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?

In May, Ricoh Quit the InfoPrint Industrial Business in Europe

On May 24, 2011, Ricoh Announces and Discontinues the European Sale of New ServicePacs for All InfoPrint Industrial Printers

On the very same day, Ricoh announced and quit selling maintenance on the industrial product line. Can the same action be far behind in the USA?

Customer Reference Document #11-1054

Withdrawal From Marketing: 24x7 Industrial ServicePacs for Europe

Announce date: May 24, 2011

Withdrawal from Marketing: All 24x7 On-site Maintenance Packs for the InfoPrint 6500,and 6400 Line Matrix, InfoPrint 6700 Thermal, and InfoPrint 4247 Printers in Europe

Overview

Effective May 24, 2011, InfoPrint Solutions Company is withdrawing the Maintenance Packs shown in the table below. No orders will be accepted on or after May 24, 2011.

All 24x7 Maintenance Packs for all InfoPrint 6500, 6400, 4247, and 6700 printers are being withdrawn in Europe.

Ricoh Integrates and Obliterates InfoPrint Organization

April 2011 -

Ricoh collapses the InfoPrint organization. View full press release here.

April 4, 2011 — Ricoh Company, Ltd. announced the realignment of its production print resources. Ricoh formed Ricoh Production Print Solutions (RPPS), incorporating InfoPrint Solutions and the Ricoh Production Printing Business Group’s marketing and planning resources from Japan. They hope to streamline processes, operations and organizations within the Ricoh Family Group of Companies, including InfoPrint Solutions which will operate as RPPS. The new structure is planned to cost less by eliminating many of the costs of the Boulder, Colorado location and bringing together in New Jersey the Ricoh resources to develop, market and support industry leading end-to-end solutions for production customers.

Throughout April: — Not one single word of communication from Ricoh management to their InfoPrint Business Partner Reseller community regarding the General Office business or products from InfoPrint.

April 19, 2011 — Ricoh management privately and confidentially announces what seems to be a total layoff of its non-production-print staff. Holding individual meetings with employees, all field sales and headquarters personnel involved with the "General Office" product lines are apparently given their walking papers.

More Coverage on Ricoh in Japan

JAPAN QUAKE ,TSUNAMI & RADIATION SHUTS 5 RICOH PLANTS

From TonerNews.com; click here for source.

Further to last week’s report on the impact of the earthquake and tsunami on Japan’s leading camera manufacturers, Ricoh has advised that it has suspended operations at several manufacturing plants in the Tohuko, Kanto and Shizuoka prefectures.

The company also advised that none of its employees had been injured as result of the March 11 earthquake.The divisions that have suspended operations include Ricoh Optical Industries (optical products and projectors), Hazama Ricoh (product parts), Tohoku Rioch (MFPs, printers and toner), Ricoh Printing Systems (production printing products) and Gotemba Plant (MFPs and printers).

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.

Signed Documents in a FLASH

PlanetPress Capture

View more information by clicking here.

This innovation enables a customer to shorten process time, eliminate steps, and save money.

Consider companies that prints documents and require a signature. It could be bills of lading or delivery documents, sales orders or contracts, inventory or warehouse tracking forms, work orders or pick tickets.

One company could print on an impact printer with a pre-printed multi-ply “carbonless” form. When signed, they separate a copy or two to leave behind, and bring the rest back. Upon return, someone separates the sheets which are routed, perhaps scanned, and filed either manually or electronically. The form is reviewed for completeness. Any annotations or corrections are handled.

Another company may print on a laser printer, with either plain or more expensive “NCR carbonless” paper. Multiple sheets are printed, a signature is placed on the form, and the form is returned to the company for the same process.

This solution allows the printing of one sheet. That sheet has been electronically saved in the server awaiting the signature. The signature is made upon the page in ink with a special electronic pen. The x-y sweeps of the pen on that paper are saved and transmitted to the server, which inserts those graphics into the document, and creates the image of the signed document as if it had been returned and scanned!

The completed document can then immediately be emailed to destinations such as the customer, the salesman, the branch office. Processes that await the return of a signed document (such as invoicing after delivery receipt) can happen immediately. The document can flow directly and automatically into a document content management archive system.

For more information, contact Warren Neeley, GM of PCI Solutions, 866-430-6202 or WNeeley@PCIprinters.com

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.