And Now, the Fastest Line Printer On The Market

With the sunset of the InfoPrint part of the Ricoh Family Group and its popular 6500 line printers, Printronix stands alone as the supplier of the toughest and fastest line impact printer on the market.

Equipped with a ruggedized and enhanced tractor feed mechanism, the P7220 is ready for years of high speed reliable mission critical performance.

Review the fastest of the family bunch here, the 2,000 line per minute Printronix P7220: http://chooseglmgroup.com/PrintronixP7220LinePrinter2000LPM.aspx

Contact Warren Neeley at 817-430-6202 or wneeley@pciprinters.com for more information.

Give me your best price --- and that's why exactly?

In two different times last week, I experienced the demand of "give me your best price" from resellers that had built absolutely no relationship with our company.

One was with an individual wanting to broker sales into Africa. He said he was currently looking for a 'heavy duty printer that used toner'. OK, that really narrowed it down.... When I could not get him to bring more details to the table, and with his 'one-note-johnny' insistence of asking whether I had such a printer, I said "Sure, I have one for example that costs $100,000". I expected to extend the discussion to different sizes, speeds, and jobs. He immediately opined that "well, I'm sure that you can do better on the price and give me your best price."

You're sure on what basis? Is it due to the mutual trust that we have built over the last 5 minutes, while you answered no questions? Perhaps I can sell that $100k machine with today's best price of $50k and it will magically fit all your printing needs due to hammering me down? You don't even know what the printer does yet.

Another fellow wrote me from the country Jordan. He simply and naively requested a best dealer price list on half the printers that we sell. I like this guy. He has nerve and he is 'net'. Unfortunately for him, he has no idea on how to build a relationship of trust with me. He may eventually deserve to be the level of 'best dealer' for pricing, but he has not done the first thing to justify that request.

Let's do a deal. We will offer a fair price. Let's go through the pricing, discussion, offer, order and payment and shipping, and arriving. Then we can visit about 'best dealer' status.

Printronix Moves to Claim InfoPrint Industrial

Freshly back from the last rites and burial of the InfoPrint organization, Printronix made the announcement that for the last two decades, Printronix had been the sole OEM supplier of over 100,000 InfoPrint line printers and thermal printers.

In the Printronix press release, the company offers maintenance support and spare parts for the IBM and InfoPrint 6400, 6500, 4400 and 6700 printers.

From the announcement:
"Printronix provides a complete solution for InfoPrint Solutions customers, including a full line of printers, consumables and service offerings through the existing InfoPrint Channel Partner network which fully ensures uninterrupted customer support. InfoPrint end users can tap into the full product range offered by Printronix and its Channel Partners, who are trained and have the full backing of the Printronix global technical support team to ensure top tier customer support. "

In regards to Printer Connection, PCI is a Top Printronix (Platinum, one of <20) partner and was a Top InfoPrint partner (Premier, one of 10) until their tragic end.

A style of printer not sold or mentioned by Printronix is the 'Industrial Serial Matrix' printers known in IBM/InfoPrint customers as the 4247 and the previous 4230 and 4232. PCI is also a distributing partner (one of 4) for the Tally 4347 printer. This printer serves as a replacement and upgrade from the old 4247 and the new "Paint Shaker 4247-Z03". PCI can source the former InfoPrint 4247 as its OEM builder Compuprint is also coming out from behind the curtain. PCI strongly recommends evaluating the Tally 4347-i10 against the 4247-Z03 unit for any use on any printer stands other than a granite counter, as the Z03 can make many printer stands actually walk across the floor from the shaking.

Regarding maintenance service - the IBM and InfoPrint service was always and only offered as a 24x7 package, regardless of the customer's need or budget. The service norm in the industry is now 9x5 next business day and often with a spare printer as mission critical backup. PCI continues to offer and provide service and spares on all the InfoPrint and Printronix lines described in this Printronix action. For IBM/InfoPrint printers, service can be delivered by either PCI, Printronix, or a resale from PCI of Ricoh's continuing RPPS/contractor service arrangement for industrial printers.

For any information and discussion of future pricing and availability of service, parts and printers, contact Warren Neeley at 817-939-5614 or wneeley@pciprinters.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.

John R. Opel, the Fifth IBM CEO, Passes Away

"Asked in a 2010 interview what had sustained IBM for nearly 100 years, Opel said it was the values engendered by Thomas J. Watson Sr., who ran the company from 1914 until he retired in 1952. Watson preached that the company should be run based on its beliefs, which included respect for the individual, dedication to customer satisfaction, and a pledge to perform every task in a superior way."

Amen, and rest in peace.

http://www.ibm.com/ibm/us/en/johnopel.html

For questions or comments, contact Warren Neeley at wneeley@pciprinters.com.

Ricoh Continues Layoffs At Boulder Colorado InfoPrint Solutions Plant

http://tonernews.com/Message.aspx?vy=bb&id=24752

In part:
Japan-based Ricoh Co. on Thursday conducted layoffs at its Boulder InfoPrint Solutions facility, a company official confirmed.It is unclear how many people were affected. InfoPrint spokesman Peter Lazaroff said the company is "doing some reductions (Thursday)," but declined to disclose a number.

Earlier this year, Ricoh officials announced plans to realign the firm's production print resources operations, form a new entity called Ricoh Production Print Solutions and move the InfoPrint Solutions headquarters to West Caldwell, N.J., from Boulder. Ricoh anticipated the workforce reduction would affect 9 percent of its 109,000-person global employee base.

At the end of July, InfoPrint employed 700 people in Boulder, company officials told the Camera at the time. In 2010, InfoPrint had 725 employees locally.Lazaroff on Thursday declined to provide a current headcount of the Boulder operations.

Ricoh Calls it Quits on Most of Old IBM Printer Business

Last Tuesday, Ricoh announced the halt to the entire old IBM Printing Systems operation, lately operating as 'InfoPrint'.

The large-end roll-fed printers, software and services were folded into a new Ricoh operation called RPPS back in April.

Everything else known as 'InfoPrint' was announced Tuesday to come to an end on December 30, 2011:
- Business Partners, called 'Solution Specialists' to the Ricoh folks;
- Maintenance sales through any partner channel;
- Industrial impact and thermal printers;
- Workgroup printers;
- Cutsheet printers.

What will continue?
- For now, and some of 2012, the RPPS service organization;
- For a while, the 'InfoPrint' product name on the big roll-fed printers. Watch for that to likely end as well. Ricoh feels their brand is a stronger one than InfoPrint, and they are unwilling to pay to use the IBM logo.

What to look for in the future?
- Outsource of Service: Ricoh has to honor any prepaid service contracts, but they made no promise that it will be their personnel doing the service delivery. Look for a quick outsource of Industrial, Impact, Thermal, and Workgroup printers! There is no more problem with some customer with poor customer satisfaction that would threaten to stop buying InfoPrint printers. Ricoh can say "Guess what! Knock yourself out, because we don't sell those printers anyway!!!"
- Layoffs: Unfortunately, Ricoh is looking to cut a bunch of people, and when you outsource the work, you have extra people on the payroll that can be cut loose.
- Service Management Shakeup: Why have the old 'InfoPrint' managers when the Ikon/Ricoh group has lots of local service management?