Nice Xerox story about Biz Development

The value of the globals is their networks of smart. As boxes get better and better, the competition drives margins lower and lower. The defensible value is the network that surrounds the box. More smart is much nicer than less smart.

Found this one by Gina Testa at Output Links

Progressive Communications, based in Florida, had its light production Xerox DocuColor 242 Digital Color Printer/Copier just six months when it recognized a larger opportunity. . .

According to Xerox Business Development Consultant Mickey Call, they also needed to do the necessary planning and training to make the investment pay off.

..Call began helping them prepare well in advance of the Igen3’s installation.

He met with the Progressive Communications sales team for three months preparing them to use the more consultative approach that’s required for selling personalized communications programs.

Their business is doing so well that they are adding a second iGen press.

RISO is more interesting every day

Riso got on my radar a while ago. I don't know enough about CPC pricing in the real world, but if RISO delivers what they say, why wouldn't everyone do that?

From OutputLinks:
With a color cost that is typically one to two cents per page, . . Add to the equation the monochrome cost of less than a half-cent per page and this concept becomes even more compelling.. . a $50,000 ComColor system

MPS in education is not just about cutting costs, it's about a Printer in every school building and education informatics.

I said:
If an independent #MPS integrated zinepal.com http://ilnk.me/b8a , they could offer blogs or wikis in print to the classroom printed on MFP

He said:
zinepal @ToughLoveforX What is a #MPS? I am working on a zinepal.com API to allow others to integrate with it. Looking for good usage examples...

I said:
@zinepal how good to know you are on twitter! MPS is "Managed Print Services" it's the growing part of the print industry. 1 of 2

@zinepal MPS means that every copier is an output device for PDF. That means 1 to 1 instructional collateral produced in the school building.

@zinepal just one more for now. A class does writing on a blog or wiki. zinepal delivers PDFs. The edited writing is output in print.

He said:
zinepal @ToughLoveforX Cool. Sounds interesting. Thanks for the info!

If zinepal is working on APIs for Cloud based translation of HTML content into PDF, he might be a good person to get in contact with. According to his twitter page, he's in British Columbia.

As the Printers in the enterprise are connected to the Printers outside the enterprise, it's another step closer to the realization of true distribute and print, or what might be called a network of printernets.

In the emerging global economy the high margin values are in the network, not the output box. If MPS or EPS brings a new networked delivery system for Print directly into the classroom it should be possible to get to some kind of sustainable margins going forward.

If upload codes are integrated into the PDFs the network can emit the raw material for the only defensible high margin product - predictive analytics. In the education business that means education informatics. Education informatics means real time evidence to improve education with less danger of falling prey to the Flaw of Averages.

If you don't believe me about QR in 1to30 newspapers to replace textbooks, maybe this video from Brazil will show you want I mean.

Instead of a book, consider a very similar experience in a 24 page black and white newspaper delivered to a classroom. That's why the title says 1 to 30. Then consider the cost of a black only newspaper that had content that was aligned with education standards and supported by ads from public health and ngos.

Oce figured out crowdsourced R&D. Someone should get this on Ms Burn's radar. It could do wonders for STEP.

To read full article at printweek.com

My favorite parts:

"...this closed attitude has been replaced by an approach that explicitly creates room for partners in the development of new products. Open innovation, as the platform for making maximum use of each others' core competencies, forms the basis for a new period of future innovations."

For example, in the Netherlands, the website Dutch Lwww.battleofconcepts.com (google English translate version) allows businesses and government agencies to tap into the country's freshest brains. It works like this: a company poses a question or challenge to an audience of students and young professionals up to the age of 30. This is the ‘battle'. Students then submit their ‘concepts', or solutions, in return. Responses are anonymised and the company chooses the 20 best answers.

The prize money attached to each particular challenge, which can be between €2,500 and €10,000, is then distributed according to a standard scale. Financial services provider Rabobank recently offered a €5,000 carrot for clever ideas to help it engage with entrepreneurs and business start-ups via social media.

Getting margins is about pre press business processes and Finishing

Offset and digital printing machines get better and better. Squeezing more efficiency in the face of over capacity is a tough road.

Business processes, on the other hand, are full of inefficiencies, that's the web 2 print piece. in my not-so-humble opinion, finishing is the low hanging fruit. Closed loop automated production means a finished product at the end of the process. Press sheets are easy. Finished products in the customers hands is hard.

Value and therefore margins comes from making the hard, easy.

Roll fed digital presses without the ability to output a finished newspaper are missing the boat. That's one of the reasons I bought Oce at $3.10.

Finishing features from printweek.com |
"Our features archive boasts a wealth of information on making finishing create value in your business. You'll find our roundup below."

Quark goes into web 2 print. Teams up with AlphaGraphics and Franchise Services. What ever happened to white label Marketsplash?

AlphaGraphics Teams Up with Quark for QuarkPromote.com
Salt Lake City, UT- AlphaGraphics, Inc., announced today its partnership with Quark to provide professional marketing collateral for small and mid-sized businesses seeking to start and grow their companies. The new online service, called QuarkPromote.com, launched yesterday at an event held in Denver, Colorado.

Quark Press release A:

Quark announced today the launch of QuarkPromote.com, a new online service that helps entrepreneurs and small businesses in the United States easily create their own high-quality, professional marketing materials that can be picked up at a nearby neighborhood printer or received by mail in just a few days.

Press release B
According to Terry Welty, vice president of corporate marketing for Quark, "The Web to Print market we are entering is a $17 billion market. Small businesses are increasingly going online to find an easy way to create and print marketing materials. In the next three years this market is going to double and we think QuarkPromote.com in concert with our print partners is going to be a big part of this."

Franchise Services, parent company of Sir Speedy, PIP and Signal Graphics, announces that its brands are part of the QuarkPromote.com Neighborhood Print Partner program. The program will provide Sir Speedy, PIP, and Signal Graphics centers the opportunity to gain new customers by receiving print orders online.

Several Sir Speedy, PIP and Signal Graphics locations across the country have already signed up to join the program and many more are expected before the end of this year.

Maybe Kyocera or HP will take a nibble at Kodak

Turned up a November 16 article.

11/16 post; "SNS Securities said HP & Kyocera had sufficient financing options for a counter bid for Oce" http://ilnk.me/a39

So if they have enough money for Oce, they have enough money for the Kodak print piece.

The web and printed books can play nicely together.

- Technology and Learning - Inside Higher Ed:

"When we get to a point that a mobile version is expected of whatever content we want to interact with, not having a mobile version may cut-off the desire to consume that content.

People who teach courses, and those of us who also work with people who design and teach courses, need to recognize that we are more likely to succeed in having our students engage with the curricular content if our students can access this content on a platform that they choose.

Students are amongst the busiest people on earth. Perhaps they will be more likely to read an assigned chapter if they can grab some snippets during those 'in-between' times on their mobile device. Later they can crawl up for extended times with the paper book, or on an e-reader, the point is to offer choice."

Maybe KBA will take a nibble at Kodak?

KBA eyes new business lines as rival manufacturers post losses
printweek.com
William Mitting, printweek.com, 20 November 2009

Press manufacturer KBA is to move into solar energy and water treatment technology as it seeks to diversify, rather than 'enter a merger in a shrinking market'.

Speaking after the company said that it would explore 'new fields of operation', chief executive Helge Hansen said that, while print manufacturing would remain core, the company would explore acquisitions in 'new business lines with good prospects for growth and earnings'.

He identified these sectors as packaging, digital print, water treatment and solar thermal technology."

It's pretty clear that something has to give at Kodak. The transition from the film business to another business has been brutal. They've made a great run and have created some great pockets of value. But the money has pretty much run out. The Kodak Gallery is a jewel. Gezillions of users have stored their high res photos. It should have a very long tail. The Kodak moment is still the sustainable margin deliverable.

Meanwhile the Creo Scitex piece is a jewel in it's own right. I assume, but don't know, that Creo gives Kodak a strong lead in the offset workflow. Scitex dna gives them deep expertise and knowledge in inkjet. Sooner or later Stream will come to market. But what could have been a first mover advantage is gone.

This week Kodak's market cap was $1.1 billion dollars. That is less than the cost plus assumption of debt that Canon is offering for Oce. It's less than Ricoh paid for Ikon. Meanwhile, Kodak owns KKR $700 million dollars. I just can't see KKR waiting patiently for a return.

This week had a big surprise with the Canon offer. The following weeks promise to be interesting as the inevitable reorganization of the global print industry continues.