Ricoh and a friend of ours

We enjoy seeing the success of our friends, and this update is no exception. 

"What we really want to do for commercial printers is to give them the ability and knowledge to drive value to their end customers in different ways," said Theresa Lang, Vice President Solutions & Services at Ricoh.

http://www.mpsconnect.com/articles/share/419837/

Theresa was a vital member of the IBM Printer channel staff 'back in the day.'  Back when IBM Printers did more than $100M annually in revenue with resellers, the channel had not yet been adjusted and strangled by the Directors and VPs that ultimately killed the channel.  InfoPrint later tried to breathe life back into a channel, but the 'grooved swing' and product support alas was long gone.

Back to Ricoh, this article mentions a new technology, and it appears that Ricoh is investing in a company that developed it. "Clickable Paper, a cross-media service that lets consumers access related online content by pointing a smartphone at any printed surface. At Drupa, Ricoh teamed with PTI to demonstrate this technology integrated within PTI's MarcomCentral W2P platform. The Clickable Paper technology—developed by Ricoh Visual Search—is expected to be released next year."

We are very interested in anything that merges mobile computing, 'pocket computers,' traditional and non-traditional output, and the use of today's cloud of available information for the mutual benefit of the user and the generator of that output.

More on that topic in another upcoming blog.

For more details, contact Warren Neeley at www.ChooseGLMgroup.com.

Happy Trails to IBM and InfoPrint Printers

For many people in the business workplace, December 30, 2011 is the end to a long era. It might have have actually been in the summer 2010. That's when the Japanese copier company Ricoh stopped putting "Ricoh | IBM InfoPrint Solutions" on printer products.

When Ricoh bought IBM Printing Systems, it was reported that IBM required Ricoh to use the IBM Global Services consulting group to manage the IT transition. Big Mistake. IBM and Ricoh chose Oracle as the platform, organized many too many committee meetings (if one committee is good then eight committees are better), spent three years and executed no parallel testing. Cut-over in September 2011 was Cold Turkey .... and it killed the bird. Major Big Mistake. InfoPrint instantly became blind. They could not see if customers were entitled to maintenance, see if they had repair parts inventory, see how to invoice the sales, and other minor little things like that about running a business.

Ricoh the copier company had also bought out Ikon the copier sales company. The two copier companies became occupied with letting Ikon take over the operation of Ricoh Americas.

In April 2011, Ricoh announced the transition of and end to the InfoPrint organization. The big roll-fed machines were headed to Ricoh HQ in New Jersey to be run in the same building with IkonRicoh, and any other product line, personnel and business partners were to no longer exist in 2012.

So now what?

Understand that InfoPrint did not build any printers.

Printronix made the line printers, and InfoPrint had a different control panel and different IBM IPDS. That now goes away. Test your IPDS print on any new Printronix machines. Most of it will work the same, but it is not true, full, true-blue-IBM IPDS. If you absolutely must have it, work with us on a refurbished IBM unit.

Printronix supplied the thermal printers, with no change but the label.

Tally has been an alternative in serial printers and provides the 4347-i models 8 and 10 for the IBM printer marketplace.

Compuprint built the 4247 serial transaction printer, and it will be now be sold as the Compuprint 4247 with the same IPDS as before.

Lexmark provided the workgroup lasers, and the ONLY change was the label on the front panel. IPDS was the same.

Toray built the InfoPrint 62 and IBM did have a unique IPDS controller. MicroPlex has a wonderfully compatible IP62/IPDS module that drives all of their continuous forms laser printers, from Toray and others. The InfoPrint 75 (now will it become Ricoh 75??) CF laser could potentially be available from us in a cooperative marketing agreement with RPPS - stay tuned.

For more information or help in making the transition to non-InfoPrint products, contact Warren Neeley at wneeley@pciprinters.com or 817-939-5614. Read more at Warren's website.

What About the InfoPrint Supply Chain?

Impact on Office Products Industry from Earthquake in Japan

From InfoTrends. Submitted By: Cathy Martin on March 18, 2011

Click here for original blog;
the Ricoh portion posted here.

Ricoh has stopped production at five of its manufacturing plants that produce MFPs, printers, projectors, production printers, printer parts, and toner. It is unknown when these plants will reopen and begin operating. Three other plants are partly operating that also do MFPs, printers, parts, supplies, and toner. Challenges to production will be include rolling blackouts and delivery of parts.

Is all “junk mail” junk?

InfoPrint's latest blog entry describes the way to move your customer communications away from the "Junk" status to a valuable item to review. Personalization with customer data and names will get your piece noticed and opened, and best of all elevated above the other stuff.

See the entire blog by clicking HERE.

Intelligent Mail Barcode; the savings behind the change

REF: Blog by Don Dew of InfoPrint

Print customers will focus on the "click charge" for a change to their sheet-fed printers, and totally miss the impact of the change to the barcoding of the address.

Implementing the Intelligent Mail Barcode can save $0.003 per mail-piece.

Not every impact printer supports the new barcode. Neither does every output software.

MAPPING Suite can generate the IMb without any changes to your current application software.

A workflow implementation like InfoPrint ADF very often achieves an ROI in 18 months or less, even if it includes full service Intelligent Mail.

If you were receiving automation rates in the past by using a POSTNET barcode, then you’re performing all the right steps to generate a basic IMb. The IMb contains the ZIP+4+destination point data that was embedded in POSTNET, plus your mailer ID number and service type.

For more information, contact Warren Neeley at wneeley@pciprinters.com or 866-430-6202.

Launch of our PCI Solutions YouTube Channel

Join us on our new YouTube channel, PCIsolutions.

Impact or Laser?

I had a great visit today with the InfoPrint call center staff in Austin. There was discussion about customers being convinced to move away from impact printers and toward laser printing. This is typically by people prejudiced against impact, or those that are only selling lasers. It reminded me of my write-up on the subject, found on my website. Here it is for your convenience:

Use IBM InfoPrint Impact Printers
or Migrate to Laser Printers?

If your old impact printers are not becoming to you -

you should be
coming to us!

Covered Below:

Issue Examination

Marketplace Facts

Are we Impact-Biased?

Options are Available

Are Any of These Silly Issues True?

Have CUSTOMERS STOPPED TAKING SHIPMENTS because the documents are in dot matrix output?

Will no A/P clerk PAY YOUR INVOICE due to the fact that your company uses an older style of printing?

Are vendor salesreps, ISV advisors, consultants and staff telling you to move to LASER PRINTERS?

Are you ready to SPEND MORE MONEY?

Ready to be LESS ECONOMICAL?

Is there NO OTHER WAY to make the printout work better?

Want to SPEND 10X TO 20X ON PRINTING SUPPLIES?

Then by all means, MOVE TO LASER PRINTING!

Impact Printer Facts

Pretty much every laser printer rep has no impact offering (or even any personal experience) with a high volume mission-critical business-level impact printer.

Just think about it .... Ricoh? HP? Xerox? Lexmark? Konica/Minolta? Brother?

None of them sell impact line printers.

Only Lexmark have anything with a ribbon in it, and theirs are serial printers for light transactional duty only.

Do any of them sell thermal barcode printers. Nope. Not a one.

Are you taking your printing advice from reps and company staff that can't remember a world without web browsers and pocket cell phones? What do they really know about impact printers anyway?

So We Try to Keep You on Impact?

No, not at all! We think laser printed output is great. For years, we have helped customers make that move and enhance their print.

We think impact is great too, and can be made modern and even more cost-effective that it is today.

You know how many doctors and chiropractors bad-mouth each other? One value we have for you - we can diagnose, devise a remedy, and write a prescription without an entire printer transplant. We do not have a built-in bias AGAINST impact printers, OR FOR impact printers. We love 'em both, but we especially love showing customers how to transact their business at the lowest costs - it wins us long-term customers, and we feel those are the best kind.

How Can GLM Help Me Affordably?

We call it "Print Less and Print Better". Why move only to laser? Maybe you could move to less printing.

Let us help you leave the three-part-forms behind. Is the "pink" copy simply headed to a filing cabinet? Put it there electronically. Could the customer choose to receive the bill in an email? We do, and we are in the printer business!

One of our suppliers switched to e-distribution, and their invoice printing dropped by 75%. We can provide the same software and consulting solution to make that happen for you.

Some output is absolutely better on laser! Bringing photo half-tone images, tight logo graphics, and small barcodes on your printing are all reasons to move to laser. If you merely want to move away from pre-printed forms, we can likely design the form and the data onto your old or new impact printers and keep the expenses low.

Maybe you have a workflow issue with your printing. Do you generate invoices with one job and picking slips with a separate job and printer, and then have experience errors and rework when you try match them to pick and pack the box? We can help you consolidate that effort, with no change to your application programming.

Is Impact bad?

No.

Is Laser always better.

No.

Are you stuck with the output you have because it is too complex to change the programs?

No, not at all.

InfoPrint Wins ON DEMAND Best of Show Honorable Mention Award

InfoPrint press release

InfoPrint TransPromo Whitespace Manager Recognized as Powerful Tool Combining Company's AFP and Production Workflow Leadership

PHILADELPHIA, PA, Apr 20, 2010 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- InfoPrint Solutions Company, a joint venture between IBM and Ricoh, has been recognized at this year's ON DEMAND Conference & Exposition with a Best of Show Honorable Mention award in the 1:1 Communications category for its TransPromo Whitespace Manager solution. InfoPrint TransPromo Whitespace Manager won an honorable mention as a compact, flexible and cost-effective solution that enables users to easily enhance unused space on a document with rules-based, relevant messaging, leveraging InfoPrint's AFP and production workflow leadership.

InfoTrends, a leading market research and consulting firm in the digital imaging and document solutions industry, partnered with the ON DEMAND Conference & Exposition to produce the awards program. ON DEMAND, the digital printing & automated production event, is the largest conference and exposition dedicated to the technologies that personalize, manage, print, and deliver content.

InfoPrint Whitespace Manager can manage whitespace on an AFP file in two ways: either through a user-assigned space or space found in a search. Once this space is found, a convenient rules builder allows the user to add messaging, based on information that can be found in the document -- such as address, account type or balance information. InfoPrint TransPromo Whitespace Manager is available as a standalone product, or can be integrated with InfoPrint's leading ADF Workflow solution, based on InfoPrint ProcessDirector (IPPD). This allows a set of rules to be established once, and to be repeated every time the job is run again in the future.

"We are delighted to receive this prestigious commendation. InfoPrint has already showcased our leadership in the Precision Marketing, TransPromo, and Workflow spaces. With this tool, we enable marketers, direct mailers, data centers and service bureaus to provide added value to their communications without going through the expense of document re-engineering," said Don Dew, ADF Solutions Manager at InfoPrint.

"This award is meant to recognize exceptional innovation in the digital printing industry," stated Jeff Hayes, President, InfoTrends. "InfoPrint is one of the leaders in our industry, and we are pleased to acknowledge their accomplishments."

InfoPrint Adds Production Sheet-Fed Color

"InfoPrint Solutions Company, a joint venture between IBM and Ricoh, today [January 27, 2009] announced it is launching its high-speed digital color cutsheet solution for the mid-market, the InfoPrint Pro C900. This adds to its portfolio of digital color printers driving the continual growth of color across enterprises of all sizes." http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS134460+27-Jan-2009+MW20090127

This machine is only available in the channel from Cutsheet Certified Solution Specialists. Beginning September 1, 2009, only those partners that have attended Certification Training will be allowed to offer the Pro C900. PCI has already completed the Certification Training.

For more information, please contact Warren Neeley at Printer Connection, 866-430-6202 or wneeley@pciprinters.com.