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?

MpS going downstream - Way DownStream - SMB/SOHO - wait, WHAT??

9/2011

HP recently announced a slew of new machines, MpS enabled aimed directly at the small business niche.

Oki - is bundling scanning options built for Quickbooks, integrated with hardware, under their MpS, for around $800.00.

And I swear, I can almost hear Samsung slowing down through re-entry, landing in the water and waiting to come ashore en mass, with cheap, bundled MpS devices.

The Sky Shall Shatter the Heavens into Stars -

The great double-dip recession of 2008-20xx is recognized by layoffs,  jobless figures, the California exodus, the Detroit melt-down and the not so stark difference between government-created jobs and government jobs. (Think about it...wait for it...wait....there.)

As corporations are reducing headcount and squeezing every ounce of productivity from the zombie-like survivors, home offices are sprouting up like poppies in Afghanistan.

HP is getting out of PC's because they see less value for their shareholders in PC's - and as the PC goes, so too, goes the printer.

Downstream.

All these laid-off executives,  managers, and cube rats are going to find their way in the world, most won't simply lie there, on the couch, collecting "Obama-bucks" forever.

The new Aquarian Workforce will be mobile, they will work simultaneously for multiple employers, and be based at home - printing. All those individual stars falling out of the sky, landing and thriving - on smartphones and tablets; no more brick and mortar.

But wait, there is more.

As the corporate world shrinks, and the need to print fades to white, smaller, cheaper, and MpS Bundled devices will be the norm; if by "MpS Bundled" I mean S1/S2, which I do.

Machines talking to machines, toner automatically delivered, directly from the OEM.

Service you ask?  Really?  How about the OEM's go and design devices as reliable as your flat screen? How often have you called for service on that one?

From B2B to M2M to B2C and NOTHING in Between.

You feeling that? 

   

That's my L.A. - How many times does L.A. need to get blowed up by aliens?

Click to email me.

TheDeathOfThe PC: A Call to the Channels Transform Now

My Rover, Grass Valley Fire, 2007

It isn't that we are not familiar with tough business decisions.  We all know somebody who has been a victim of such acts.

HP's announced decision to let die WebOS and TouchPad - a product that lived just 49 days - in and of itself is stupendous.

Spinning off their PCs may seem surprising unless you once sold IBM ThinkPads and remember selling IBM printers.

Go back to IBM, heck go back to the Mopier, the HP9065, and Edgeline; is it really a surprise that after investing a billion, shifting leadership, HP drops and adds?

There is more, much more here, and it is not all Dark.

The Imaging of Greg - "MPS Summit: What a Difference Three Years Make"

"Yup, I was in Vegas at the “Recharger show.”


Well, technically, I attended the 2011 Managed Print Summit, which to me, seemed even more out of place, until I looked at the scheduled presenters: Ed Crowley, Robert Newry, Mike Stramaglio, Jim Lyons and Greg VanDeWalker – all MpS regulars, each in the ecosystem from early on if not the very beginning.


And there were more. Jim D’Emidio, Ed McLaughlin, Mark Mathews and Jim Phillips – old-skool hardware and infrastructure dudes who each see the impact of MpS.


And the new guys? How about Brendan Peters from Intel, Tim Grimes from Research in Motion or Gordon Jones from Green Hills Software? Googlitize them if you don’t know who they are. For now, let’s just say wireless, intelligent devices and security software. Yeah, at an MpSummit, the day before the large toner cartridge show. Who woulda thunk?..."

Read the rest at The Imaging Channel



Click to email me.

Talking, Rumors Flying - IBM to take Xerox; HP Getting out of PC's, Oracle to Pick up HP

All over the 'Net:

Xerox a good Purchase Target - WOW

"IBM to purchase Xerox" - WOW, WOW

"Samsung Eyeing HP's PC business" or not, Huh

Dell Smack Talk to HP - duh...

The Unthinkable -

"Oracle should Buy HP" - No Way!

Business as Usual -

To Customers - "Business as Usual" - YOU HAVE NO CREDIBILITY TODAY.

To the Channel - "Business as Usual" - YOU HAVE NO CREDIBILITY TODAY.

Why -

How did we get here? - History, repeats

The Dude - Speaks

Does All This make Sense? - No, Yes.

Android to the Rescue - TouchMy X

The DOTC read on all this...

"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.