network, potentially
causing bandwidth issues. This may force customer to buy the optional EFI Fiery print controller.
- Difficulty moving print jobs in queue
- Reported low quality halftones when printing
- Flesh tones apparent exhibit heavy reddish and yellowish hues
- Can only hold up to 9 copy jobs in queue
- Network scan setup is very difficult, and may cause confusion among customer’s IT staff
- It takes 11 clicks to program a booklet print jobs
- When scanning, end user is unable to be sent to multiple types of destinations in a single session
- Can not copy onto tabs
- Toshiba announced it will increase its flash memory chip making capacity by 30% at its plant in Mie, Japan.
- In a court in Wisconsin, Toshiba sued Imation and others, claiming the companies were infringing on its DVD making patents.
- Toshiba conducting a ground breaking ceremony in Vietnam, for its new electric motor plant, that will take up 861,113 square feet. It hopes the new plant will have $700 million in revenue by 2015.
- Xerox gave out more details on its last quarter’s financials:
- Revenue down 18%
- Production equipment revenue down 26%
- Production post sale revenue down 15%
- Color equipment revenue down 25%
- Color post sale revenue down 10%
- Developing market revenue down 53%
- Office segment equipment revenue down 31%
- Office segment post sale revenue down 12%
- 85% growth in MIF of segment 1 b/w MFPs
- Plans to cut transportation costs by $100 million
- Will reduce costs by $100 million by instituting hiring freeze, no salary increases and
suspension of 401K match
- Will also reduce travel and trade show costs by $100 million
- Xerox announced the sale of a 700 Digital Color Press and a 4112 high speed b/w system to PMT Digital print shop.
- Ricoh Australia announced it will resell EFI’s PrintSmith MIS software for printshops.
- A school in Illinois is suing a local copier dealer over a lease. Governor French Academy of Washington County, claims that it entered into a lease, which supplied them with 6 new copiers, and the dealer claimed the lease on the existing copiers would be paid off. Instead, the school continued receiving bills from the first lease company, and found out that they were not paid off as promised.
- A dealer in Pennsylvania expands. The Phillips Group, a large Sharp dealer, recently opened a $500,000 addition to its headquarters, which includes an in-house print shop.
- The Department of Energy, upon investigating the Oak Ridge, Tennessee nuclear lab, found that some employees were using the connected digital copiers to print images from porn sites. It is arranging for the removal of hard drives from 160 copiers.
- IKON, a division of Ricoh, announced it is opening an office in the Rand Tower in Minneapolis, MN.
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