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Monday, March 16, 2009

HP Smartcard Solution for US Government Recognized

Government Computer News has recognized HP and 13 other technology companies with GCN Best of FOSE Awards for 2009.

HP took home the FOSE’ Award for the Security Hardware Category.

From HP’s Enterprise Printing Blog, Mike Feldman reports,

"The HP Control Smartcard Solution for U.S. Government helps alleviate this problem and tighten security by allowing imaging and printing network authentication for government employees --- enabling them to connect, communicate and collaborate within a protected imaging and printing infrastructure."

The HP Control Smartcard Solution utilizes employee identification cards and sophisticated encryption software to authenticate and control access to print/imaging systems.

Mike goes on, "...
As government agencies continue to adopt more rigorous standards, we feel this award winning solution is indicative of HP’s mission to continuously provide our government customers with innovative technologies to help manage agency document and information workflows more effectively and securely. As one of the most prestigious awards in the public sector space, we were thrilled to represent HP and be the recipient of a very competitive category within the contest.."


GCN honors public-sector IT innovations with Best of FOSE awards
HP Wins GCN Best of FOSE Award for Security Hardware

Friday, March 13, 2009

Conan is Moving out Here - Great Memories with Triumph and Star Wars









New contract for copiers saves Lackawanna County $83,000

BY CHARLES SCHILLINGER
STAFF WRITER
Published: Thursday, March 12, 2009
Updated: Thursday, March 12, 2009 6:48 AM EDT

Lackawanna County will save $83,000 a year on copier machines, eliminating 15 of 78 copiers in county offices with a new contract approved by commissioners Wednesday.

Among the 64 departments of county government that takes up 27 buildings, there are 438 copiers, printers and fax machines, said county deputy director of purchasing Jim McLaine. But through efficiency checks and competitive bidding, he said the county is finding some savings.

The county asked for bids to replace 78 of the approximately 100 copiers the county owns or leases. Scranton-based Topp Business Solutions won the contract, which will eliminate all county-owned copiers and give county offices new, leased copiers.

Mr. McLaine said when the county bids out the remainder of the copiers, printers and fax machines, he expects there to be even more savings for the county.

“I think we’re on sound track here for the future,” he said.

The county also bid out printing of the 2009 county newsletter — but only two companies bid, and one was disqualified. Printing 70,000 copies for each edition of the quarterly county newsletter will cost the county $37,100 this year. The newsletter is funded by the hotel tax.

The bid was won by Dunmore-based Universal Printing Co.

Contact the writer: cschillinger@timesshamrock.com

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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Thursday, March 12, 2009

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.”
-----------

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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The IT Guys Are Stealing Managed Print Services- MPS Gets Redefined, Again



"Gartner estimates that printer problems account for between 30 percent and 40 percent of helpdesk calls—a significant cost to any company.

In a great article by Louella Fernandes, Principal Analyst, Quocirca wrote all the way back in January 2009, here, she goes on: 

"...Meanwhile the downtime of any printer device generally leads to reduced user productivity—and the problem can be exacerbated by users who may be slow to report printer faults such as paper jams or toner running low. Robust print management tools that claim to mitigate these issues are available. For example, HP's WebJet Admin offers features such as services and supplies alerts to enable proactive device management.

However, many organizations often find their IT staff simply do not have the time or experience necessary to utilize advanced tool capabilities to their greatest advantage..."

-------- I find the statement above pretty illuminating, and slightly dated. As with most issues in MPS, everything is in flux; including the tools available. If all this "change" is affecting us inside the industry, how is it affecting our clients and prospects? 

One big change I am seeing is IT departments trying to "get a hold" of all these "new" costs. New as in, "the costs that have been growing for the last two decades right under you nose" kind of new? Yes, that kind of "new". Back in the olden days, the days of Novell Networks, Micro Channel Architecture, and Expanded Memory,


IT departments grew in power because they understood computers and regular people did not. They were the Wizards; socially unapproachable. Their decisions were absolute, like the Oracle at Delphi. Fast forward a couple decades, mix in some economic uncertainty, and spice this up with a "new", unchecked yet extremely manageable mountain of cost - and today we have the best opportunity for IT departments around the country to justify their existence or at least one or two IT staff by tackling this new menace - Un-Managed Print Services. 

Think I am off base? 

Just this month, in some of the larger organizations I work with, I am beginning to hear more and more about internal "Density Studies" being performed by the IT staff. "Density Studies" means calculating the number of printers relative to the number of users - a good start, but how will this all end? Well, first off, instead of the IT department supporting network and technology issues with end-users, they are performing internal Density Studies. 

 As open help desk tickets grow in number, IT staff is combing through hundreds of toner, supplies, and overage invoices. Worst, IT departments are notorious for "overcomplicating" and reporting to end-users in an Orwellian manner. This is one of the reasons end-users don't like IT people; the IT folks talk down to the end-users. I do not think most IT departments really want to wrestle away all those "expensive desktops" - I wish them luck. 

Here is my primary concern, as IT attempts to understand MPS internally and interpret MPS for the organization, will they re-shape the true issues associated with real MPS? Will the definition of MPS be changed once again, this time by the "propeller-heads"? And will this new definition neutralize any "value add" that the MPS players can provide? 

We are witnessing MPS gain acceptance and increase in popularity, this new rush to boil down and commoditize our expertise will begin - it already has. As with all complex ideas and issues, the best way to understand and explain is to break the idea down into component parts. As we are talking about IT, "breaking down" means extracting all the "hard" costs and allowing those to be the comparative criteria. 

When this happens, unfortunately, the focus is shifted away from "the big" picture and the project may drown in the minutia of invoices, meter reads assessments, and lease payment reductions. We can't and shouldn't fight this. 

So what do we do? We present a single dimension, cost savings, and R.O.I. based on agreed numbers. This is simpler. This is easier for people to understand and easier to sell. A great man once said, 

"Sell them first, educate them second..." 

 The good news is if we approach the partnership with high intent, initially selling on hard cost ROI is not that bad and establishes a good foundation for a long-term business relationship. This can only be negative if the analysis and implementation begin and ends with hard cost savings.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

"PC LOAD LETTER! What the *@#!% does that Mean?"

So now I "Tweet" - and now I get to experience "Spam" at a whole other level - Tweet Spam.

But I guess it isn't spam if it comes from someone I choose to follow - arg.

This was just sent to me - we all know the "Green" spin associated with the Phaser's from Xerox - you remember, the Crayola-Printers. (J/K, lighten up).

The Phaser's Green argument involves less packaging, low waste for toner like empty cartridges, ease of use, etc. But nobody ever talks about the energy consumption at start up, the waste of wax at start up, etc.

I have seen the output, it is very, very nice - enjoy this little marketing presentation:

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Monday, March 9, 2009

New Group on LinkedIn


TheDeathOfTheCopier

A small group of like minded folks from the copier, printing, technology industries.

Including, Selling Professionals, Technical Guru's, Shuttle Pilots, C-Levels, Pundits, Brain Surgeons and Rocket Scientists.

Come on over and join - everybody's doing it.

Contact Me

Greg Walters, Incorporated
greg@grwalters.com
262.370.4193