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Showing posts with label The Future. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Future. Show all posts

Friday, September 5, 2014

How Cloud Computing Will Change Your Business in the Future


From Workintelligent.ly, Aug 27, 2014.

As we know, the cloud is a platform that allows you to store and process data away from your personal device. The resulting information can then be presented to that or other devices.

This is not a new concept. It’s the way computing originated. Programs originally ran on mainframes, mirroring sessions to terminals throughout an organization. But these were expensive options. In the very early days of personal computing, businesses could only afford to provide CFO’s and controllers with spreadsheet applications and $10,000 PCs.

Thursday, August 14, 2014

The $HPQ Way : Destroy All Channels Except One


8/14/14

"My armour is like tenfold shields, my teeth are swords, my claws spears, the shock of my tail is a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath death!"
I've talked about HP Instant Ink before  -

"This is the plan; make printing so cheap the act of printing is as thoughtless as watching TV.

Friends, I give you one possible timeline for the Future of MpS - self-imposed irrelevancy. Rejoice and make mirth for the sun shall shine on our faces forever!

So be it.

Just because the Motley Fool thinks this is a bad idea, doesn't mean it won't work(mopier). We all know how innovative HP can be (TouchPad) and their commitment to customers (2007, product delivered to the highest volume accounts only), employees(25,000 layoffs), and suppliers (thousands of canceled laser engine orders to Canon) is beyond comparison (pale)." - GRW, 2013

Well here we are, not even a year later and HP is bringing its brand of MpS to the SMB  - without you.

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Death of the Copier: The Book is Here




It is official - at least in the E*Book version.  Death of the Copier, the Book is available on Amazon and iBooks as well as other places(SmashWords) and the print version is days away - just in time for the holiday season!

Unavailable on Google Play.

Not only are my words and ideas presented but the best and brightest in our industry contribute great insights.

Forward by Ed Crowley,  Founder and CEO of the worlds premier, managed print services consultancy shares views and insights about managed print services and beyond.

AfterwordMike Stramaglio, President and CEO of MWAi, a forward thinking, gentleman of industry, talks about the future and a dramatic generational change ushered in by the imaging industry.

Introduction by Robert Newry, past Managing Director of Newfield IT, a cutting edge, visionary of stellar proportions, introduces the section about assessments and tools.

Monday, December 9, 2013

Time to Put the Cost Per Copy Model Down.


Oh yeah, we're going there.

It started long ago.  In the beginning, making copies of business documents - memo's, invoices, reports - was slow and tedious.

So we built devices to perform these duties.

Thousands of moving parts, heat, static electricity and heavy handed employees contributed to a dynamic and precarious environment - they required a good amount of attention.

To put it bluntly, our machines broke down so often we needed a way to pay for technicians.

To support the machines in field the 'industry' hatched a plan:

"Why don't we sell service with the machines?  We'll make it impossible for anyone else to supply our devices, so we'll combine service and supplies into a billable line item, determined by how many pages come out of our devices...and will call these 'clicks' after the noise a meter makes with every copy and call the billing model Cost Per Copy..."

Genius, really.

Oh sure, there were other schemes - blending ...

Read the rest, here.

Friday, June 29, 2012

Webinar - Technology United, Bigger Than SkyNet

Who is Technology United ?

The core group comes out of the imaging sector, but each and every member has eyes on the horizon and collaboration as a mission.

There is more to imaging than marks on paper.

The MpS Ecosystem continues to grow, expanding beyond toner on paper, up to the clouds and back down to screens.

How can we in the niche, utilize this powerful new group to maximize our customers' experience, become a valued partner, and sustain this new business model?

Tune it to learn more about Technology United.

More than a group of buddies leveraging their marketing position, TU is a collection of forward thinking, early adopters who believe improving the industry, improves us all.

A rising tide lifts all vessels.

We will simplify the complex and illustrate the significance of this first of its kind association.

August 7, 2012 - 2:00PM EST

Sixty minutes, open discussion, with 15 mins for Q/A - a maximum of 25 attendees.

Click here to register.


Eventbrite - Technology United: Bigger than "SkyNet"

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Going Mobile and Big Data



From imaging to content to the cloud to Big Data to Business Intelligence to Mobile Business Intelligence.

We're moving from marks on paper to the clouds, all the data is moving off the paper files.

But the data is just data, unusable.

In the old days, we would 'crunch' the numbers either manually or on a spreadsheet.

Today, there is an app for that; instead of the numbers getting crunched on paper, it's being presented on a screen.

Typewriters and impact printers - gone. Carbon paper, white-out - gone.

Add cubicles, office furniture, water coolers, uniform rental programs, IT departments, factory floors, inventory shelving, hi-lows, truck docks, and pallets to that list.

Then take away the roads, parking lots, air conditioning units, and tons of paper.

And all those useless meetings. Gone like a freight train. Gone.

How so?

The answer is in the palm of your eleven-year-olds hand...right here.


Monday, June 18, 2012

Webinar:The Internet of Things

July 2, 2:00PM - Free Webinar.

Curious about how all this new technology can help your practice or dealership?

Wondering what all the hub-bub is about Big Data, BYOD, and Business Intelligence?

Are you seeing your volume decreasing?  How about your MIF?  Some studies are calling for 40% of the channel to disappear by 2014.

What should you do? What can you do?

There are no silver bullets, but tune in and learn about a few options.

Eventbrite - The Internet of Things: New Technology in Imaging



Greg Walters will be presenting on the new technologies, how to survive and thrive during this secular shift.


Tuesday, June 5, 2012

The Hits Keep Coming: HP downgraded and 52-Week Low...

As long as someone else says it, I should be okay...maybe these good folks are picking on HP, because HP is the biggest and best in the business.

I threw up a little...in my mouth, just now.


Business Week:

"Peter Misek of Jefferies & Co. said that tablets are likely to hurt HP's personal computer segment.

"While consensus thinks Windows 8 will boost personal computers, we think it will accelerate tablet cannibalization as the operating system focuses on touch," he wrote in a client note.

Misek also believes that smartphones are now used by enough consumers -- and tablets to a lesser degree -- that it is lowering printing demand.

The analyst lowered HP to "Hold" from "Buy" and reduced his price target to $23 from $30.

HP shares closed at $22.68 per share on Thursday. They fell to a 52-week low of $20.57 on May 23 and traded as high as $37.70 late last July.

An email seeking comment from HP was sent before business hours but was not immediately returned."



From a usually more upbeat news site, cheerfully named, Bright Side News, the first passage is the high-point of the article:

"While we at Bright Side of News always try to look at the bright side of things and have an optimistic view of the industry, there are times when we simply cannot help ourselves and must say something.

Case and point is Hewlett Packard [NYSE:HPQ] and their current announcement of their reduced earnings of 31%..."

The analysis compares HP's terrible employee/revenue ratio with other companies in the niche sumamrizing with:

"When you have that many employees, your workforce begins to become a liability rather than an asset and you begin to drain yourself purely as a result of maintaining such a large bureaucracy. If HP wants to really become nimble, they need to spin off divisions of the company or give some of them less importance in the future of the company's success."

Mother Blue is going through some significantly bad times - more than most.

Who else could one week announce the reduction of 28,000 employees and talk about being around 40 years from now the next?

IPG merging with PSG is like two fortune 500 companies merging - and we all know how well merges of that scale go, right?

Well, the next time you see an HP'r, wish her the best.
I know I will.

Monday, May 21, 2012

Are You Thinking at the Speed of Print or the Speed of Content?


2012

Time is compressing.

It was just in 2009, a mere three years ago – or actually, just under 36 months – when MpS started showing up in its current form.

At conferences, show floors were jam-packed with MpS propositions; Konica Minolta, OKI, Xerox, LMI, GreatAmerica, Digital Gateway, ECi, Compass, Strategy Development, M2M, Synnex, NER, and many more were “all-in.”

Granted, it wasn’t really MpS.

Fliers plastered with “MPS” stickers; sales classes pushing MpS selling cycles, TCO, and the like; but the content was still copier sales, copier leasing, toner cartridges. Desk-side toner delivery/auto-fulfill, just fresh off the whiteboard, was being touted and sold.

What was big back then?

Monday, May 14, 2012

The Tablet is To Print as The Cloud is To IT Services: The Death of I.T.

 I.T. Services"...that's a wrap..."

When filming a scene in a movie, once the director has what he needs on set, and the filming is complete, somebody will announce, "That's a wrap!" indicating the end of the scene, show, or movie.

Then they celebrate the completion and bash-out at the "Wrap Party".

While sitting in the first day of presentations at an industry symposium, Lyra 2012 - I had an epiphany.

The days of IT departments, IT VARs and CIOs are numbered.  The ending scene is being played out before us.

Off camera, an anxious Director is about to announce, "That'a a Wrap, people..."

That's right.  Wrap it up.

Monday, May 7, 2012

"No, not Less paper, Paperless..."

"The paperless era is upon us, people."

This video cracked me up. No matter how the big OEMs or companies that produce paper spin it, the time is now.

Still, these 'pro-paper' ads are amusing and well produced.



"I read it in this report..."



Cute, smart, engaging and out dated - these were obviously done before the latest advances in personal access display devices or BYOD - how soon before these are seen as nostalgic and reminiscent of a bygone age?

Brought to you by Domtar.

About Domtar:

"Domtar is the largest integrated manufacturer and marketer of uncoated freesheet paper in North America and the second largest in the world. As such, we:

Design, manufacture, market and distribute a wide range of paper products for a variety of customers, including merchants, retail outlets, stationers, printers, publishers, converters and end users.

Manufacture business and office paper, commercial printing and publishing paper, as well as specialty and converting paper."

Click to email me.

Sunday, September 25, 2011

End Of Summer, End of Days - What Next?

The 23rd of September, fall equinox, was the last day of summer up here in the northern hemisphere.

The Spring Equinox seems like decades ago.  Remembering the Turn that was Summer 2011 one can barely imagine what the next 3 months will bring.

What about the next 12 months?

Unemployment is still up.

Gold is way up.  HP down.

Since 2007, that will be five years ago pretty soon, the only aspect of our world that has steadily increased is the use of technology.  Our technology has forced the growth of content faster and faster.

There isn't today and there never will be, a paperless office - Less paper, but never paperless.

The social networks carry more and more.  Netflix is chewing up bandwidth,  FB has become mundane.  Tablets shipping everywhere, $99.

The Apple store at Fashion Island was packed on a Tuesday afternoon.

Droid, Win8, HP is out, no their in, no their out, wait...we don't know, iPad 2, iPhone 5, thin client, zero client - and the cloud.

That always growing, ever changing "cloud" - Google, Salesforce, Box, on and on.

What about managed print Services(MpS) or selling copiers?  With all this cool stuff going on, you're selling copiers?

Really?

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

ECi and Digital Gateway - Merging/Acquired/Transforming/Converging

The Transformers keep on coming.

Reliable sources report that Digital Gateway and ECi will become one - no details yet.

Digital Gateway, the 2011 MPSA Leadership Award, is a class-act and infrastructure pillar in our little industry.

Indeed, I use it everyday in my practice.

ECI is a legacy application in imaging - we all know both.

Expect more details in the following days.

The "Transformation" moves forward...

Thank you, "Deep Throat".


Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Your World: Do I need to Draw you a Picture?

Tell me again, what do you sell?


My Dad still buys a newspaper.



When HP loses PSG, really, it won't be that bad.


Manged print Services, the Economy and Layoffs.  Do you see it?






Click to email me.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

"Dear Steve, I've never owned a Mac, or an iPhone and I don't have an iPad..."


I don't even know you, but you seem to know a great deal about me.

So Steve, thank you for my Droid X.

Thanks for forcing Microsoft to integrate a mouse, even if it was on DOS 4.0.

Thank you for getting IBM to utilize 'preemptive multi-threading in OS/2 even though it was a doomed OS.

Thanks for pushing the 3.5" floppy.  Thanks for letting all the peripherals that attach to the Lisa automatically connect.

Thanks for AppleTalk.

Thank you for seeing I really only wanted three or four songs from an album.

Thank you for disrupting the music industry - giving us Lady Gaga and incredible, mind-blowing live shows. (figure it out)


Thanks for recognizing a dwindling need and not allowing the iPad to print.

You beat the PS/2 and helped IBM find a new way.  

You destroyed the music industry and helped them find a new way, giving us immediate access to the music and artists we, the people, wanted to hear, at 99 cents a pop.

Sony, because of you, experienced the stink of defeat, the folly of internal business silo and they found a new way.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

"The Sky will Blow The Heavens into Stars" - The Future of our Imaging Industry, Xerox, IBM, HP, Content



2011

Autonomy Corporation

"Autonomy is the market leader in the provision of software that automates the analysis of unstructured data, whether in the form of text, audio, images or video." - UBS, July 2008

The other day, I sat in on a webinar.  The fine folks at Lyra were presenting "Printing supplies market trends MPS" - yeah, I know, who the hell would sit in on one of these?

MpS Geeks, that's who.

Of course, the data presented has been fodder for DOTC for the past year; we will never get back the placement levels of 2008, A3 devices are dying(ahem), any recovery will be linked directly to the surviving dealership's ability to focus on workflow, not the box. We know this, correct?

Then a funny thing came up - OEMs are "rationalizing" their fleet offerings.  They are narrowing down the number of models.  

Shrinkage.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

The Summer of 2011: Integration, Re-Imaging, User MpS Profiles and DOTC Members Only


Optimize Everybody...

Oh boy, I am in the middle of the Anthony Robbins "Ultimate Edge...blah blah blah..." -  it's good, really, I mean it and someday I want a place on Fiji right next door.  So what better way than to study the dude.

He's humongous, you know.

Perhaps you don't know Anthony Robbins or what he does - in a nutshell, he helps point out the obvious to the oblivious.  He sounds sincere, is the consummate selling professional - always closing - and makes an impression.  He attracts - I guess that is one reason he has 'handlers' - huh.  Well, the material I am visiting is dated and timeless pointing out how so unaware we walk through Life.

The waning days of Summer 2011 entice a review of my journey these last 90, a Quarterly Review of sorts - who says our clients should be the only ones to get QBRs?  

This summer has been about breaking through Stage 1 and Stage 2 - wait, that's not 100% - before I could breakthrough, I needed to 'remember' Stage 1 and Stage 2...so yes, now I see S1/S2 completely.  Table stakes.  Temporary.

You can really change, by letting go of the restrictive patterns of our past and you can't let anything go until you remember.

MpS changes all of us, by making us aware, and helping us remember.

Anyway, this summer has been about integrating an MpS Practice into a VAR/MSP's Infrastructure, recognizing End-User's behavior, and Re-Imaging.  

Interesting thoughts. Everything starts with a thought.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Tech-News: More Plastic Paper, Self Assembling MicroParticles and the Last Book Ever Printed

Yeah, I know, the electric paper trick has been around for decades.

Below is the latest:

"I think the greatest breakthrough was that traditional display devices usually require electricity to write, but our technology made it closer to how we would use normal paper," said John Chen, Vice President of the Institute and general director of the Display Technology Center.




The more interesting advancement revolves around micro-robots.

"Danger, Danger...Will Robinson..."

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Windows 8 - Another Example of less Print, More Content - TheDeathOfIcons, TheRiseOfTiles



Probably years off, but do you see the future of the 'click'?

Not only will print clicks fade, mouse clicks, too...

"See your future, be your future..."

Contact Me

Greg Walters, Incorporated
greg@grwalters.com
262.370.4193