Ricoh and IBM into InfoPrint and Now, rIKON -

Pssst...their going after the guys in I.T, not Purchasing...What? You didn't see this coming?

Back in Time - Friday, June 8, 2007

Ricoh counts on InfoPrint Solutions for growth...

Ricoh Co. Ltd. foresees job growth and increased market share for InfoPrint Solutions Co., its new Boulder hub for Ricoh's high-volume printer business.

That's notable at a time many computer industry mergers end in layoffs and closed facilities.

In the past two and a half years, Tokyo-based Ricoh bought the high-volume printer units of Hitachi and Danka Europe, now Infotec.

Its $725 million purchase of controlling interest in IBM Corp.'s printer division in Boulder -- renamed as InfoPrint Solutions -- is its biggest yet.

The move promises to give Ricoh a shot at a leading market-share position in sales of high-volume printers after years of being a behind-the-scenes manufacturer of parts for machines sold by other companies.

"We want contact with end-users -- customers -- so we can understand their needs to improve our offerings and grow our market share," said Katsuya "Kevin" Ochiai, InfoPrint Solution's vice president for strategy and business development.

Ochiai is one of four executives transferred from Ricoh offices in Japan to Boulder the week of May 28 to run InfoPrint Solutions.

Ricoh owns 51 percent of the Boulder-based venture. Its stake will grow in the next three years until it's InfoPrint Solutions' sole owner.

The new company, which designs production printers used in print-on-demand publishing and mass-mail billing, is based at IBM's campus in Boulder and employs 550 people there. Its worldwide payroll includes 1,200 people in 18 countries. InfoPrint Solutions will bring on another 1,000 IBM employees in a year, most of them involved in maintenance.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) received $725 million June 4 and expects to record $250 million in sales in the next three years, it said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

Ochiai predicted InfoPrint will maintain 7 percent to 8 percent annual growth. If things go well, the company could double its $1 billion in annual revenue in five years, he said.

The company will use IBM's global sales force in the next three years while InfoPrint cultivates its own, and how well that goes will drive its near-term success, Ochiai said.

...acquiring InfoPrint gives Ricoh access to enterprise-level clients it didn't have before and products with a lot of customer loyalty behind them, he said.

"How you see this deal has a lot to do with your perspective," Hamilton said.

InfoPrint has a good chance of meeting its growth goals, he said. The key will be the company's ability to maintain IBM's reputation for quality and establish an effective sales force, he said.
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Friday, February 2, 2007

Selloff of IBM printing division could mean good news

IBM announced on Jan. 25 that it will sell its printing division to Ricoh -- creating a separate company that will be based in Boulder.

Richo initially will acquire 51 percent of the joint venture, called InfoPrint Solutions Co., for $725 million in cash and

will progressively acquire the remaining interests from IBM over the next three years as the company morphs into a fully owned subsidiary of Ricoh.

With Boulder becoming the worldwide headquarters of InfoPrint, the office will likely create more positions related to development, marketing, product management and maintenance, Paterra said.
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2007-06-14

Ricohs InfoPrint Ready for Print Market By Patrick Hoffman

InfoPrint Solutions Company, a joint venture between Ricoh and IBM, has announced it is ready for business.

InfoPrint Solutions Company, formerly IBMs Printing Systems division but soon to be owned by Ricoh, announced recently that it was ready for business.

Ricoh is buying IBMs Printing Systems division over the course of three years, an arrangement which gives Ricoh access to IBMs production printing software and provides Ricoh a way to market their MFPs (multifunctional products) and printer-based products. Under the terms of the agreement, Ricoh will own 51 percent of the joint company and IBM will own the remaining 49 percent.

"Our focus is to provide solutions that focus on quality of output and total cost of operations that improves a customers environment whether it be an office or commercial environment," said Bob Kilcullen, senior vice president and general manager at the Boulder, Colo.-based InfoPrint Solutions.

Kilcullen pointed out that although IBM had been involved with the printing industry for a number of years, it was not their main focus.

"It was a question of focus as IBM has been involved with the printing industry for a number of years, but it was not their main stream of activity," Kilcullen said. "Printing is the core business for Ricoh so it made a lot of sense to move the printing business to Ricoh."

According to Susan Lyon, research director of Hardcopy Peripherals and Document Solutions at the Framingham, Mass.-based technology research firm IDC, the IBM-Ricoh arrangement has two main benefits for Ricoh.

"[Ricoh] now has access to the services and solutions expertise that will especially be attractive to IT decision makers in all types of enterprises,"

she said, "as well as access to future transaction print high-speed color products and workflow solutions that IBM was developing with partners and internally."

Since InfoPrint Solutions inception, the company has released a number of new products including the IP5000 high-speed, full-color offering for the production environment that produces more than 900 full-color images per minute as well as a new family of light production cut sheet products ranging from 90 to 135 images per minute.

"We want to deliver broader solutions to the marketplace and we are in a position to extend in the print business," Kilcullen said.

"With InfoPrint Solutions, Ricoh will have added a strong product pipeline of production equipment and related services and workflow solutions," Lyon said. "It will be great for the industry that there is a player with a keener focus on the printing industry. As in any industry, stronger players make the marketplace stronger."

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Is Ricoh/IKON poised for a major thrust into the IT and transactional printing space?

Will InfoPrint be enveloped into the rIKON PS world?

Will IKON A/E's be trained in the art of talking to IT or will this fall to Professional Services?

Can Ricoh use the existing InfoPrint client list to build upon?

How will IBM and HP respond to having a "copier company" targeting the same prospects and contacts?

How drôle...

PC Magazine Dropping Print for Online -

Dr. Egon Spengler lives on...

PC Magazine has been reporting on the personal computer since 1982- I remember the first time I saw an issue - it had something to do with printing...

Today, the magazine announced it was dropping its print edition next year - you will be able to find the magazine, online only.

"Moving our flagship property to an all-digital format is the final step in an evolutionary process that has been playing out over the last seven years," Ziff Davis Media chief executive Jason Young said.

"Since 2000, online has been the focal point where technology buyers get their information, and technology marketers are directing their dollars to drive demand and build their brands.

"We have been carefully preparing for this step and are fortunate to have a digital business that has the scale, profit, and opportunity to carry the brand powerfully into the future," he said.

Xerox and HCL Technologies Announce Global Partnership - Who in The World is HCL?

ROCHESTER, N.Y., Nov 19, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Xerox Corporation (XRX:
Xerox Corporation

XRX 5.58, -0.48, -7.9%) today announced a strategic global alliance with HCL Technologies, a leading global IT services company. HCL will serve as a systems integrator for Xerox's managed print services offering -- which helps companies control their office print environment to achieve continual cost savings and productivity gains.

"The partnership with HCL will open new opportunities for Xerox in this high-growth market while bringing sustainable business benefits to more customers worldwide," said Stephen Cronin, president, Xerox Global Services.

The joint, go-to-market offering combines Xerox Office Services and systems with HCL's desktop management and infrastructure expertise to help enterprises gain control of printing, copying and other document-related costs. Effectively managing the office can lead to reduced print costs; faster and easier management of documents; lower compliance and security risks; a higher level of service to end users; and environmental benefits.

"This partnership represents an opportunity to transform the way enterprise print environments are managed," said Anant Gupta, president, HCL Technologies Infrastructure Services Division. "With the collaborative efforts of two market leaders we will create new, value-added solutions that will drive additional efficiencies throughout the office setting."

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I find this very interesting. Can you see the pattern?

EDS and Xerox had a relationship until HP bought EDS. HP has direct inroads to IT departments. Leveraging this position into MPS opportunities.

And now, on the surface, it looks like Xerox may be trying to chip away at MPS engagements via the IT department -

until I looked at HCL.

Off their site, "...HCL focuses on 'transformational outsourcing', underlined by innovation and value creation, and offers integrated portfolio of services including software-led IT solutions, remote infrastructure management, engineering and R&D services and BPO..."

"Transformational outsourcing"? The definition, here.

So, let me get this straight - HCL is a "transformational outsourcer" from India...right...ok...sure...

I guess we may need to wait and see on this one.


P.S. - Here is a post by Vineet Nayar, the CEO of HCL about Leadership - it's a good read.

Webster's Xerox plant will soon produce a new kind of toner

In a post earlier this month, I reported Xerox shutting down toner production in Oklahoma City - Today, reports of new toner production at the Webster Plant.

Six, 25,000-gallon tanks were seen hoisted up and lowered into position at the Xerox plant in Webster.

The tanks are needed for the production of Xerox's new, Ultra Low-Melt EA toner.

“With the new tanks, we expect the Webster plant to start producing the Ultra Low Melt EA Toner sometime next year,” said Edouard Langlois, project manager for the Xerox Consumables, Development and Manufacturing Group. “Installation of these tanks will give this plant the flexibility to meet the demand for both first and second generation EA toners, and it will help Xerox deliver the most energy-efficient document management solutions for its customers.”

As with most of the newer, advanced toner, this Ultra Low-Melt is chemically grown instead of the older method of air-jet, pulverizing plastic.

EA (Emulsion Aggregation) Ultra Low-Melt is made of a combination of plastics and wax.

This toner melts as much as 45 degrees lower than Xerox's standard EA toner, resulting in devices using less power; between 15 percent to 30 percent less.

“This was the most difficult toner design we ever worked on,” said Hadi Mahabadi, Xerox vice president and manager of XRCC. “We had to push the envelope to the limit to achieve lower melting temperature and higher gloss while keeping other performance the same as or better than current EA toner.”

Ultra Low-Melt was developed by Xerox researchers in Canada in collaboration with Fuji Xerox Co., the Tokyo-based joint venture between Xerox and Fuji Photo Film Co. Xerox had been purchasing the toner from Fuji Xerox but is doing the addition so it can produce its own, Xerox spokesman Bill McKee said.

Xerox Laying Off - Ceases Toner Production

HP Really Doesn't Like it when you Fool With Their Ink - Really.

HP Resolves Ink Cartridge Patent Infringement with LexJet Corporation

HP (NYSE:HPQ) today announced that it has resolved the dispute and dismissed a patent infringement lawsuit against Florida-based LexJet Corporation and LexJet Southern California, LLC, regarding inks used in certain remanufactured HP large-format ink cartridges.

On May 22, 2008, HP filed a lawsuit against LexJet in the U.S. Federal Court for the Northern District of California.

HP and the ink manufacturer supplying ink to LexJet have developed a solution to avoid legal action. LexJet’s ink manufacturer has agreed to reformulate the inks in question and pay HP an undisclosed amount of money.

"HP is pleased to have resolved this matter quickly, and we remain committed to vigorously protecting our investment in intellectual property,” said Stephen Nigro, senior vice president, Inkjet and Web Services Business, Imaging and Printing Group, HP. "As part of HP’s ongoing worldwide testing and enforcement efforts, we will continue to monitor LexJet and others for possible patent infringement.

The Death of Windows 3.0

Ah yes...I remember it well...

Microsoft launched Windows 3.x in 1990 and set a minimum configuration level of 64K of RAM, 7 megabytes of hard drive storage, and a graphics card capable of handling CGA, EGA and VGA graphics.

Although Microsoft stopped supporting the version in 1990, I did not know "the OS has quietly survived in the world of embedded systems, powering cash registers, ticketing systems and in-flight entertainment systems for Virgin and Qantas 747s, according to a recent report in the BBC News..."

I remember seeing Windows on the Blue/Gray, gas plasma screen, of a Zenith Laptop - but it may not have been Win 3.0.

But the first time I saw Windows boot up on a color gas plasma - Wow! It sure beat Dos 4.0. And the Solitaire card faces moved!

Well, all good things come to an end, and nothing is real until it's gone.

Article Here.

Photizo Group Releases First-ever Study of Western European Managed Print Services

Photizo Group Releases First-ever Study of Western European Managed Print Services Research reveals significant differences in MPS requirements across countries (PRWEB) November 17, 2008 -- A new study from the Photizo Group captures the nuances and preferences of the Western European Managed Print Services (MPS) market. The Western European MPS Decision Maker Tracking Study™ is the first dedicated research into managed print services in France, Germany, and the UK. The first-of-its-kind study is available now. "The practice of managed print services can be adopted by companies anywhere, but priorities, concerns, and preferences can and do vary, according to our research. As vendors pursue MPS opportunities, this information can guide their efforts in productive directions. Companies in these countries considering MPS contracts will also benefit from understanding how others in their markets are evaluating and adopting MPS," said Ed Crowley, founder and president of the Photizo Group. Photizo gathered data from over 300 MPS decision-makers in IT, facilities management, and purchasing roles, representing France, Germany, and the UK. The research has two major components. The brand study assesses brand awareness, consideration, familiarity, and satisfaction. The purchase study closely examines MPS decision drivers, the scope and breadth of MPS agreements, and the profiles of MPS decision makers.

Sharp Imaging and Information Company of America Expands

With Sharp expanding their "...direct regional sales operation...", just like all the other manufacturers, it is a wonder there are ANY independent dealers left at all.

All of us here at Death of The Copier wish the folks at Kearns all the best with Sharp. We know Sharp made out well by aligning with Kearns and the strong track record in Managed Print Services they bring to the table.

Here is the PR -

Sharp Imaging and Information Company of America Expands Direct, Local Sales Operations with Sharp Business Systems in South Carolina
Greenville-based Kearns Business Solutions now part of Sharp Business Systems; combines high-end management and local service with the industry's leading MFP technology

Last update: 11:50 a.m. EST Nov. 14, 2008

MAHWAH, N.J., Nov 14, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Sharp Imaging and Information Company of America (SIICA) today announced it has once again expanded its direct regional sales operation with the opening of the newest Sharp Business Systems (SBS) branch in Greenville, SC. SIICA's SBS unit has purchased Greenville-based Kearns Business Solutions from The Pater Group, to serve the Upstate South Carolina market.

Sharp Business Systems in South Carolina will be managed by current president Tom Pickens, who will serve as branch president, and brings vast knowledge and industry experience to Sharp.

"We take great pride in providing our customers with the highest quality service and support. As a part of Sharp, we are very excited to represent some of the most innovative document imaging products available today. We will continue to provide our existing customers with the same level of service, but now with the full range of Sharp hardware and software for all document management needs."

Kearns Business Solutions has served the Upstate South Carolina market for 27 years and in that time they have garnered a reputation for excellent service and commitment to its customers. They also have a strong track record of success in managed print services, particularly in the education market. Kearns Business Solutions brings all of its 70 employees to Sharp Business Systems and will offer customers the newest and most advanced Sharp office products and solutions while continuing to serve existing equipment and contract agreements.

"After a successful tenure with The Pater Group, we felt that the combination of Kearns sales staff working in the Sharp Business Systems model was the best opportunity for the employees of Kearns," said Tony Pater, Chairman of the Pater Group. "We appreciate Kearns' hard work and commitment to excellence and wish Tom, and his entire team, the best of luck as part of Sharp Business Systems."

Edward Crowley, CEO and founding partner of the Photizo Group, to Speak At Lyra 2009

The 2009 Lyra Imaging Symposium: Collaboration, Customization, and Innovation in the "New" Imaging Industry features two days of illuminating industry information and primary research results, helping attendees to critically examine how the industry will change over the next five years.

With comprehensive presentations and a full offering of recreational activities, the Symposium is an ideal venue to debate, discuss, network, and challenge conventional wisdom with the industry's leading players. The 2009 Lyra Imaging Symposium arms attendees with actionable insights on the industry today and a top-to-bottom analysis of what lies ahead..."


Managed Print Services -

Steve Reynolds, senior analyst at Lyra, and Edward Crowley(pictured right), CEO and founding partner of the Photizo Group, will join together to examine the role of managed print services (MPS) in the digital imaging industry and discuss why MPS is resonating with customers more than ever before and whether the MPS trend has staying power potential.

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The agenda appears exhaustive and chuck full of interesting issues permeating our industry. It's just down the road from me, perhaps I shall crash it.

Do them proud, Ed.

NanoClusters and InkJet Printing - The Print Process is Not Used to Print But to Manufacture

11/2008

The key to a "bottom-up" production of possibly the first heterometallic gallium-indium hydroxide nanocluster was the substitution of nitroso-butylamine as an additive in place of nitrosobenzene.

The above sentence is not made up - it is part of an article here.

But the reason I have been following NanoTechnology as it interrelates to printing - is simple.

One day most IC boards, video displays, light sources, and electrical devices will be as thin as a piece of paper and will have the ability to be manufactured on demand - with the help of Nanoclusters, thin-film, and Inkjet applications. See "State-of-the-art inks and other materials are opening up new applications for inkjet as a manufacturing tool."

Stop for a second and think - ink is applied onto a surface, if we replace the ink with a substance that could say, conduct electrical current, and we could control the current within the structures "printed" on a surface in an elemental sense we would be able to "print" fully functional, custom, IC boards.

We could print/spray/inkjet, on the surface of a sheet of paper, shingle, or car roof, a solar collector(Konarka demonstrates micro/nano inkjet-printed solar cells). And with wireless power, transfer the captured power to other, flat, "printed" lighting sources - a "light bulb" as thin as a sheet of paper.

Oh but wait, there is so much more.

The computer of the future could be 'painted' into your desk surface, or briefcase, or the lap of your trousers. ( see Inkjet printers could be the chip factories of the future, squirting out circuits made from layers of organic semiconducting ink.)

HUH?

HD video displays "spray-painted" onto walls - this would add a dimension to "tagging".

Cell Phones, applied to clothing, tattoos that light up at night, cars that change colors - or show running video all over its surface...

Well, before all this BladeRunner stuff hits, I guess we can look forward to nanotechnologies assisting in regular, boring, photo-prints:

"Photo-quality papers with ink-receptive mesoporous layers that are based on inorganic solids fulfill the requirements of present-day high-speed inkjet printer much better than those based on organic polymers..."

Experiments indicate that the presence of nanosized polynuclear aluminum complexes in the ink-receptive layers of new paper can help to improve the permanence of photo-quality images. This means colors stay longer on paper containing nanosized polynuclear aluminum complexes.

I still want one day to be able to change the color of my Rover as easily as I change the color scheme on my Windows...

Interesting? See:

Nano Packs

Click to email me.

How Your I.T. Contacts Look at Print Volume

11/2008

This IT professional illustrates the internal challenges those on the outside never see or appreciate. This is a long post, but get through it, it's worth the read.

Also, kudos to rIKON: The "IT's Fault" Perception and Karma - Written by Jay Rollins, Off the TechRepublic site, here. 

"So this week on the new job was interesting. As with many organizations, IT’s arch-nemesis, marketing, was having issues. They were trying to print these ginormous files on a teeny-tiny color printer and could not understand why they kept getting errors. Every time they would try to print to this printer the expected “belch…puke…putter” sound was heard and out would come a screwed-up rendition of what they were trying to print. And only one out of the 600 copies they requested. 

The challenge in this day and age is that everyone and their grandmother expect to be able to click “print” on a file and it just magically happens. And because 99.999% of printing is just that, “magic,” it becomes increasingly painful to listen to marketing complain to the CEO that they can’t do something as easy as printing a file. 

Now we all know that the phrase “it depends” comes into play here. My astute colleague at my new job reminded me that any PC has the potential to blow up any printer given the right opportunity. So how do you react? They just attacked you in front of the CEO waving the “incompetent” banner! You can’t come back and say that you can’t print a 10GB PDF to a home office printer and not expect a buffer overflow. That just sounds lame and you can see everyone’s eyes glazing over before you utter the words. Besides, we’re IT. We don’t look for quippy comebacks because we’re solution-oriented. We’re all about customer service. Right? 

Here comes Karma. I’m all about the root cause. 

We don’t have any desktop publishing expertise on staff, but one of our enterprising senior guys called up a graphic artist buddy of his to get some pointers. But before that happened, one of our other key guys already started looking at outsourcing solutions. Finding the experts in the field and making it their problem was a brilliant stroke of genius. We looked at the volume of printing that marketing was doing and called up our IKON partner. 

They came to the table with a proposal that was about even with what marketing was spending on their newsletters and calendars. But I followed my own advice and reviewed the entire accounts payable for the company. I discovered a ton of other printing the company was doing outside of marketing that actually made the IKON solution stand out. There were challenges. I was trying to keep marketing from chucking the problem over the wall to IT. I sent them the section of my spreadsheet of every vendor that I thought was a printing vendor. For anything that contained or referenced the words “print,” “promotion,” “publisher” or “press,” I asked them to identify vendors. In order to make this proposal work, we needed to establish rules and controls to fully realize the benefits of the IKON solution. 

All printing had to go through the centralized print shop. Accounting needed to be made aware that printing at Kinko’s could no longer be expensed. If the teams could not plan a week ahead to schedule their printing, then the old adage of “Your lack of planning does not mean my crisis” comes into play and there are no excuses. Additionally, one of the top five issues in the helpdesk gets outsourced. We were both stakeholders. But marketing continued to push back. I came to realize that this IT organization was all about customer service. 

They did everything for the business units even to their own detriment. I came from the school where you try to get the business unit to have some skin in the game, but we had our own customer service scores to attend to. So I found myself on the horns of a dilemma. I needed to make the changes in the organization to start making the business units more accountable for their projects, but at the same time, ensure our internal customer service scores did not suffer. 

After all, this was no small sum of money we were talking about.

"Then I started thinking about it. Sure, Marketing is the big customer for this, but we have the opportunity to save $300k per year if we include some of the other printing into this project. It calls for cross-functional coordination and involvement."

This isn’t a marketing project. It’s an IT project. 

Marketing had the opportunity to pick up a huge win for the company, not just for marketing, but they kept pushing it back on IT. But IT can see the true value of the project because we’re not looking within a silo. We are looking at this from an enterprise architecture standpoint. We’re all about killing multiple birds with one stone. Marketing got their dig in at the beginning of the issue, but IT turned that lump of coal into a diamond. 

Short-term claims of incompetence don’t ring true in the eyes of management anymore. We rose from the ashes of adversity! We overcame the obstacles! We….are getting cornier as I continue, but you get the point. Score: Marketing 0, IT 1. So I have had my fun here. This is an illustrative example only. IT will never succeed if there is a scoreboard. The “us versus them” thing is so counter to “team” it isn’t funny. When the time comes, I am not presenting this as an IT victory. 

I am presenting it as a marketing victory. Why? Because I need marketing on my side for long-term success. Marketing drives the business. They generate sales and revenue. I need to make them look good in the eyes of management. These little successes will give marketing the courage to try new things and start thinking outside of the marketing silo. They start looking at the company in its entirety and truly start believing that their job makes a difference. They start believing that and great things start to happen. Sales increase, productivity increases, salaries increase, and bonuses increase. 

 Karma.

 -----------------End Post "

I know this is a long post, but this is a typical situation. 

IT people think of their users as "customers" and they will do anything to keep those customers happy. Also, you can read that IT is sometimes perceived as a negative in some organizations - ok, a negative in most, and IT people don't like to be the "bad guy"(again most don't but some do like the "Henchman" persona)

InfoTrends - It's All About the Solution

And it's Deja Vu all over again.

I found this excerpt from an Infotrends article in Europe.

Very interesting but not all that surprising.

— InfoTrends —

Solutions Capture More Pages and Fuel the Office Equipment Market

In years past, InfoTrends has written documents regarding the adoption rate of solutions within the office equipment market. At that time, solutions were really in the early stages of adoption, and OEM vendors and ISVs were in their initial posturing stages as they were trying to determine how best to take advantage of solutions and how they would eventually fit into their overall marketing and sales strategies. While solutions are still in the early stages of technology adoption today, we have seen significant growth in this category over the years and believe that solutions have yet to reach their full potential for penetration within this market.

Although many dealers understand that solutions should be an integral part of their strategy, most are still in the process of figuring out how to incorporate them into their range of offerings. Their propensity to fall back on the hardware products they are used to selling is hindering them from migrating to the next level and fully embracing the true solutions sale.

One of the biggest issues is sales cycles. Hardware sales cycles have traditionally been shorter than a solutions sales cycle. Another problem is that many companies set monthly quotas and sales people are usually trained to focus on hardware as they can bring the numbers in at the end of the month. In reality, a sales person would not be able to push a solution in 30 days; the cycles are getting shorter, but it still may be impossible in such a short period of time. A solution sale is like creating a good bottle of wine. It is a slower process that needs a certain amount of attention and caring before it is ready to be consumed. Nevertheless, within the office equipment market, hardware is becoming more difficult to differentiate as vendors are bringing to the market devices with equivalent functionalities and performances.

There have been some disruptions in the market with HP’s Edgeline and Xerox’s solid ink, but it seems that these technologies need more time before they gain great acceptance in the industry.

One trend is for sure: hardware is becoming more difficult to differentiate.

It is becoming more of an easily replaceable commodity or accessory, and vendors are dropping their margins at a consistent rate to remain competitive in this saturated market. Hardware revenues are expected to plummet in the next five years and, as a result, some vendors have already started to realign their sales focus from “hardware placed” to “pages captured,” from “printers” to “printing.”

Solutions and professional services have been welcomed as the Holy Grail of the office equipment market as they can be a huge differentiator in a hardware sale.

According to Clayton Christensen’s terminology, solutions can be defined as “the disrupting innovations” capable of changing the dynamics and evolution of value in the office equipment industry.

On the wave of Web 2.0, end-users are also increasingly changing the way they create, manage, and digest documents and information. Customers are sitting in the driving seat and they are inevitably looking for a tighter control over their document workflow. They require effective device utilization, reduced costs, and a single-source supplier for their equipment needs. They want to drive their entire document life-cycle and decide how to consume the originated contents and information.

As a consequence, solutions have been deemed strategic in addressing these customers’ requirements as they can help capture more pages, reduce Total Cost of Ownership, and enable a seamless and effective document management. On top of that, InfoTrends has been talking about solutions as a key driver in pulling hardware sales and professional services engagements. The popular chart below shows very clearly the European solutions crossroads, predicting that by the end of 2009, the roster of hardware only players would be cut down to 50% of the field.

The preceding is an excerpt from a report entitled Western European Network Document Solutions Forecast: 2007 - 2012. To learn more about this report, visit our online store or contact Robyn Wuori at 781-616-2100 ext. 103 or via e-mail at robyn_wuori@infotrends.com.

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European report, but the phrase remains the same - All copiers are the same, all of them, every single one.