Crazy About Copiers

Merger Mania in the Copier World!

On April 9, 2008 Konica Minolta acquired Danka a supplier of Canon, Toshiba, Kodak and HP office equipment products. In 2007, Xerox purchased Global, also a provider of Canon, Ricoh, Konica, etc.

There was a backlash from Canon. Canon USA refused to supply Xerox with any parts, supplies, technical support for any of Globals' Canon customers. This will most likely occur again with Konica Minolta. Why would Canon want to support another manufacturer?

This leaves many customers wondering NOW WHAT? ....Who do I call for service? Who is my provider? The answer is simple, find a local independent dealer.

For example, Offix, a Canon dealer in Northern VA, has been able to help many of the Global customers who were left in a lurch by the Xeorx purchase. 

If you are a customer who has been affected by all this merger mania, switch to an independent dealer who is Authorized (key) to service your equipment. Do not allow a non-authorized dealer to fix your equipment - you will receive after market products that will void any warranty and affect equipment performance.

Canon imageRunner Scan-to-Print Demo

How do you make poster size or larger charts/graphs for meetings, conventions, etc?  Canon has created a way for you scan your originals into a Canon imageRUNNER copier and output them on an imagePROGRAF Printer.  For an interactive Demo click here!

It's a Great Time to Buy a Copier

I read an article in the NY-Times this weekend that many of the leading copier manufacturers profits are down. This is great news for the consumer! I work for a copier company and I have seen an increase in promotions and rebates that we (dealers) can offer the purchaser (you). Be sure to ask your local dealer about these promotions - as sometimes a less than reputable dealer will keep the rebates for themselves.

Canon, Ricoh profits hit by firmer yen – paper

TOKYO, April 12 (Reuters) - A firmer yen and slowing U.S. copier sales have hit profitability at Ricoh Co Ltd (7752.T: Quote, Profile, Research) and Canon Inc (7751.T: Quote, Profile, Research), causing Ricoh to miss its latest annual earnings outlook, the Nikkei business daily said on Saturday.

Ricoh's pretax profit has likely come to about 180 billion yen ($1.8 billion) in the year ended March 31, narrowly missing its own forecast of 184 billion yen, the Nikkei said.

That compares with a consensus of 183.7 billion yen in a poll of 14 analysts by Reuters Estimates.

Ricoh, which competes with Canon and Xerox Corp (XRX.N: Quote, Profile, Research) in printers and copiers, already cut its full-year pretax profit forecast in January from 192 billion yen to 184 billion.

The newspaper also said net profit at Canon has likely totalled about 110 billion yen in January-March, down 16 percent from a year earlier and in line with a consensus estimate of 110.2 billion yen.

Canon enjoyed brisk sales of printers and digital cameras in emerging markets, but the yen's appreciation against the dollar and sluggish copier demand from U.S. corporate clients dampened profitability, the Nikkei said.

A firmer yen eats into exporters' foreign sales when they are converted into the Japanese currency.

For the calendar year 2008, Canon's net profit is expected to total around 500 billion yen, up 2 percent from a year earlier, but falling short of the company's own forecast of 520 billion yen, the paper said. Analysts on average expect Canon to post net profit of 488.6 billion yen this year.

No officials were immediately available for comment at Canon or Ricoh.

Canon's business year ends in December, while Ricoh, along with many other Japanese companies, closes its book in March. (Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka; Editing by Jan Dahinten)

Canon USA Partners with Sepialine

      Canon U.S.A. and Sepialine Introduce Advanced Accounting for Canon Large Format Printers    

                    

           

Sepialine’s Argos Software to Help Canon imagePROGRAF Better Capture Print Costs and Usage    

     

LAKE SUCCESS, N.Y. & SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Canon U.S.A., Inc., a leader in imaging solutions, and Sepialine, Inc.,today announced the immediate availability of Sepialine’s print accounting software for the Canon imagePROGRAF large format printer series. The new software extends Sepialine’s Argos Cost Recovery System by integrating directly with imagePROGRAF large format printers to provide detailed print records that include total ink consumption.    

   

“Capturing print costs is critical to our customers, and that’s why our partnership with Sepialine is an important step for us,” said Jim Rosetta, vice president and general manager, Imaging Systems Group, Canon U.S.A. “For firms looking to monitor and recover print expenses, Sepialine’s ability to report costs based on actual usage is a unique and tangible benefit. Our relationship with Sepialine allows Canon to deliver truly outstanding cost recovery, and we’re gratified to count Sepialine as a partner.”    

    Inkjet printers such as Canon’s imagePROGRAF series serve a wide range of purposes, ranging from technical line drawings to full-color presentation materials. The versatility of inkjet printers presents a paradox: some inkjet printing consumes large amounts of ink and is, therefore, expensive. Other times, a print job requires less ink at a relatively low cost. Unless print tracking software can detect those differences in print jobs, usage reports do not accurately reflect total print costs. Sepialine’s new     integration software solves the inkjet tracking dilemma by categorizing and determining the cost of print jobs based on ink consumption, resulting in precise and accurate cost reporting.        

   

The new imagePROGRAF integration software is the latest addition to Sepialine’s extensive support for Canon products, which also includes the newly announced Argos Embedded Copy Tracking for Canon MEAP devices, a pure software solution for tracking Canon MFPs. Together, the imagePROGRAF and MEAP cost recovery products offer Canon dealers and customers a complete view of their equipment  expenses.         “Sepialine’s goal is to accurately track and monitor 100 percent of our customers’ expenses,” said Mike Cahill, vice president, Engineering, Sepialine. “This new integration helps achieve that, bringing a new degree of precision and accuracy to tracking on Canon imagePROGRAF printers.”        

7 Hot Acronyms IT Pros are Talking About

In the copier industry we present to IT departments weekly, as copiers often need to be networked. I came across this article, and it helped me to understand the terminology that often flies around the meetings. I want to share it with all of you as it make us non IT people sound much more credible and it is really interesting. 

        "IT professionals adore acronyms and shorthand. That's one of the reasons why normal people think IT pros are speaking a foreign language when they talk amongst themselves. If you want to keep up with the IT trends familiarize yourself with the following list of hot IT acronyms for 2008. (Adapted from article by Jason Hiner.)"

1. BPM - Business Process Management is all about using technology to make business processes more efficient and less time consuming, and thus completing the same processes with fewer resources. In other words, it's about streamlining operations to save money. Many IT departments and IT service agents - such as IBM - are focusing on BPM as a way to transform the image of IT from a cost center to a value center.

2. CMDB - A Configuration Management Database collects configuration data about the various pieces of an IT infrastructure and store them in a unified repository that can be systematically analyzed and managed. In this system, the various pieces of data are called "configuration items" (CIs) and the goal is track changes to the CIs and to ultimately auto-discover new items. CMBD is a critical component of the ITIL framework, and it can be an extremely valuable asset for standardizing IT management.

3. BI - Business Intelligence is a fancy name for the high-powered reports and dashboards that smart companies use to track the performance of their businesses. For example, Larry Dignan of ZDNet like to say, "BI is the way you get ROI out of ERP." What's he's getting at is that BI is what gives full value for the hard work of implementing an ERP or data warehouse project, because BI allows you to mine the data to better understand the trajectory of your company.

4. MDM - Master Data Management is the new buzzword for unifying data sources to provide a single, reliable source of information about customers, products, employees, and other assets. This may sound similar to data that are typically live and dynamic, such as customer and product data.

5. TCO - Total Cost of Ownership is a phrase coined by the Gatner Group in 1987, and it has developed into a useful formula for arriving at the full costs involved in deploying and managing technology tools. TCO calculations provide assistance  with product selection, because they are a valuable part of estimating return on investment (ROI). With tech budgets tightening in 2008, TCO and ROI will become even more critical in helping IT departments decide how to best spend their constrained budgets.

6. SOA - Service Oriented Architecture has a few distinguishing characteristics, but it's the same type of cloud computing that has been referred to as "Web Services" and Software as a Service" over the past decade. The difference with SOA is that is goes beyond cloud computing by breaking down software services into standard building blocks that can be re-used, distributed, and fed into other sites, programs and projects.

7. ITIL - Information Technology Infrastructure Library has evolved into a set of standards and best practices for organizing and running an IT department.Originally developed by the British Government with inspiration from IBM, ITTL is now an international phenomenon and a hot commodity in the United States, where ITIL-trained professionals are in strong demand. ITILv3 was published in April 2007, and one of the most important revisions was stronger alignment between IT and business-another critical theme for IT in 2008.

Cameras That Know Who You Photograph

                                                    

       

I was sent a link to an article the other day and I am posting it on Crazy for Copiers as it is the wildest technological advance I have seen in quite some time - rather ingenious! I wish that copiers could have the such a feature embedded within eCopy that would detect spelling errors while scanning documents.

The original post was by Stephen Shankland CNet Networks on November 14, 2007.

MONTEREY, Calif.--Get ready for a new era in which your camera knows not just when you took a picture but who's in it, too.

Many cameras today can detect the faces of those being photographed, which is handy for guiding the camera to set its exposure, focus, and color balance properly. But the more difficult challenge of face recognition is more useful after the photo has been taken.

 

University of California-San Diego researchers have turned expression-recognition technology into an art exhibit showing the increasingly strained efforts by models to maintain a chipper smile for more than an hour. A buzzer goes off when a waning smile sends a monitor into the red zone.
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET Networks)

That's because of a concept called autotagging, one of a number of technologies that make digital photography qualitatively different from the film photography of the past.

Tags of descriptive data can be attached to digital photos, and they help people find and organize pictures. The only problem is that tagging your photos, today a laborious manual task, is like eating your vegetables. It's good for you but a lot of people don't like it.

With autotagging, the camera attaches tags as the pictures are taken. Today, cameras embed timestamps in photos, which makes it possible to sift through pictures by date. But be honest here--how reliably can you remember exactly when you took that picture of your darling daughter a year or two ago that you'd like to e-mail to her grandparents? Being able to screen for photos only of a particular person could dramatically speed up the search process.

Face recognition requires computational horsepower that is hard to fit into the confines of a digital camera, but one company likely to help make it a reality is Fotonation, which already supplies face-detection software for dozens of camera models from Samsung, Pentax, and others.

The computational challenge is reduced by the fact that most folks tend to photograph the same set of 25 or 30 people, Eric Zarakov, Fotonation's vice president of marketing, said in an interview here at the 6sight digital imaging conference. A camera could be "trained" to recognize just those particular people.

He wouldn't comment on whether Fotonation plans to sell such software to camera makers, but it sure looks likely. "We're looking at a lot of stuff. That would be a natural extension" of today's product lines, Zarakov said.

One camera maker willing to mention its interest in autotagging is Panasonic. "A lot of thought is going into how to tag photos so you can retrieve them at a moment's notice," said Alex Fried, national marketing manager for imaging at Panasonic's Consumer Electronics Co. But he wouldn't go into specifics: "There are things we have in the works that will help benefit consumers going forward."

And faces aren't the only aspect of autotagging that's likely to show up in cameras. Location, too, is another useful attribute that can be attached to photos through a process called geotagging. Geotagging can be used both to look for photos whose location you know and to figure out what exactly is in a photo you already have at hand.

Today, geotagging is generally a laborious manual task that requires geographic data to be merged with photos after the fact using a computer. But more power-efficient approaches will lead to in-camera GPS systems that will enable automatic geotagging, predicted Kanwar Chadha, founder of GPS chip designer SiRF Technology.

"A location stamp is much more important than a time stamp in most cases. A year down the road, you have no idea where those pictures were taken and no way to search for location," Chadha said.

Face recognition is an area of active research and some commercialization. Start-up Riya is working on technology to search through online photo albums to try to identify individuals. Polar Rose is trying to improve recognition by generating 3D models of faces. And 3VR wants to apply face recognition to what's become a highly lucrative market, security.

 

Software from University of California-San Diego researchers, shown here at the 6sight digital imaging conference, can identify facial expressions. This shot shows the nose-wrinkling detector in action, which Marian Stewart Bartlett believes could be useful for market researchers.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET Networks)

But that's not the only research going on.

At the 6sight conference, Marian Stewart Bartlett showed results of her research into not just face detection, but expression detection. Her work at the Machine Perception Lab at the University of California-San Diego lets a computer monitor 30 of the 46 codified components of facial expressions. That includes movements such as raised eyebrows and wrinkled noses.

In the demonstration, software tracked Stewart's face from a video camera and recorded expression parameters. Analyzing the data, the computer can draw conclusions about people. For example, when comparing a video of a man's face as he experienced actual pain from immersing his hand in cold water to another in which he faked the pain, people had about an even chance guessing which showed the authentic pain. The computer, though, had 72 percent accuracy, she said.

That level of sophistication is beyond a camera's abilities today, requiring a full-fledged computer run by people with Ph.D. degrees. But particularly given that Sony already has introduced a camera with smile detection, it's not hard to imagine a day when your photos could also some day be tagged "delighted" or "disgusted," too.

   

                                   

Returning a Leased Copier

“I've written this article for the end user, however dealers and sales people can benefit from some of this especially videoing the product before it is shipped and having a separate contract for return.” Art Post

Return Leased Copiers

Over the years, I would say that ninety percent of my clients leased their copiers with an option to buy the copier at the end of the term. Most of these leases had a buy out option for FMV (Fair Market Value). The general idea of an FMV lease is that the customer has no intention of ever owning the equipment and they will return it at the end of the lease.

Most leasing companies have been and still are very aggressive with FMV rates (interest), however most will have clauses in the leases that you must notify them in writing before the end of the term. All of the leasing companies have a "Window" clause, meaning you only have "x" amount of time when you can notify them, some are not more than 90 days prior to the end of the term and others are not more than 180 days and not less than 90 days. Make sure you read the lease!!!

Here's a few helpful tips for you:

   1. Read the lease and be familiar with the return clause, Make sure you notify with in the parameters of the lease contract.

   2. Set a reminder in MS Outlook or another contact management program to remind you to submit your LOI (Letter of Intent), state whether you will return or you wish to purchase.
      Send all correspondence via certified mail of Fedex, where you will get a signature that they received your letter.

   3. Make sure that the system is in good condition, good quality copiers and that the machine passes a piece of paper (some leases now have clauses that they will charge you for parts and labor if the system was not returned in good working order).

   4. Most leasing companies have preferred shipping companies that will pick up, pack, return and insure the product, make sure you call the leasing company for a list of preferred shippers.

   5. When calling the leasing company for a pay off figure, never ask for a buy-out, ask what the remaining stream of payments are. When asking for a buyout you are telling them that you want to buy the system.

   6. Make sure all shipments are insured.

   7. Take a video of the copier making copies, also the model number and serial number, hence you proof that it left your facility in good working order.

   8. Whenever calling them always get the name of the person you are speaking with, log date and time of call and if you have a verbal agreement make them send you a fax, email or letter stating their position.

   9. Be wary when upgrading and the new copier company states they will return it for you, while most companies will do this as a service and most are very good at it, there are some who will drop the ball and not return the system on time. If they don't return on time it's your headache not theirs. Have a separate contract with the new vendor that covers everything above.

  10. Never have the system moved from your location until you have notified the leasing company or they have sent you a RAL (Return Authorization Letter).

 

Copier Companies and the "Commoditization Trap"

Commoditization is the evolutionary process that reduces all offerings to their lowest common denominator. "The Commoditization Trap" is a situation businesses find themselves in when they focus mainly on their offerings instead of the quantifiable differences their offerings deliver to their customers.

The most common responses to the question “Why should people buy from you instead of your competitors?” are as follows:
We give better services.
Our clients get better results with us.
We know what we we’re doing better than our competition does.
Our products and service are better.

As a customer you have heard all these answers before. Even if they are true these companies fall right into "The Commoditization Trap". These answers do not differentiate one company from another. Buyers have been promised so much, and have received so little that they no longer believe “we are better” claims. Besides, companies where price is the primary selling point usually insist that they are just as good.

Copier Companies more often than not fall into this “Trap”. As a customer buying/leasing a copier, finding a company who has value -something that your business is willing to pay more for is critical to your organization.

Your business needs a solution – finding a vendor that offers the Right Prescription to resolve your document management issues is critical. The process to do this involves asking your potential vendor the following questions and be sure to require supporting documentation.
What is unique about what you offer compared with your competitors?
What wisdom do you offer that your competitors do not?
What are the potential negative consequences your customers would experience if they tried to solve their document management problems without you?
What are the potential ramifications if your buyer ignores the consequences?

Ultimately your goal in selecting an office equipment provider is to use one that has positioned themselves as the best “prescription drug” that with cure your businesses ailments and offer value to your document management needs.

Adapted from Smart Business Ideas magazine and Douglas Davidoff.

Copiers- Double-Sided Jamming Issues

Paper that curls can be a major cause of double-sided copying issues, most notably jamming. When printing double-sided copies, heat from the double paper pass often causes curling issues. You can significantly reduce copier jam issues by making sure to print your documents with the paper facing right side up.

Here is a brief summary of how paper is manufactured that may help you understand why printing on the right side of the paper is important.
    Paper is made by wood being ground into pulp. This pulp is sprayed onto a fine screen, which is spread edge-to-edge on the screen and smoothed by rollers. This process creates a rough side (screen side), often undetectable to the eye, and a smooth side (roller side). How can you tell what is the right side? The better paper brands will have arrows on the outside of the package indicating what is the right side. If there is no arrow, assume that the seam side is the right side and should be the side that you print on first.

Ensuring that the paper is right side (smooth side) will help reduce the curl factor and eliminate jamming issues. If you are still having curling and jamming issues try turning the paper over- if all else fails call you servicing provider.

Why You Should Buy a Desktop Scanner

The “Scan Once Print Many” days are gone. Businesses have embraced copiers for their scanning features. The more copier dealers push the scan feature, you need to be aware that sooner than later, a click charge will accompany scanning documents with your copiers. All copiers and document feeders are equipped with meter counters that give the dealers a way to track prints and now scans.

Copier dealers are spending hundreds of dollars replacing parts to the copier document feeders without a revenue stream from the scanned documents. Therefore the cost to maintain equipment is higher and the revenue earned from copy/print remains the same.

CPC Example: (All copier consumables are included and those are: supplies, parts, and labor, however, paper and staples are extra)

• 150,000 copies year x .00825 per copy =  $1,237.50
• 300,000 scans on the document feeder = N/C
• The document feeder kit needs to be replaced every 80,000 @ $148 dealer cost. The above example would have cost the dealer $592.00 for 4 kits over the course of the year.

A consumer can expect that the dealer will need to recoup these costs –by raising the copy click charging for the individual scans.

If your business plans on scanning alot, it is in your best interest to purchase a desktop scanner. If your business “Scans Once and Prints Many” then a copier is sufficient to meet your office equipment needs.