RiKON; the end is near repent!

Ricoh merges its print businesses

 Barney Cox, printweek.com, 26 March 2010

 Ricoh has consolidated its UK production print sales organization in a bid to grow its presence in the commercial print market.

 Under the new structure, all of Ricoh's print business, aside from IBM joint venture Infoprint Solutions, will be integrated and headed up by Stephen Palmer in the new role of  Ricoh UK production print director.

Palmer said: "Historically, commercial print represented 10% of our production print sales and is the biggest area for growth.

 "Over the next three to four years, we plan to grow that to 50%. There's no reason why we can't grow very rapidly, we have the service and the infrastructure."

He added that 25%-30% of orders for the C900, Ricoh's first cut-sheet colour press, had come from the commercial print market.

In his new role, Palmer, who was previously Info-Tec UK managing director, will manage a 40-strong sales team combining staff from Ricoh, Info-Tec and Ikon.

According to Infosource figures, Ricoh was second to Xerox in colour digital press installations in 2009.
Funny enough some of my Anonymous comments have been spot on! Which is the only reason why I allow them. It seems that many were very well connected as they predicted this announcement weeks in advance!

Well IKON it is time to repent for the end is near!Good luck to all my old comrades!

Pirate Mike

InfoPrint introduces a the new InfoPrint Pro C900AFP color cutsheet printer; Ricoh is full of surprises and names... What will happen to AFP and those that live by it?

I ran into an interesting press release:

Boulder, Colo. – March 9, 2010
InfoPrint Solutions Company, a joint venture between IBM and Ricoh today announced that its InfoPrint Pro C900AFP color cutsheet printer is now available with support for PostScript®, Adobe® PDF and Personalized Printer Markup Language (PPML™). The InfoPrint Pro C900AFP is offered in addition to the award-winning InfoPrint Pro C900 printer and offers added flexibility for color transactional and Print On-Demand (POD) users in data centers, service bureaus and direct mail operations.

In the press release they go to say:
"Customers can now use the PPML datastream to create personalized, variable content color pages to maximize the effectiveness of customer communications while PostScript and Adobe PDF are vital tools for POD jobs, such as manuals, booklets and presentations.

The InfoPrint Pro C900AFP is a full color device that can be used for both transactional and POD applications. It offers customers an easy transition to an environment that supports applications that expand the smart use of color. It replaces the traditional approach of combining monochrome output devices with offset printing to produce invoices, statements or direct mail pieces that are commingled and mailed.

This latest InfoPrint Pro C900AFP model also features the InfoPrint Job Ticket Editor, an external application integrated into Windows and Macintosh drivers. This robust, easy-to-use JDF-based job ticketing tool enables the end user to create simple or complex fully-finished PostScript or PDF documents. Set-up entries include the ability to add covers, insert tabs and select finishing options such as ring binder, perfect binder and booklet maker, all of which help avoid the need for offline finishing."

What is great about this new front end is it is now "plug and play" into a lot of transactional environments. This really has been missing in many "light production" or "fast plastic" models. And I am sure that this front end can inter operate with InfoPrint's other cut sheet/roll fed models that may also be in the same organization giving them precise control on how to distribute the workload. Having the ability to "cluster print" and "load balance" has been attempted by a lot of front ends but many times goes under utilized in most organizations. This can be especially critical in print environments that have "short print windows." Say in the example of billing statements.

It will be interesting to see what Ricoh does come June 1st when IBM leaves the partnership! How well with everyone get along? Will Cain and Able get to work with Infoprint and sell the "big iron?"

They are not far away from having total control over InfoPrint so it will be interesting to see how much development they do with this part of their business and how to they market it on a go forward basis? Do they merge the PPBG with IKON's Production team and put them all under InfoPrint? Or do they create a new production organization all together and move the tools into that basket. I doubt that they want to loose the brand equity that they have in InfoPrint as it took a while to build it.

It is interesting to see how many flavors of the C900 that will come out before fixing what is broken! The C900 is better suited to the datacenter environment where unusual substrates are not used. This is the only place that I had success with this engine. In environments where the substrates are limited and controlled this device makes a lot of sense.

Would it make sense to merge IKON under InfoPrint? InfoPrint has support for the true data center environment and has the respect of the industry as a trusted leader not a rogue pirate like IKON?

Keep Tuned...

InfoPrint Solutions Company, headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, brings to market the advantages IBM and Ricoh have in the development, manufacturing, marketing and building of strategic solutions for customers, creating a growth-oriented global enterprise that is strategically focused on the output market. For more information go to www.infoprint.com

Pirate Mike; what is it about production that makes good men go bad…

Call to production; what is it that makes us sell our soul to be great…

So what is it about production copiers that lure dealers and manufacturers alike? Is it the large hardware revenue opportunities that lure organizations to seek out pirates to push their wares? I think not; everyone knows that the profits that come from the hardware revenues goes to keep the lights on and pay everyone. So what is it? What keeps VPs and Owners up all night dreaming of the one hit wonder?

When service directors say that we are running them into the ground? Well if .003 or .045 is so bad what do you keep approving it? How is everyone else doing it? Why is .0049 their "lead with" rate? Explain that to me. Is it that their service organizations have attained a level of automation and sophistication that tops the normal human organization that is still relying on human might and intellect?

If it is so desirable to do this business why is everyone so skittish? Why do organizations leave the production arena as quick as them came into it? It seems that the few that are known for selling production solutions love it and the rest can just not compete. For the few they seem to put the least value on their people. Why is that?

Why is it that when the future is obviously moving in the direction of full color messages and faster speeds, more capacity and higher volumes? With the sale of this "high speed" equipment comes with even more complex environments to place them in. More varied applications and software systems that the machines and high security systems that they must interface with.

With this ever evolving complexity comes also a sour market and soft economy. With the tough economic environment comes a greater margin compression from a better trained, experienced and motivated level of competition.

They say that the consolidation of large independent distributors and the eroding of the small dealership has put a lot of talent on the street yet my phone keeps ringing looking for a "Production Specialist" or a "Commercial Print Rep" or a "Print for Pay Rep". I love how you can tell someone what you are looking for and they ignore everything you said and say something like, "you know we would love to see you over such and such area calling on the print for pay market."

Why? They traditionally are the lowest margin deals that quite frequently do not pay their bills! This is not a slight on the industry. It is quite comical to watch the Dallas – Fort Worth marketplace. We are the 5^th largest print market in the country and at least 1 or 2 large shops go out of business every month. We started off with 840 commercial print and quick print shops in 2009 and in 2012 it is predicted that we will be down to 600.

So what does that mean? Are companies printing less pieces of paper? NO we are constantly growing the amount of digital sheets we produce. So what does that say about the print for pay market? Are these companies not being run efficiently? Is there poor leadership, inconsistent business practices? Have you ever tried to acquire credit for a print for pay organization? It is miserable; you almost always need 2 years of financials and on and on.

So with all of this uncertainty and financial instability why do copier dealerships and manufactures direct outlets die trying to place this "Big Iron" in these shops that will run their technicians into the ground, cuss out our receptionists and eventually not pay their bills?

What is so urgent about the call to production? What is it about the large multi case orders of toner that sit upon the dusty shelves of the environmentally volatile warehouse space that houses the 55 gallon drums of solvent and 25lb tins of ink? I have been selling the Big Iron for some time and have yet to understand the reasoning behind the mad dance that flows from the scent of an RFQ or the nearing of a lease end.

What is it about the mad addiction of polymerized toner running through our veins that makes us fight to the death over a $150,000.00 worth of equipment to end up selling it at cost and at .00 nothing just to get yelled at by our service director that signs the order and then to get fired from our area vice president for doing what we were told to do.


May the toner reduction mode be selected and every sheet be clicked twice,


Pirate Mike