Canon U.S.A. Announces Acquisition of Its Direct Consulting Business by CIBER, Inc.

(BUSINESS WIRE) -- Canon U.S.A., Inc., a leader in digital imaging, announced that, effective today, CIBER, Inc. has acquired Canon Technology Solutions, Inc. (CTS), which was a subsidiary of Canon U.S.A., Inc.

CTS has been providing advanced technology solutions and consulting to organizations since 1985.

From the CTS site -

Canon Technology Solutions, Inc., a subsidiary of Canon U.S.A., Inc., has been an innovative leader in providing advanced technology solutions and consulting to organizations since 1985. Our mission is to help leading corporations create and sustain competitive advantage, empower their employees to achieve ever increasing levels of productivity and accomplishment, and to transform their critical business operations in order to achieve superior levels of performance through the intelligent application of enabling technologies.

"The integration of CTS with CIBER ITO will further expand our capabilities and scale in our managed services and IT outsourcing delivery footprint and will add customized content management solutions to our portfolio," said Mark Perlstein, ITO President. "CIBER and CTS clients will benefit from our commitment to strengthening our existing offerings and adding complementary innovative solutions that will service their unique needs."

Based in Greenwood Village, Colo., the company’s(CIBER, Inc.) consultants now serve client businesses from 60 U.S., 25 European offices and seven offices in Asia.

Operating in 18 countries, with 8,500 employees and annual revenue of approximately $1.2 billion , CIBER’s IT specialists continuously build and upgrade our clients’ systems to “competitive advantage status.” CIBER is included in the Russell 2000 Index and the S&P Small Cap 600 Index.

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What does this mean?

Canon could be shedding costs and making room for

Nature does not like a vacuum -

TallyGenicom Opens Another Chapter - Chapter 11

TallyGenicom files for Chapter 11, assets to be acquired by Printronix, Inc.

TallyGenicom announced last week that it has filed a voluntary petition for protection under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.

The Company’s filing was instituted in order to effectuate the sale of certain U.S.-based assets of TallyGenicom.

As part of its filing, TallyGenicom will be seeking Court approval to name Printronix Inc., as the lead bidder in the auction process.

TallyGenicom CEO Dan Adragna said, “After working our advisors, investors and lenders to explore a number of alternatives, we have made the strategic decision to pursue a Chapter 11 filing in order to effectuate a sale of certain of the company’s U.S.-based assets,”

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Panasonic - Color, color MFP's Do Not Stop a 3.9 Billion Dollar Slide

Panasonic/Matsushita provided the rumor mill even more reason to suggest that Panasonic may get out of the copier market all together.

Rueters reports Panasonic Corp (6752.T) will report a consolidated net loss after tax of about 350 billion yen ($3.89 billion) in fiscal 2008/09 due to restructuring charges and weak sales of consumer electronics.

This will be Panasonic's first loss in six years, and the biggest since the firm posted a 430 billion yen net loss for the business year that ended in March 2002.

Interestingly, at last week's 2009 Lyra Symposium, Panasonic did not make the roster of copier companies analyzed.

It is not known how much the copier side of Panasonic contributed to the loss.

Printer Industry News: Managed Print Services… Staying the Course – Or Changing the Game?

Great Post from Ed.

Hardware Agnostic, Service based vs. Equipment Based...Printer Industry News: Managed Print Services… Staying the Course – Or Changing the Game?: "In reality, a services business model cannot be commoditized. If a firm is offering differentiated service with significant value add, then there is no way to become commoditized. However, if the firm is wrapping a CPC program around hardware and calling it MPS, this can absolutely become commoditized. But this is also a hardware-centric business model, not a professional services-centric model."

Consolidation - Off go the Mega Dealers...

At the 2009 Lyra Symposium, one of the more prevalent discussion, both on and off stage was consolidation - the more exciting consolidation topics were the possibilities between the manufacturers.

Of course the topic turned to the few remaining independents and the "Mega Independent" dealers.

This week, Xerox, through GIS, acquired one of those Mega dealers - ComDoc. ComDoc, according to their site, was the largest independent Ricoh dealership in the U.S.

ComDoc Chief Executive Officer Riley Lochridge said,

''An offer was made that we think was good for our employees and our shareholders, ... and it will be good for our customers,''

And in a '''rapidly consolidating marketplace,'' he said, joining forces will make the company even stronger and more competitive.

ComDoc employs 600 and had sales of $125 million last year; the employees own the company, so they will share in the proceeds of the sale. ComDoc reportedly services 14,000 customers.

Xerox spokesman Carl Langsenkamp said, ''We try to find dealers that are well-known and have a good customer base,'' he said. ''ComDoc had good, key cities ... and GIS didn't have any operations in Ohio, so this opened up that opportunity.''

This acquisition, will give GIS a presence in 29 states.

All reports are that no major changes in operations will result although a strategic plan to convert clients to Xerox is obvious.

Since the being purchased by Xerox, GIS as made 6 other acquisitions.

It appears that Xerox is utilizing GIS's expertise in dealer assimilation to grow the channel even more.

List of GIS acquisitions(partial) since Xerox purchase, May, 2007:

Imagine Technology Group
Copy Products, Inc.
Alternative Office Systems
Sierra Office Solutions
Saxon Business Systems
Blackstone Valley Office Systems
American Business Machines, Inc.
Better Quality Business Systems
Marbaugh Reprographics Supply Co.
Inland Business Machines, Inc
ComDoc