Amazon Declares - Best Ever Season???

The Death of Print, may be a little premature...

Until you see that Amazon's best season, has little to do with books.

AMAZON called its 2008 holiday shopping season "the best ever," despite a series of predictions that even online sales would weaken as US consumers cut back amid the recession.

Amazon said that on its peak day, December 15, it received more than 6.3 million orders, at a record pace of 72.9 items per second.

This is a surprise of sorts, when viewed through the prism of "recession".

Amazon said top-sellers from November 15 through December 19 included Nintendo's Wii, which dominated the videogame category.

According to reports from the Wall Street Journal, Australia:

"...Among toys, the best-sellers included Jakks Pacific's Eyeclops night-vision goggles. In the electronics category, Samsung Electronics’ 52-inch LCD High-Definition television and Apple's 8-gigabyte iPod Touch led the gains.

Also a strong seller was Acer's Aspire One 8.9-inch netbook. The devices, which have little processing power, screens between nine and 12 inches wide diagonally and typically cost less than $US500 ($729), have been rising in popularity, according to technology-research firm iSupply.

Among DVDs, Amazon said Wall-E, The Dark Knight for Blu-ray and The Dark Knight sold well. Top sellers in books included The Tales of Beedle the Bard by JK Rowling, and two works by Stephenie Meyer, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn.

Amazon didn't comment on its selling prices or margins for the 2008 holiday season..."

Not a mention of books or the Kindle.

Damn The Torpedoes, Fire Your Customers!

2008

Well, just the customers who are wrong, and will not take your advice..

I hope good Admiral Farragut is not spinning in his grave over my adulteration of his famous quote - it just seems fitting, especially when sailing through today's torpedo filled, economic seas.

Ken Stewart has a great post, The Customer Is NOT Always Right! where he expresses the need to steer clear of certain customers and sometimes make a few walk the plank.

But that is just the surface subject of his post.

I read the underlying message as "Know thyself, to thy own self, be true..." - yes, I know, I just mixed The Oracle at Delphi and Shakespeare, but you get the point, hopefully.

In order to steer clear bad customers and to fire clients, we must posses a level of confidence gained after knowing what it is that we do best and who we like to "hang around".

Life is short. Why not surround yourself with clients(or friends, or family members)that have the same ideas and ideals as you?

Makes sense, don't it?

Now, Damn The Torpedoes, march into your Sales Manager's office and tell him you are firing the three most irritating customers you have...er...well...ok, wait...before doing that, update your resume...

Check These Out:

The Death of The Copier Sales Person

The New SalesPerson - Death of the "Close"

A Return to Selling

The Single Most Important Tool In Managed Print Services

Bill's Pay Millions for Xerox Multifunction Printers

Buffalo Bills like Xerox


Although the team is off until the beginning of next season, at least the print production segment is being handled.

The Buffalo Bills have renewed a multimillion-dollar, 60 month long contract naming Xerox Corp. the team's preferred print services provider.

The big "X" has been with the Bills for 20 years.

According to Xerox, the Bills use the company's color multifunction printers, including the WorkCenter 7665.

In addition, the renewal includes short term rentals of Xerox's WorkCentre MFPs and Xerox's Phaser colour printers used during summer training camps at St John Fisher College in Rochester, USA.

The team's print production area will output playbooks and half-time reports in short time with digital production presses such as the DocuColor 7000AP Digital Press.

According to reports, an on-site Xerox document adviser insures the print unit is operational at all times.

Ricoh Introduces Xythos Enterprise Document Manager Solution

Press Release
RiSVP Member Software to Enhance Collaboration for the Enterprise

WEST CALDWELL, N.J., Dec. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- Ricoh Americas Corporation, a leading provider of digital office equipment, today announced the availability of the Xythos Enterprise Document Manager on-premise document management and collaboration software to the Ricoh sales channel through its recently introduced Ricoh Independent Solutions Vendor Program (RiSVP).

Xythos Enterprise Document Manager empowers distributed organizations to safely access, manage and share content over the web. The solution enables users to easily scan, index, search and securely store any type of document, collaborate around them using the latest Web 2.0 technology and manage them throughout their lifecycle. Enhanced for Ricoh, the Xythos Connector provides the ability to scan directly from most Ricoh multifunction products (MFPs) to Enterprise Document Manager without intermediate products or hardware devices.

"We have built a close relationship with Ricoh and look forward to engaging with the Ricoh channel to further drive enterprise document management solutions in the marketplace," said Ed Miller, chief executive officer, Xythos. "We offer a flexible and scalable option for Ricoh customers seeking a solution that easily integrates with their existing environment."

One of three Ricoh Alliance programs, RiSVP, developed in cooperation with Ricoh solution partners and Ricoh's direct and dealer channels, focuses on two key areas: expansion of channel marketing opportunities for RiSVP members and simplifying solution access for Ricoh sales channels. By providing RiSVP member products directly from Ricoh, the direct and dealer channels have more opportunities for new revenue growth combined and simplified sales operations. In turn, RiSVP members enjoy faster and greater financial return on the investments they have made in developing solutions that when combined with Ricoh's award-winning product portfolio address customers' key concerns.

"Our enhanced relationship with Xythos underscores our commitment to empower customers' holistic approach to enterprise document management," said Hede Nonaka, executive vice president, Ricoh Americas Corporation. "The ease of sharing data and documents is a key pillar in any document management initiative. Included in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Content Management(1), Xythos is a world-class solutions provider and its products will further demonstrate their value through successful implementations with Ricoh customers."

For more information on RiSVP, please visit www.ricohalliances.com.

(1)Gartner "Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Content Management"; Karen M. Shegda, Toby Bell, Kenneth Chin, Mark R. Gilbert, Mick MacComascaigh; September 23, 2008

About Xythos Software

Xythos Software is a subsidiary of Blackboard Inc. and a leading developer of document management and collaboration software. Its online services and products are licensed to millions of users at commercial, education and government organizations around the world for managing and sharing content throughout its lifecycle. Information about Xythos' complete range of products and services can be accessed on the World Wide Web at www.xythos.com.

About Ricoh Americas Corporation

Ricoh Americas Corporation, headquartered in West Caldwell, N.J., is a subsidiary of Ricoh Company Ltd., the 72-year-old leading supplier of office automation equipment and electronics, with fiscal year 2007 sales in excess of $22 billion, a 7.3 percent increase over the previous year.

Ricoh Americas Corporation is a leading provider of document solutions. Ricoh's fully integrated hardware and software products help businesses share information efficiently and effectively by enabling customers to control the input, management and output of documents.

Ricoh Americas Corporation directly or through its network of authorized dealers markets and distributes products in North, Central and South America. Information about Ricoh's complete range of products and services can be accessed on the World Wide Web at www.ricoh-usa.com.

The Magic Quadrant is copyrighted 2008 by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner's analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the "Leaders" quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

All referenced product names are the trademarks of their respective companies.

Ricoh Web Site: www.ricoh-usa.com

Contact: Linda Montefusco Alyson Buck
Ricoh Americas Corporation Peppercom
(973) 882-2172 (212) 931-6122
Linda.Montefusco@ricoh-usa.com abuck@peppercom.com

Website: http://www.ricoh-usa.com/

The Death of The Sale: It's Called a Free Market - Doesn't Mean Everything is Free of Charge

"Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something..."

Bailouts are not Loans - did you read your mortgage documents? You did? Good, than you know what "ARM" stands for, correct?

There is a great post over at the Caskey blog, here it's about Free Markets, recession and "You, Incorporated."

Bill really got me going on the subject of whining and feeling sorry for yourself and how easy it is to become a "victim".

As an aside, I have been listening to The Advanced Selling Podcast since the beginning, some 2-3 years ago; Bill and Bryan have really good advice and a pleasant, mid-west style delivery - I like it. Go Check it out.

Here is my full article :

The Death of The Sale: It's Called a Free Market - Doesn't Mean Everything is Free of Charge

Equitrac Professional Print Management and Cost Recovery Solution

"Today's Equitrac solutions are secure enterprise-level management tools that are increasing productivity and reducing print waste in support of dual initiatives to maintain the bottom line and be environmentally friendly," said Michael Rich, CEO of Equitrac Corporation. "In a challenging economy, these initiatives rise in importance. Equitrac remains committed to working with its partners and customers to leverage our experience and technology innovation to deliver solutions that streamline and centralize print and cost management throughout the networked print environment."

Press Release here.

Some of the highlights, Equitrac Professional 5.2.3 :


Increased productivity

-- WAN Optimization - For multi-office, distributed deployments of Equitrac Professional, this feature improves print workflows by allowing IT to configure caching options and the use of locally configured servers.

-- Pop-up tracking of print processes - A new status tool will help administrators evaluate the status of print requests direct from the desktop. The pop-up gives a complete view of all steps and decision points in the print job progression.

-- Microsoft Active Directory Synchronization - New attributes are available for synchronization with MS Active Directory, such as phone extensions, locations and user class association.

Enterprise-class document scanning and output:

-- A default network addressable "Home" folder has been added to this latest version of Equitrac Professional to support efficient and quick scanning. Home folder association can be controlled via the System Management console, file import and Microsoft Active Directory synchronization.

-- Scanned document output type conversion - Equitrac Document Capture can now be configured to offer document output type conversion to end users. Whether an MFP scans as PDF or TIFF files, this latest version of Equitrac Professional can convert the final output to PDF, Multi-Page TIFF, Single-Page TIFFs, JPEG, or PNG file formats.

-- Improved scan workflows - Site administrators can now predefine scan workflows as scan aliases for efficient selection at TouchPoint Consoles. These aliases can be customized to specific business requirements and are also customizable to individual user classes.

Expanded Partner Support

-- Canon - Equitrac Professional 5.2.3 adds extended copy attribute support for older version Canon printers. This support will allow customers to implement print and cost recovery management solutions across a printer network that includes both older Canon MFPs that don't currently support extended copy attributes through the copy cable, and newer model Canon MFPs. This new feature enhances productivity and more effective cost management by enabling tracking that discerns black/white vs. color print jobs and includes device log readings and synchronization of the data with TouchPoint sessions.

-- Equitrac Embedded for eCopy - eCopy Scan Station client support has been enhanced to include full authentication and roaming user profiles, favorites, and history. In addition, Equitrac Professional version 5.2.3 adds support for the recently released eCopy Cost Recovery Protocol version 3 which features Single Sign On (SSO). This feature is available for Equitrac Embedded for eCopy and TouchPoint Consoles.

-- EFI SendMe and IKON DocSend - This embedded option allows for EFI SendMe and IKON DocSend users to log in, allocate billing information and conduct a scan right at the EFI or IKON device.


SOURCE: Equitrac