Ricoh cuts 2010/11 operating profit target by 32 pct

TOKYO, March 13 (Reuters) - Japan's Ricoh Co Ltd (7752.T), the world's largest copier maker, said on Friday it had cut its operating profit target for the year starting April 2010 by a third due to a firmer yen.

It now expects profit of 170 billion yen ($1.7 billion), compared with its previous goal of 250 billion yen announced a year ago.

Ricoh also said it aims for 2.3 trillion yen in revenues for the 2010/11 business year, compared with its previous target of 2.5 trillion yen.

The new targets are based on foreign exchange assumptions of 90 yen to the dollar and 120 yen per euro. Its earlier assumptions were 105 yen to the dollar and 155 yen per euro.

WA state agency pays 10 times more per photocopy

They're starting to catch on up there in Washington.

One department is paying for 950,000 images per month, "...the Department of Ecology pays four cents per copy and must pay for 950,000 copies a month, whether it prints that many or not.

Last December, this department was billed $15,493 for copies it never made.

In an article here the good people of Washington state have lawmakers who are really looking out for their taxpayers.

Where one department is paying 4 cents, another is paying 0.004/image.

The Department of Printing billed agencies $50,000 for assessments done by OkiData and Lexmark -- but some departments have taken advantage of "free" assessments.

Pam Derkacht, Assistant Director of Customer Services for the Department of Printing says, "It's really easy for any agency or any large organization to want to take the free assessment but it always results in "You need more equipment or you need newer, upgraded equipment."

Text of the TV article is here.

Canon cuts 2010 profit outlook by 75%

Canon Inc. (CAJ: News ) lowered its profit outlook for 2010 by 75% to figures more in line with the economic downturn as the company grapples with the impact of a stronger yen and weak demand on its operations, according to media reports Thursday.

Accordingly, for 2010, Canon now forecasts net income of 150 billion yen, down sharply from its prior outlook for net income of 600 billion yen set in 2007. The company also lowered its outlook for revenues for the year to 3.7 trillion yen from the prior forecast of 6 trillion yen.

Canon had recorded profits for eight consecutive years through fiscal 2007 on stronger demand for copiers, digital cameras and other products. However, the company has since witnessed a sharp fall in demand for its cameras and copiers as the global economic crisis hit its major export markets.

Worldwide Hardcopy Peripherals Undergo Double-Digit Decline in the Fourth Quarter of 2008, According to IDC

IDC - Press Release
FRAMINGHAM, Mass., March 11, 2009 –

Worldwide hardcopy peripherals shipments declined 17.0% year over year to 32.6 million units while revenue from these shipments fell 13% to $15.0 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008 (4Q08), according to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Hardcopy Peripherals Tracker. This is the second consecutive quarter that the worldwide hardcopy peripherals market has experienced a decline in shipments.

"IDC expects the market to bottom out in 2009, in response to the international economic crisis, and then start a recovery in 2010," said Alyson Frasco, director, U.S. Hardcopy Peripheral Trackers & Forecasts.

According to Phuong Hang, program manager, Worldwide Hardcopy Peripherals Tracker, "Over the next year, vendors will employ several strategies to weather the downturn. The battle will continue in the channel as vendors seek to gain go-to-market strength and capacity. Vendors will also focus on offering cost-cutting and productivity enhancements to customer’s existing document infrastructure as well as driving managed print services."

The inkjet market remained the dominant segment in 4Q08, with 22.8 million units shipped, but it was also hit the hardest with –18% year-over-year growth.

Monochrome laser was the second largest technology segment with 7.2 million units shipped and year-over-year shipment growth of –17.3%.

Color laser shipments, the third largest segment, was essentially flat year over year and was the only segment not to experience a decline in the quarter.

The MFP market remains the dominant product type in the overall hardcopy peripherals market with 63.3% of the 20.7 million unit shipments in 4Q08, and was the least impacted of the product types with a –12% year-over-year decline.

The printer market was hard hit with a –24% growth rate resulting in shipments of 11.8 million units as the market continues to move to MFP devices.

Vendor Highlights

* HP – HP remains the leading vendor in the total hardcopy peripherals market with 41% share, down from 43% in 4Q07. The brightest spot for HP was the color laser MFP segment, where HP grew unit shipments 82% year over year and gained nearly eight points in market share.

* Canon – Canon did quite well compared to its competitors in 4Q08 and remained the number two vendor in the hardcopy peripherals market. Canon's unit shipments declined only 8% year over year, resulting in an increased market share of 19%, up 2 points from 4Q07.

* Epson – Epson rounds out the top three with 15.4% market share in 4Q08, an increase from 14.8% in 4Q07. While its overall year-over-year growth fell 14% worldwide, Epson's inkjet MFPs experienced 43% sequential growth in 4Q08 – the best percentage expansion among the top 5 and across regions.

* Brother – Brother took a distant fourth place in the hardcopy peripherals space, with 6.2% market share. However, Brother is the only vendor in the top 5 showing a positive trend year over year. While growth is stalled in the Americas, Brother's units shipments grew, sequentially and year over year, across Asia/Pacific and EMEA in both single-function printers and MFPs.

* Lexmark – Lexmark rounds out the top five worldwide market players, losing nearly two points in total market share this quarter (4.7%). The strongest growth for Lexmark was the global Laser MFP segment where its shipments grew 20% year over year.

Managed Print Services - Here Comes Dell

Over at the MSPMentor site, Joe is taking a very educated guess based on some reliable sources - Dell is poised and ready to move into the MPS space.

Go check out the post and the "where the heck is HP" responses.

In seemingly unrelated news, today Dell confirmed rumors that it will trim hundreds of workers from its payroll this week.

A Dell spokesperson, David Frink, told The Austin American-Statesman that the cuts began Wednesday at Dell's factories in Central Texas and North Carolina.

"We've been streamlining the company where it makes sense for more than a year," Dell spokesman David Frink told the paper. "Any actions this week are part of that effort. The layoffs are not about individual performance but about properly sizing Dell's business for the economy and business environment."




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DocuAudit and FMAudit Partner to Offer Integrated Managed Print Solution:It is Heating Up, Isn't It?

“We are excited about the software developmentopportunities in this agreement with FMAudit and the expansion of our global partnership,” states Jim Salzer, President of DocuAudit International. “The combined offering will provide the industry with a simple, cost effective, and manufacturer independent solution for automating managed print tasks.”

Off the site:

The combined offering will incorporate DocuAudit’s 2009 proposal generation and assessment reporting software with FMAudit’s WebAudit assessment tools and FMAudit Central remote monitoring software. As part of this agreement, the software integration between DocuAudit and FMAudit will be expanded to include such features as automatic capture and calculation of TCO based on the device’s actual toner fill rates.

With the integration, print management resellers will not have to go back and forth between assessment software and meter collection applications. This will streamline the sales process, allowing resellers to focus on creating profitable transactions.

DocuAudit and FMAudit have also integrated their device databases with 12,000 models and growing by the day. The combined databases will give the dealer access to hundreds of fields of data that includes device attributes that range from product images, consumable yields and costs, to duty cycles.

Kevin Tetu, President of FMAudit is excited about the integration.

“Most comprehensive MPS offerings today are very expensive and in the industry's excitement, we rushed forward and built solutions that were too complex with too many pieces. FMAudit and DocuAudit took a step back and focused on the key successful elements. As a result, our offering makes it much simpler and cheaper to get started with profitable managed print contracts.”
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With all this focus on the collection and assessment "tools" rolled in with the automatic proposal generation, is it any wonder we are looking at the commodization of MPS?

Soon, there won't be any need for Professionals.

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