So Really. What is the Big Deal about "Ink Jet"??

A very astute question, from a smart guy. Who happens to read my blog.

What is the big deal about ink anyway? According to HP, 90% of all the print in the world is in ink, not toner. And just look around, look at all the items in your office or home that have printing - my favorite DVD covers, my Michael Crichton Novel, the coffee can from Trader Joe's, the labels on the Mondavi bottles, my copy of FaceFull all ink.

The question isn't what is the big deal with ink, it should be what has been taking so long! Ink is everywhere - not toner.

To start with, ink systems like Edgeline have less moving parts then the xerographic brethren. Less heat no static. Heat being the biggest difference. 266 degrees to be somewhat exact is the temperature needed to melt the toner (see The Fundamentals of Xerography). Heat wears on materials like plastic, or motors or delicate optics; have you ever heard of somebody burning their fingers when trying to clear a jam? The answer is "yes".

I am not referring to the Ink Jets you may have at home - you know the ones, the printer costs 39 bucks after rebate, and the ink costs $69.00! (Gotcha!). I am talking about business machines. I am talking about replacing all those hot, dry toner boxes in corporate America with cooler, energy efficient, robust and reliable machines. Machines that in the end do the same thing as the hot-boxes, put color marks on paper.

This was bound to happen. All things change and get better - DOS moved to Windows, MultiPlan gave way to LOTUS 123 which in turn gave it up to Excel. It is the natural order of things. The time has come to begin to move the mundane function of printing into it's next evolutionary stage.

This is not about technology it's about innovation. It isn't about marketing hardware advancement as much as it is about a advancing a philosophy.

Xerox is not putting any more money into "photocopiers". HP invested 1.3billion in a new technology (Edgeline) not in improving an older technology(xerographic).

Xerox and HP - two Great American companies - innovating into newer and more reliable printing. Innovations like the color television, the radio, the automobile, refrigerators, micro-waves...It won't be long until the copy-cats of the far east jump on the "ink-jet" band wagon.

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So to summarize - What is so good about ink vs toner?

- cooler temperatures
- less moving parts
- color control
- more consistent and reliable
- less energy use
- more environmental/green

Surround the above with:

- Easy to use
- Easy to maintain and remove mis feeds
- Native to the network/connectivity(print, scan)

You you have a heck of a package - not just an "inkjet"

Again With The "Leasing"! Enough!

"GET THEM TO SIGN ON THE LINE WHICH IS DOTTED!!!!"I have proposed and had signed 1,000's of agreements: purchase agreements, uniform rental agreements, equipment lease, computer hardware service, copier service, printers service software support agreements.

But today, I had the unfortunate experience to witness one of my prospect's (and hopefully new client) pain over a HUGE buyout figure on one of his machines. This machine is a Konica Minolta BizHub C500. My client prints large( 400-500 page) monthly reports. Each report has some colored text sprinkled about. There are no hi-res pictures and no detailed, color schematics - just text and maybe a pie chart. Oh, and these reports are customer facing, revenue generating documents.

The lease has 26 months left on a 60 month agreement.

The service payment is combined into the monthly lease payment.

For the past 11 months, copy quality has dropped immensely, at last report, each page had a "pinkish hue", which I guess technically is a color.

The front of the lease clearly states, "...your payment obligations are absolute and unconditional and are not subject to cancellation, reduction or set off for any reason whatsoever. Both parties waive their rights to a jury trial..."

I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP.

I can go one - and I will - but for now, check these posts out and if you are selling equipment on a lease, do WHAT IS BEST FOR YOUR CLIENT.

Here is the press release for this unit's roll out and from that release, " ...Pricing and Availability. The bizhub 500 and bizhub 420 are available through Konica Minolta's North American direct sales, authorized dealer and value-added reseller channels. The manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP) for the bizhub 500 is $12,300..."

This blog post is pretty close to a normal "pre-sale" experience with leasing from the stand point of a School no less - oh but wait there is more. Check this post out - from a church!




***The information included in this post is not, nor is it intended to be, legal advice. You should consult an attorney for advice regarding your individual situation.

Xerox is NOT Afraid of Edgeline...

Anne Mulcahy - From InsuranceNewsNet.com, Xerox Corporation at JPMorgan. A question posed to A. Mulchay ask what Xerox thought of regarding Edgeline.

The response - "...On HP and Edgeline, I think for all of you who followed it, I think there certainly was a lot of fanfare about Edgeline really being the entry with inkjet into the office marketplace for HP.

I think it would be fair to say that it has been extremely quiet. That any information available would suggest that it has had very little impact right now on the marketplace in total.

I think the challenges are ones that are inherent in liquid inkjet, which really doesn't allow you a lot of media flexibility with high quality, and that is I'm sure something that HP is working on.

We chose solid ink as a technology in that part of the market because of the advantages of quality and media flexibility. We're pretty excited about the prospects for solid ink going forward, and that is a proprietary technology for Xerox. So I would say we have not seen much from Edgeline.

We never take for granted the fact that competitors get better; but right now I think we have been able to compete very favorably against Edgeline in the marketplace.

Oce CrystalPoint

Edgeline Meets Melting Wax Meets Thermal InkJet Interesting article by Cary Sherburne.

Oce has release a "new" technology - they started developing in the 1990's. It's a bit of a hybrid between ink and toner.

For now, the print heads move across the paper, but it is interesting to see another type of "liquid" system.

Oce has always been kinda "out there" on the fringe in some ways - not sure if we will see this in office systems anytime soon.

A new look over at Managed Print Services Resource Center

MPS - Managed Print Services Resource Center

The folks who gave us the New North America MPS Tracker has a new look and some new content.

I especially like the MPS Adoption Cycle found here. In this article, The Three Stages of MPS Adoption is spot on. I see this every day. And I really like the matrix of Key Questions for MPS Vendors. I just wish there was a better word to use instead of "vendors" - don't vendors push hot dog carts?

And Ken Stewart of ChangeForge.com has a good article about I.T. working within the organization to achieve business goals. I appreciate this statement from his article,

"Innovate:

Innovation is not only coming up with good ideas yourself, but understanding good ideas flow in and throughout the people in your company everyday. Ensure you are seeking out advice from not only business unit leaders, but people on the front line as well. In seeking mind share, individuals will begin seeing that you care about their needs and aren’t just making decisions in your ‘ivory tower’."

To me, this one statement sums up the difference between a successful project and one that dies a million deaths. Everybody has great ideas - but seeing your ideas to fruition is truly innovation.

The Photizo Group site is a good one. Although I can not figure out how they came up with that name except maybe after the New Testament Greek Lexicon meaning "to shed light". Their report is very illuminating as mentioned in this post back in April.

Managed Print Services is hot. So hot, I am seeing more and more "competitors" on the street. Unfortunately, most are "posers" - either I.T. integrators "coming down" to the Printer level or copier dealers trying to "move up" to the integrator level. It's all very delicious.

Go check it out.

IKON and Steel Partners - How IKON Will Be Sold

Who is this Steel Partners? And what does it mean to IKON or to anyone in the industry?

Here is a time line of press releases:

Friday, March 4, 2005 -Aggressive fund buys into Ikon Office Solutions stock

A New York investor ... has acquired 5.4 percent of the outstanding stock of Ikon Office Solutions Inc.

Steel Partners II LP, a hedge fund run by Warren Lichtenstein, bought 7.55 million shares of Ikon for about $86.8 million between Nov. 11 and Jan. 13. Steel disclosed the purchase in a form investors must file with the Securities and Exchange Commission when they acquire 5 percent or more of a company's stock.

Steel said in the filing it thinks Ikon's stock is undervalued. It also said it intended to talk to Ikon's management and board of directors about the company's business, operations and future plans...

Matthew Espe, Ikon's chairman and CEO, said he's glad Steel invested in the Malvern, Pa., company, which is the world's largest independent distributor of copiers and printers.

"We understand their philosophy and they understand our strategy and we think it seems to be aligned," he said.

...In 1998, a shareholders group headed by Lichtenstein won control of the board of Aydin Corp., a Horsham, Pa., maker of communications and telemetry systems. Lichtenstein was installed as chairman and the next year the company was sold to L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. for $75.7 million.

In 2002, another shareholders group led by Lichtenstein was elected to the majority of seats on the board of directors of SL Industries Inc., a Mount Laurel, N.J., maker of power and data quality control equipment. The board subsequently installed Lichtenstein ...

...Steel has been investing in bigger companies of late. The Business Week article said Lichtenstein now focuses on firms worth around $2 billion.

Ikon fits into that category. And the company has been making the kind of moves Steel seems to like.

Last year, it (IKON) sold its U.S. office equipment leasing business to General Electric Co. for $1.5 billion and used the proceeds to pay down debt. It also began taking steps to improve its sales effectiveness, gain share in markets where it's under-represented and target product segments with rapid demand growth.

Espe said the recent cost cuts weren't related to the investment by Steel...Instead, he said, they were part of his strategy to clean up Ikon's balance sheet, boost its growth and cut its costs. Espe thinks that strategy, and Ikon's success in implementing it, is what attracted Steel to Ikon.

"They see the upside," he said, "and I like having investors that see the same thing I see."

-July 07-
IKON Office Solutions: Steel Partners II Recommends Recap Via $850M Self Tender Offer

The Death of Xerography

One of my installs.  We removed many XRX's.  This was the "Plant Holder".

May, 2008.

One of Corey's recent posts talked about Xerox not selling copiers...

This post talked about how Xerox's Chief Innovation Officer(Sophie Vandebroek) was quoted in a video interview by Scobleizer as saying, "Xerox doesn't sell copiers anymore..." Interestingly enough, I had just posted on my blog regarding an editorial in L.A. Times by Gary Gardner, May 9, 2008, which stated, "...Consider the idea of businesses offering services instead of goods in today's economy. Xerox has shifted from selling copiers (goods) to leasing them (a service), which gives the company, as perpetual owner of the leased machines, a strong incentive to manufacture them to be refurbishable. This greatly extends the life of materials and reduces waste..."

Of course I chimed in with a comments on both the L.A. Times and Corey Smith's board.

What is most interesting is that Sophie responded with a comment of her own on Corey's blog. She said, "...Fact is, our customers rarely want standalone copiers anymore. Our technology has evolved significantly since those analog days. The vast majority of our office products are multifunction devices, they’re networked; they also print, fax, scan, flowport, link to applications via EIP, etc… Maybe my statement was too broad brushed — but the intent was to say that we’re really not a copier company anymore. Our customers demand much more and that’s what we give them..."

And from this article at CW by Gary Anthes, Gary asks Sophie, "What do you say to people who think of Xerox as just a photocopier company?

- Within the research and technology community at Xerox, we no longer do any work on photocopiers. What Xerox really focuses on now is how do customers deal with document-intensive processes, whether it's a lawyer dealing with all the paperwork required to win a legal case or a mortgage company dealing with all the paperwork. There are many document-intensive processes, and in most cases, they are pure digital documents."

Did you see that? Read it again, the RED parts.

No new R&D in photocopiers - Xerography is Dead.

Ok, so I guess Xerox really doesn't sell copiers anymore! Oh and don't forget the 1.4 billion dollar investment HP made in R&D for Edgeline...

Ms. Vandebroek's statements reflect the marketing position that Xerox isn't a photocopier company, it's much much more. 

And there is nothing wrong with that.

Is Anyone Really AFRAID of Edgeline?

From an opinion post on the Print4Pay Hotel Thursday, May 24, 2007 - Here are 15 points reflecting why Edgeline is not to be feared - remember, this is exactly one year ago, today. My responses in RED.


Who's Afraid of HP Edgeline CM8000 Series? ...


"1. No Offset Stacking: I can't believe they made this big of a machine with offset!
2. No 3 Hole Punch: Again WOW! - Big Deal.
3. Limited Card Stock: Only through the by-pass (I think this unit is rated for max 58lb only) - And? So?
4. 11x17: The trays are very slow on 11x17 and the by-pass seems faster! 11x17 is slower, but how often do you need 11x17 in business color environment?
5. Misfeeds: While it doesn't misfeed much at all, if a user leaves a misfeed in over the weekend it will dry out the print heads (ouch!) - Interesting, haven't heard that one.
6. Weight (725lbs): Can not use a stairclimber because there are no stress points! - not true
7. Black cpc: It's not the ink price that will get you but the cost of the maintenance kits! - LOL! service agreement covers that, but there are not any traditional "maintenance kits"
8. Availability for the next six months: slim enough that we are looking to pick up another line! - currently moot.
9. CPP for color: Business .05 and Professional .06 cents per page! - yup.
10. Strangely enough, the letter paper only runs thru the machine in landscape orientation from the LCT (can't even load portrait/speed). - this is true, see my post
11. Standard 1,500 sheet paper supply only! - LCT is 4k
12. VERY slow FCOT (First Copy Out Time) 12 seconds. - yup, 80-90% of documents are printed
13. Ink cartridges load from the bottom of the device (Oh my Back!) - LOL! give me a break
14. To protect the print heads from electrostatic discharge, be sure to touch the
horizontal metal bar to ground yourself before clearing jams that are near the print heads. The print heads are above the print-drum area. - Never heard of this.
15. HP recommends that you do not use this device for printing on sequential paper, such as pre-numbered checks or invoices." - OK, the Edgeline doesn't do MICR.


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I guess I could further debate the above, but "facts are stubborn things" - it really does take 12 seconds for the first copy to come out. And there is not now, although I hear and friends of mine have actually seen, a three-hole punch option. I recommend pre-drilled paper. This reduces the environmental impact by eliminating "harmful" paper dust and litter(the little paper dots).

If we sweep all the technological advantages and perceived functional disadvantages aside what we have left is a product that is immediately familiar to IT directors. A product that fits quite well "within it's designed parameters".

I caution all my prospects right from the get-g0; "this machine is not designed for anyone who will make their living off of the quality of color output." If the prospect pulls out a "loop", I have failed in the qualification stage begin to pack my stuff and exit.

The point being, Edgeline fits in a specific business space. Not production. Not desktop. Business color - oh and the above points, although a year old today, smell of fear.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly - for just 73 copiers **UPDATED***

The good people of the Mt. Vernon School District are the victims of a bad sales person and an ugly purchasing agent should go to prison. School Purchasing Chief Indicted For Bribe Receiving
Posted on Tuesday, 4 of March , 2008 at 9:11 pm

MOUNT VERNON—The former head of purchasing for the Mount Vernon City School District has been indicted for bribe receiving, official misconduct and larceny.

Rose, 49, of Pease St., was arraigned Tuesday on two counts of felony third degree bribe receiving, three counts of official misconduct, one count of receiving unlawful gratuities and one count of petit larceny, all misdemeanors.

The Westchester district attorney’s office says that between June 21 and July 13, 2005, Rose agreed to accept and accepted a bribe of $3,500 from a sales representative of Ricoh Americas Corporation for his assurance that Ricoh would receive a five year contract from the Mount Vernon School District for 73 digital copiers, support products and related services.

On Aug. 3, 2005, upon the defendant’s recommendation, the Mount Vernon City School District awarded the contract to Ricoh. The cost of the contract was in excess of $1 million.

Between June 1, 2006 and Sept. 1, 2006, Rose solicited and accepted a bribe in the form of a $10,000 donation to his church, Upon This Rock Ministries, from the owner of a Tri-State Supply Company, a custodial supply company, in exchange for future business which was subsequently awarded.

In a third incident, between March 1, 2006 and Sept. 1, 2006 Rose secured and used a school district gas card for personal use.

The Investigations Division of the New York State Comptroller’s office assisted in the investigation.

Bail was set at $25,000 cash or $100,000 bond. Rose’s next court date will be on March 25. He faces a maximum of seven years in state prison on the felony charge. 3-05-08 - The North County Gazette

This still happens - it's a shame.


UPDATE - ADDITIONAL STORY - IKON

Bad purchasing procedures and "...a trend where capital equipment is purchased or leased without any regard to the operating costs or ability to run the equipment (lack of adequate power capabilities). This is like the Dell computer purchase fiasco at Lake County where they bought Dell computers without including the cost of an operating system, and installing servers in schools that do not have adequate air conditioned rooms for them to run without burning out. School administrators seem to ignore consolidating total system costs into one purchase request for capital equipment. Capital is in one budget and expenses are in another, and total system cost (including a review of environment to ensure the equipment CAN be used as justified) is not combined so it is all researched and disclosed before any equipment or capital expenditure is authorized..."

Dead peoples forged signature, free flat screens, IKON, and no regard to operating costs - a very bad combination...

HP Servers and Joshi - - -

HP now sells more servers then ANYONE ELSE -

"SAN FRANCISCO -(Dow Jones)- Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) has passed International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) to become the No. 1 server seller in the world based on revenue, market data provider Gartner reported Thursday."

From a WSJ blog:

" Joshi’s printing division brought in $7.6 billion for the quarter that ended April 30and now gets about 50% of its sales from its 2,400 biggest customers. He’s increasingly trying to associate H-P services with those machines–a timely theme in view of the company’s $13.25 deal to buy Electronic Data Systems."

While Joshi wouldn’t get into specifics of how his existing print services could be integrated with EDS (which has a long business relationship with H-P print rival Xerox), he said H-P salespeople are trying to show companies how they can save energy costs by getting all their printers onto a corporate network. And about 30% of the clients who have such networks want H-P to run them, he added. “EDS is going to be a big opportunity for us,” he said.

All Print Jobs To Go .PDF

Print system turns everything into PDF I saw this opinion by By James E. Gaskin - He describes a product from Ingenica that converts a print stream into a PDF's and the PDF "...becomes a print job that works on just about any Windows-supported printer. Still, have ink-jet printers on every desk, but can't convince your 5250 terminal emulation program to upgrade the driver and support those inkjets? UniPrint makes it happen..." This piece of information struck me because of a complicated implementation I recommended less than a year ago. When installing a "mini-fleet" of Canon devices( a few 5020i's, 105's, c518i 's, and some 5570's) we ran into some difficulty printing AS400 streams on the Canons. Yes, it can be done and was being done on one of the older Canons but we could not get consistent performance out of one of the newer units. 

 I think we could have used this product.(maybe) Anyway, what I find interesting is the ability to change any print stream or print job into a PDF. I do not know that much about the difference between printing a job out of Word vs printing to a .PDF format and printing the PDF but this sounds to me to be akin to a "universal print driver". More from James, "...Print streams, designed for locally attached printers, look pretty bloated compared with PDF print jobs. UniPrint says a one-page document may be 1MB of normal print-control language stream, but only about 100KB as a PDF file..." 

And now, all is clear to me. What was hanging my Canon up was the copier's inability to consistently interpret the print stream control characters; the copier would hang and wait for end-user intervention. Usually waiting for a paper tray selection. And something more - "...

Pricing will seem high for those companies that have never priced "grown-up" printing support: $3,999 for one Windows server for up to 60,000 printed pages per year. Those companies used to fighting ornery print streams and a lack of printer drivers for AS/400 systems will realize the price becomes an investment in better printing. And if the company has AS/400s or the like, "cheap" as a product description disappears.

It seems odd to charge for pages printed because computer people in small and midsize companies don't see that pricing model often. Yet those same companies pay for copiers on a sliding scale based on copy volume, so it won't be a total surprise..."

Now doesn't the above statement sum up one of the current issues in MPS?

More Green from HP

Carbon Footprint Reduction..."


In an article, "HP takes steps to reduce carbon footprint" HP's plans to help it's customers reduce their Carbon Footprint.

Excerpt, "...The company has set its sights on its printing group in an effort to give customers more choices to limit their environmental impact. Similar programs will come later this year to HP's computer and server business groups.

The environmental effort includes the introduction of an HP Eco Highlights label that will appear first on two LaserJet printers and a new inkjet printer made almost entirely from recycled material. The label will list a product's environmental attributes such as its energy savings or Energy Star rating."

HP also is starting an Eco Solutions program that it hopes will allow companies to reduce their environmental impact by 30 percent. The program includes a carbon footprint calculator and a printing assessment that measures a company's impact and costs from its printing work."

Looks like programs and labels.

And from this blog off ZDnet, a post by Heather Clancy:

"...New HP ECo Highlights labels, which simply summarize the features in a particular product that could be consider “green.” Think of this like the label you find on pretty much everything you buy at the grocery story. Right now, at least, the criteria for this labeling is pretty arbitrary and it will depend on the product category, Coughlin admits. The labels will show up first on LaserJet printers: The HP LaserJet P4051x, LaserJet P4515x and LaserJet P4515xm models. One thing that is kind of cool about these new printers is the packaging, which mimics what consumer electronics companies have been doing for years with appliances to cut down on waste.

- Through HP Auto-On/Auto-Off features that enable a printer to go into a deep sleep mode in which it uses only 1 watt of power. (Kind of like an induced coma, only the printer wakes up a whole lot quicker than you would.)

- A new HP Carbon Footprint Calculator for Printing: This provides a way for companies to compare the environmental impact of their existing printers and imaging technology against new options. It looks at paper usage, power consumption, ink and other things that might affect a product’s overall carbon profile. There’s also a specific calculator for LaserJets. The company’s Eco Printing Assessment looks at a company’s entire printing consumption footprint, not just what it’s doing with just one printer.

- Also being introduced this week is the HP Deskjet D2545, a $49 printer that HP touts as being made almost entirely from recycled content (83 percent of the system). The printer uses HP 60 cartridges that also were made from recycled plastic.

- And what eco-announcement would be complete without the requisite corporate green pledges? As it relates to printers, HP has promised to improve energy efficiency by 40 percent by 2011, relative to 2005 levels. It will triple the amount of recycled materials that go into its inkjet printers by 2010, relative to 2007. It will continue its long-time printer recycling push, aiming for 2 billion pounds of computing and printing equipment by 2010. It will also put a big emphasis on making sure that the photo paper it sells is made from materials that are harvested under certified forestry program. Here’s more on its developing paper policy ..."