Copier Crime - From the "Dirty D"

Copier deal is targeted.

City Council panel agrees to begin process to nullify $10M agreement.
Christine MacDonald / The Detroit News


"DETROIT -- A City Council committee voted Thursday to begin the process to rescind a $10 million contract awarded June 2007 to Olive Delivery Service LLC, owned by former state Rep. Ken Daniels, D-Detroit.
The former Democratic state House colleague of former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's is not authorized to sell or service the copiers involved, city records and interviews show. City audits of the six-year copier contract, the most recent of which is dated Sept. 17, show most of the work is performed not by Daniels' Olive Delivery, but by Leader Business Systems Inc. of Oak Park in Oakland County and the city's own information technology department..."


This is grand.

First off, who in their right mind has a "six-year copier contract" ? That's 1.6 million a year.

Good lord! And how many Kyocera's can that be?

I also see that A-1 Leader Business Systems is a Canon dealer - I wonder how long before Canon comes knocking, looking to convert that 10 million dollar Kyocera deal...wowzie...

But wait, there's more.

"...He acknowledged he is not authorized to sell or service the Kyocera machines specified in the contract but insisted city audits are wrong when they say he does not come close to performing 80 percent of the contract work as required..."

Ok, so "...he is not authorized to sell of service the Kyocera machines..." yet he claims to performing up to "...80 percent of the contract work as required...".

Yeah, right...no cronyism there...eh?

So this guy's delivery company won the 10 million dollar bid, Ken Daniels claims to be doing at least 80% of the work, but audits reveal A-1 Leader Business Systems out of Royal Oak, is performing "most of the work". (If you go to the map, you will see...yup, located on 8-Mile. You remember the movie...admit it...)

Again, you can't make this stuff up.

Copiers and Crime...This Stuff Can Not Be Made UP

Copiers and Crime...The Blotter..It Grows...

Click to email me.

HP Reveals It's Supply Chain's Carbon Footprint

Self Examination Goes Deep.

Continually examining, investigating and reducing it's own footprint, HP now exposes the carbon output of their Tier One and Two suppliers.

As time goes by, HP will require all suppliers to conform with a consistent method of reporting this information.

Shades of Wal*Mart managing the "chain"?

And Now for Something Completely Different: The Ultimate Liquid Cooled Data Center

Google Data Barges - The Man from UNCLE and SPECTRE meet Google

I know this has little to do with MPS or printers - maybe.

Google has applied for a patent on “water-based data center”.

The floating data centers would be located 3 to 7 miles from shore, in 50 to 70 meters of water. And generate it's own electrical power and use sea water to cool the center.

If perfected, this approach could be used to build 40 megawatt data centers that don’t require real estate or property tax.

Now this is nothing new, and is akin to the "data center in a box" approach put forward by Google back in October of 2007.

What is interesting is the ability, or at least the idea, of a self-sustaining data center outside of any particular country's jurisdiction (wait...didn't the author of Battlefield Earth do something like this?)

But, What About Printing? --- Well, I guess anything to help us print from the internet.
Click to email me.

HP - Above the Fray...

With the re-org at HP IPG there are a few new faces in prominent positions.

Faces from all over the world and people who have fresh ideas and a passion for printing.

As I talk to and work with these people, here are some of my reflections, observations and ideas:

1. The HP/Global acquisition-

I had first thought Xerox had "stole" out from under HP - I was wrong.

HP, after long consideration, and a detailed accounting review, did not want Global. And if they didn't want Global, they sure as heck wouldn't want IKON.

2. HP doesn't know how to market the Edgeline-

I had once thought that HP was trying to slam a square peg, through a round hole, when they tried to work with their existing IT integrators and that they had no plan.

On this issue, I was right and wrong.

The square peg thing - yes, I was correct.

My feeling that they had no plan, I was wrong.

HP had a plan but it was a flawed one.

I am speaking to Edgeline and the space the unit resides in the market.

Nobody has said this out loud to me, but when Edgeline hit the market, some felt "if you build it, they will come...". By adding it to the top of the price list, IT managers will naturally gravitate to the Edgeline as they have for decades with the other HP printing products.

The idea sounds great - present Edgeline to IT through HP's already developed and well trained IT integrators in the field. After all, the current HP integrators are as close as family, know HP's quality, have established relationships with clients' IT divisions and can easily add Edgeline to their product portfolio.

Unfortunately, if you throw some of these technology folks into a selling situation against seasoned copier people, the techies will get slaughtered - and move back into their comfort zone.

This issue will be magnified when the 100+ pager per minute Edgeline hits the streets(not that far in the future) - at 100 plus, isn't that a Segment 5? Well, ok, but it's not production, it's office/business color output at 100+ pages a minute. So do we now redefine the Segment system? And how did all those Segments get determined in the first place and by who?

This is what I believe HP understands now:

Edgeline can not be sold like a laser printer.

Traditional copier dealers are more likely to sell an old school copier than Edgeline - so authorizing within that channel is foolish.

The traditional dealer can find enough "faults" with Edgeline compared to the "cheaper" copier-de-jour, to pivot an HP lead into a copier sale.

-Or even worse, the copier dealer may be motivated to sell HP MFP's, place the client on a supplies inclusive agreement supported by third-party supplies...shudder.-

I wonder if that has ever happened.

Authorizing existing HP integrators -

The Edgeline competes with copiers. I.T. integrators know little about that market. For instance leasing, Cost per copy, meter reads and first copy out times are all foreign phrases.

HP knows now, but might not have before, that you can not work with an existing copier dealer and expect them to get Edgeline and HP's Print 2.0 methodology and how to articulate the differences between and the advantages of going with a "printer" company over a "copier" company.

This is good news, missteps are part of growing.

By the way, speaking of missteps and growing, nobody knows better than the current "honchos" at HP (at least the ones I talk to) about learning how NOT to integrate an acquisition: Compaq is in the forefront of "learning opportunities".

HP is growing the channel organically.

This will take a while - 3-5 years.

This will not be pleasant - converting I.T. order tackers into output solution providers.

HP is not getting into the copier fray and will be taking the high road.

This will change everything.

And my recommendations:

• Stop bringing in so many people from competitive printer manufactures
• Cultivate your base of IT integrators
• Hire from the Copier industry(gag, j/k)
• Think more like a copier provider, but not too much
• Develop a Pull marketing campaign around the best integrators
• Market answers to business problems
• Develop and replicate the "Ideal HP Printing VAR" as though the VAR was employed by HP

I am sure I can think of more...but this is enough...

Canon U.S.A. Acquires San Francisco-Based NEWCAL Industries

Wow...I was just talking to someone from NewCal last week in Napa...


LAKE SUCCESS, N.Y., Sep 23, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Expanding its support for business in the San Francisco Bay area, Canon U.S.A., Inc., today announced the acquisition of the NEWCAL Industries business.

The San Francisco-based NEWCAL Industries is an independent value-added reseller of document and print solutions, including document imaging hardware and software, printer fleet and facilities management services. Founded in 1991 by Steve Tarpley and Ken Wilkens, NEWCAL is a leading independent provider of technology solutions to businesses in the Bay Area.

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This strikes near to our heart - NewCal is a decent HP-SVIP/OPS, Edgeline dealer...the report goes on -

"We are thrilled to continue to offer our customers Canon products, considered by most to be among the best in the industry, and are pleased to be part of the Canon family," said Steve Tarpley, president of NEWCAL.

Ken Wilkens, chief financial officer, NEWCAL, added, "Our customers will continue to receive the outstanding service they have come to expect from NEWCAL."

According to Jason Montgomery, vice president, Strategic Development, NEWCAL, directed the acquisition for NEWCAL, and states, "NEWCAL is now positioned for continued growth in the Northern California marketplace with a wide solutions portfolio and a serve-centric reputation."

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This should be a good move for all involved.

Who in The World is "TeknoForce" from Ricoh/RiKON ?

Ricoh has hired an advertising agency, Gigante Vaz Partners, to create a brand and program to promote its service technicians. The brand is called; “Teknoforce”, and Ricoh is hoping it will boost its image with IT Directors in the U.S.

Johannesburg, 23 September 2008 - Ricoh expands Teknoforce

"Gigante Vaz Partners and Ricoh announced that Ricoh is expanding its Teknoforce programme in selected markets across the country, reports Marketwatch.

Teknoforce was created as a response to Ricoh's desire to find a way to monetise the skill and depth of knowledge of its sales and IT force.

The programme will also be used as a way of adding to Ricoh's awareness within the IT market."

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WOW -

It's like HP's strategy with printing only in reverse.

Ricoh, a traditional copier manufacturer is tip-toeing into the IT world...credibility is the issue.

Unlike HP stepping "down" into the copier/facilities world, Ricoh is trying to step "up" into the IT realm - and unlike HP getting into waters filled with "copier, sales, sharks" Ricoh is getting into a more sedate selling sea.

From Atlanta to L.A. -

I find it most interesting that the only returns on a Google search of Teknoforce are related to the advertising campaign. Apparently, the ad campaign tested nicely in Atlanta so Ricoh decided to roll it out in certain markets, across the US.

Part of the marketing campaign includes vehicles adorned with loud decals, a la 'Geek Squad' -



Just a little food for thought, as the two worlds, IT and "Facilities" continue to collide and converge.

Teknoforce

Canon Says Little Regarding RiKON

In response to the sale of its largest distributor, a Canon executive finally commented on the sale of IKON.

Off the Print4Pay Hotel site -

Canon’s managing director, Masaki Nakaoka, stated; “The acquisition (of IKON) will trigger a further reshuffle of sales agents for us and others. We will now aim to expand our sales network.”

Ricoh reported that if the acquisition of IKON falls through:

• IKON will pay Ricoh a termination fee of $66.7 million
• IKON will also pay $16 million to reimburse Ricoh for legal fees.
  

According to some reports, on 9/16/08, IKON conducted a conference call notifying its employees that Canon would cut off IKON from acquiring any new hardware inventory as soon as the Ricoh acquisition is finalized. IKON will however, still have access to Canon parts and supplies.

Because Ricoh does not offer high end production print equipment (as Canon did with imagePRESS color and imageRUNNER PRO relabeled Kodak b/w units), IKON may be in discussions with Xerox to market some of their equipment.

More details on what makes up IKON:

• Original company founded in 1928
• Formally incorporated in 1952
• Revenue peaked in 1996 at $11 billion
• Unisource, the paper distribution business, was spun off in 1996
• Has currently completed only 2/3’s of its “One Platform Conversion” program
• Copier division revenue peaked in 1998 at $5.5 billion
• Stock value peaked in 1996 at $65 per share, but declined to as low as $2.50 per share
• Has total of 24,000 employees in 400 office locations
• Canada & Europe account for 18% of revenue
• 6000 technicians
• 9000 are FM or professional services employees
• 500 work in the HQ located in Malvern, PA
• Has 500,000 customers
• Has 900,000 devices in field under service contract
• GE Capital provides most of leasing
• Includes 100 of the Fortune 500
• Sales and service of copiers accounts for 75% of business
• 50% of revenue comes from color and production print systems
• 20% was from professional services or FM
• B/W copier sales were declining by 7%
• 8% of service revenue was coming from color clicks

In contrast, when Xerox bought Global, it acquired 200 offices and 200,000 customers for $1.5 billion
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My reflections on the above:

• Canon is not going to bid for Ikon.
• Canon is out there expanding the "sales network" through purchasing some of the remaining independents.
• Ricoh may take a while to digest IKON but I do not think they will "choke" on IKON.
• We may see new product from RiKON as early as Q1, 2009 to fill the gaps in the product line or even see some short term partnerships with the likes of Xerox and Kodak.

She Speaks - CEO Anne Mulcahy

X Woman, by Michael Fitzgerald, Q & A

I found this article and pulled out some interesting parts -

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You have things in your labs like invisible ink and erasable paper, which lets the print on the pages dissolve after a day or two so that they can be reused. Is part of your goal to reduce the amount of paper that companies use?

Absolutely. We want to help our customers print less. This is the information world, and content management is a very big deal. A lot of what we do in our services business is help people go from paper to digital, help people create content that’s searchable, help people really live in a world of smart documents versus dumb documents. Documents that actually have embedded intelligence in them.

You still sell copiers, but not very many of them.

We don’t sell any stand-alone copiers. Everything we sell is networked. Most of it is multifunctional. It copies, it prints, it scans, it faxes. So most of it is really part of the networked world. And almost half of what we sell is now full color.

You said that by 2008 you wanted 10 percent of the pages Xerox prints to be color, and right now you’re ahead of that. The company’s at 16 percent.

It’s going to be 100 percent, because the world we live in is in color. And color is growing by double digits right now. Also, digital technology is letting us do things like print-on-demand and one-to-one marketing. Offset printing, the method usually used for marketing materials, is a $400 billion market. Only a small slice of it has gone to digital. One of the things we’re starting to enter into is digital packaging for consumer-product companies. We recently did a demo for a gum wrapper. Consumers can create their own personalized packages, or companies can print regional versions or versions in different languages. It’s more flexible and it’s cheaper.

It looks to me—don’t get mad—I know that it’s supposed to be the globe, and that the soft X stands for Xerox, but it looks like a croquet ball to me. Was this a long process?

Well, there you are. It took longer than I thought it should have, because I tend to think that things should move pretty quickly. I mean, how tough is it? But the fact is that this is a corporate asset. You need to test it. You need to think about it. We wanted the logo to be more informal, and we wanted it to be more attractive in a three-dimensional world versus a two-dimensional world. We also wanted to make sure that the color palettes reflected the color business and the company.

Also, the new logo took a long time to roll out. The name is everywhere, so you have to transition everything. We immediately transitioned on the Web. But they were telling me it was going to take six months to get the logo on the outside of the headquarters building here. About two weeks after we made the announcement on the brand, I was in Egypt. And I’m coming out of the airport and there’s this huge billboard with the new brand on it. I was on the phone saying, “Guys, I’m in Egypt. [Laughs.] And there’s a billboard up. I think you can do better than six months on the headquarters building.”

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LOL! "...it looks like a croquet ball..."

RiKON To Work with Xerox

Ricoh/IKON/Xerox

How big of a shock would it be if Ricoh Japan allowed IKON to ink a deal with Xerox to provide product in the gaps created by the Canon fallout(de-certification)?

Read the above again.

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Well, get over your shock because it's a doozy and it is happening...

Also, seems Konica Minolta signed a five year with RiKON - it appears that KMBS needs the channel too...

Espe may have this all planned out quite well with much more to occur in the next few days - the excitement level "on the ground" is electric.


- nod to "Scorpio"...

Canon To De-Certify as Soon as Ink Dry

September 17, 2008

Another question answered and oh so many posed...

During an internal conference call yesterday, IKON explained to it's employees that Canon would indeed be de-certifying IKON as soon as the Ricoh deal is final.

Falling back on "Policy" -

Canon expressed that this action falls within their policy on not certifying "competitors".

Indeed, this action is in line with their previous movements after Xerox bought Global dealers who sold and supported Canon.

-- Let the feeding Frenzy begin...

HP to cut 24,600 jobs worldwide

US technology giant Hewlett-Packard has said that it will cut 24,600 jobs worldwide...over the next 3 years...

Ok, I don't remember hearing HP say that the aquisition of EDS would mean "business as usual" like the RiKON announcement spawned.

Still, can we see the future of Ikon in this announcement from HP?

Hurd Speaks -

"HP has a strong track record of making acquisitions and integrating them to capture leading market positions,' said CEO Mark Hurd. 'HP now has the broadest technology capabilities in the market to meet customer needs today and in the future,' he added."

September "Bump" - Hold on to your Hat

With the recent Ricoh/IKON (RiKON) news, copier sales people are now more globally minded...

From AP, World stocks soar after Freddie, Fannie bailouts

I personally do not participate in recessions. I don't like them.

I believe that as in sales, most "systems" built around humans are driven by as much emotional energy as cold, strategic planning.

So, even if I do not participate in recessions, my prospects and clients may succumb to the unfavorable economic, emotional bombardment - it's much easier to be negative.

Take this latest news article that explains world markets "soar" after the US government takes over Freddie and Fannie - some may explain this surge as an expected and temporary up-tic, I would agree. An emotions carry the surge.

The price of oil is falling - it may go below $100.00 per barrel this week.

This is good news and will affect business's purchasing mentality as people start to "feel" better.

This good news should effect the way YOU project your positive mentality as an Agent of Change.