Ereaders/Not textbooks in College in Masstricht

iRex Technologies:

"iLiad Educational Trial

The iRex iLiad eReader is the first electronic paper device that is experimenting with educational applications.

Beginning of February a project starts at the Bonnefanten College in Maastricht where - for the first time in the history - children will effectively use electronic paper in the classroom"

Ricoh (ground)> IBM (cloud)> Ricoh/InfoPrint (print)

From Death of The Copier:

Ricoh in 2007 bought International Business Machines Corp's digital commercial printer business for $725 million.

Ikon clients switching from rival gear to Ricoh's smoothly...accounted for 90 percent of sales at Ikon in January:

"TOKYO, March 5 - Ricoh Co Ltd said its products accounted for 90 percent of sales at Ikon in January, up from 30 percent before the office equipment distributor was acquired by the Japanese copier maker last year, underlining a smooth consolidation of the key U.S. unit.
. . .
Ricoh bought Ikon Office Solutions for $1.6 billion in October, delivering a heavy blow to rival Canon Inc, whose machines had represented 60 percent of the products Ikon handled before the October acquisition.
. . .
The Tokyo-based company held a 19.7 percent share in the global copier market in value terms in 2008, according to research firm Gartner, ahead of Xerox's 19.2 percent and Canon's 18.9 percent.
. . .
Kondo said he aims for sales and profit growth in the year starting April 1 as it benefits from a full-year profit contribution from Ikon, and its commercial printing business will likely take off in the new business year.

Oce's been doing it since 2001. (In Australia)

Newspaper Association of America: Advancing Newspaper Media for the 21st Century:

"Since 2001, digital press manufacturer Oce (www.oce.com) has enabled newspapers to print editions nationally and internationally through partnerships with commercial printers. Through the Oc�Digital Newspaper Network, newspapers such as The New York Times and The Sydney Morning Herald in Sydney, Australia, transmit print-ready pages to Oce, which sends them to commercial printers who print the pages locally on digital presses. Oce monitors the data flow and production."

Plus they supply work to commercial print output centers who have their equipment. Go Oce!

MPS > BPO is the New Business of Print

MPS is on a straight path to evolve into "overall print services, and expertise and support for document Management . ."

For small and micro business, MPS is maintained by standards, fed by incentives and implemented in the Cloud.

Komunik Announces Agreement to Sell Business:

MONTREAL, QUEBEC--(Marketwire - Feb. 20, 2009) -
The Corporation is a leading provider of end-to-end solutions for Communication Resource Management. Through innovation and a nation-wide infrastructure, the Corporation helps its clients increase the return on their investment. The Corporation provides overall print services, and expertise and support for document Management . . .
About Komunik Corporation
. . .Komunik Corporation (the "Corporation") (TSX:KOM) is pleased to announce that it entered today into an agreement of purchase and sale (the "Transaction") that will see the Corporation's business and operations continue on a seamless basis for its stakeholders. The buying company (the "Purchaser") in a newly incorporated company established by an investment management company.

Ground (AEC)>Cloud(Newforma)>Print (Oce)

Oce Offers Newforma Software to the AEC Market:

"TRUMBULL, Conn., March 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Oce, an international leader in digital document management, today announced that it has entered into an agreement with Newforma, Inc. to resell Newforma(R) Project Center project information management (PIM) software in the US. This new agreement strengthens Oce's ability to streamline document workflow for the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) community with software that not only removes costly and time-consuming inefficiencies from project execution but also from project-related document processing and printing.

'Oce is pleased to announce this new relationship with Newforma,' said Sal Sheikh, Vice President, Marketing, Wide Format Printing Systems division of Oce North America. 'With Newforma's innovative software, AEC customers gain direct access to a solution that can help them better manage their project information - from email to the digital exchange of drawings and model views. In addition, its integration with Oce Client Tools(TM) software enables users to simplify their printing and avoid costly workflow bottlenecks.'

Newforma Project Center Software Improves Project Execution, Mitigates Risk"

Ground (Ricoh?> Cloud (IBM?) > Print (Ricoh?)

Ontario universities tap into Tools as a Service
read at Network World:

"A new pilot project from the IBM Canada Center for Advanced Studies in Toronto (CAS Toronto) and the Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE) is providing Ontario research institutions cloud-based access to IBM software development tools.

The Tools as a Service (TaaS) project consists of two commercially-available IBM products -- WebSphere Integration Developer and Rational Software Architect over the Internet -- delivered on the Centre of Excellence for Research in Adaptive Systems (CERAS) cloud computing infrastructure.
Introduction to Oracle Role Manager: Download now

CERAS is a research partnership between CAS Toronto, OCE and eight universities to advance development of next-gen software services and applications."

Don't "educate." Incent.

The purpose of "education" is new behavior.

In a school the desired new behavior is the ability to solve problems. The best evidence for logical thinking is writing. The best evidence for problem solving is emitted when students are given proximate problems that they successfully solve.

In the world of commerce the desired new behavior is either making a purchase or solving the proximate problem of getting more and better revenue. It's much easier with people who have made the time to show up. That's the evidence that incentives are in place.

The most reliable way to induce new behavior in both the school world and the commercial world is with
A. a well defined problem,
B. a clear path to get from here to there and
C. appropriate incentives.

It is not about a transferring a body of knowledge. It's mostly about not being distracted by the noise and knowing what to do next.

Correctly conceived and implemented long term incentives do wonders to focus attention. "What to do next" can often be captured in a simple list.

Free Advice:
For the next gathering that is meant to "educate".
1. Spend 15 minutes getting to a well-defined problem.
2. Spend 15 minutes brainstorming about possible solutions.
3. Spend 15 minutes making a list of what each person in the room can do on Monday morning.

If your purpose is to sell boxes - of machines or software - hand out one page Paper with a minimum of graphics with the following items:
1. the most appropriate use case you have
2. the all in cost of different options and
3. the estimated time to install
4. A person's contact information to continue the conversation. Email and mobile are best.
Given the possibilities of VDP this should be easy to implement. If it's too hard to have the Paper at the meeting, give them a link, let them fill out the info, deliver a PDF that eliminates No 1 in the list above.

Hint: Use cases should Not be in the form of "Challenge" . ."Solution" "Result". Instead they should be in the form of vignettes. To see what really good vignettes are like read Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change How the World Learns . If you have a Kindle you can download it in 60 seconds. If you don't have a Kindle, check out the video. until you get a chance to read the book.

Use the force. Step one is seeing the network. Oce gets it. (in the UK)

. . He stated that improvements in production between 15 and 20% had since been recorded within the team.

The emerging model for Print is the facilitated user network. Facilitating a user network means ultra efficiency in the repairs.

Free advice: Incent the repair techs to gather useful information about the customer while making the repair. A simple check list would probably do the job. It could be on paper or on the web. But don't educate, incent!

Océ, supplier of printing and document management services, has recently reported improved efficiency within its service operation through the use of a satellite tracking solution.

"The business employs over 200 field engineers to service a variety of printers, copiers and fax machines around the UK.

Richard Cornish, national service operations manager, told Service Management that the company had signed for a three month trial with the Masernaught Three X satellite tracking solution at the end of 2007.

This had been extended to six months, after which the company allocated the system for use with one of its regional teams. Trials began with a small group of engineers and, following their success, saw the solution rolled out to the rest of the team.

He stated that improvements in production between 15 and 20% had since been recorded within the team.
read at Service Management Online

Another Score for XRX - (in the USA)

From the story below "“Xerox speaks commercial printing – they are an ideal partner as we dive into this new business,” said Roshan." Note: the customer has a ground>cloud>print business model and "works for the trade."

Shutterbug Photo Mall Installing Xerox iGen4 Press
@ Printing Impressions:

"BOWLING GREEN, KY/ROCHESTER, NY—March 2, 2009—Shutterbug Photo Mall has installed Xerox Corporation’s (NYSE: XRX) iGen4™ Press to add production of full-color photo books, calendars and greeting cards to its arsenal of photo-based offerings.

Shutterbug, a photo resource center with an in-house photo lab, is one of the first U.S. companies of its kind to install the Xerox iGen4 press.

Shutterbug’s worldwide customers, including photographers, photo labs and small to medium size businesses, can submit jobs online via Xerox FreeFlow® Web Services powered by Press-sense. Shutterbug plans to print resort-vacation photo books, school yearbooks, and a host of other photo specialty products on the iGen4 press.

Shutterbug will also take advantage of the iGen4’s productivity and for the first time, offer traditional commercial print services such as full-color personalized health insurance packets. “Xerox speaks commercial printing – they are an ideal partner as we dive into this new business,” said Roshan.

HP = 3 , Apple = 2, Xerox = 1 In the computer industry. Huh?

Is it me or is it them? "Most admired" in the Computer industry?

Since when is Xerox a computer company? I thought they were The Document Company. I've been on my little soapbox about getting a chance to make a pure play on Xerox as a Print infrastructure company.

Makes one wonder about "executives, directors and analysts" and the Hay Group.

From Msn.money
The survey, compiled by the management consulting firm Hay Group, asked executives, directors, and analysts to rate 1,400 companies on criteria such as innovation, investment value and global competitiveness. Xerox ranked No. 1 in its category for key reputation attributes including use of corporate assets, quality of management and social responsibility.

1 Xerox
2 Apple
3 Hewlett-Packard
4 Canon
5 Sun Microsystems
6 Dell
7 Ricoh
8 Fujitsu
9 NEC
10 Lenovo Group
11 Asustek Computer
12 Quanta Computer

The link to the Fortune Story.

HP gets it. Vista Print gets it. SMB means small and micro, not medium, business.

It is about business services for "small and micro businesses, not small medium business. It's about incentives for everyone in the network. They understand how to execute the power of the network + incentives.

HP

@ printweek.com

According to HP, the retail publishing market will grow by more than $36bn (£25.5bn) in the next five years. . . . . . "Not only can customers quickly and easily create customised photo projects, but small and micro businesses can create dynamic, professional-quality, low-cost collateral at retail," he added. . . . The deal expands upon a smaller trial last year and will see the version 4.0 of the HP Photo Center installed in a number of Tesco Extra stores across the UK.

VistaPrint
Schwab says ,"VistaPrint Limited operates as an on-line provider of marketing products and services to small businesses worldwide. " On their website it says "Best Printing. Best Price."

Vista says they are printers, but deliver marketing solutions. Many companies say they are marketing solutions providers, but deliver print. Vista says they have 17,000,000 customers world-wide. As far as I know, Vista Print is built on traditional offset technology, not digital printing.

From Vista Print website:
Affiliate Program Learn More/Apply
Promote and sell VistaPrint products. A lucrative program for web-site owners, email and search marketers, and virtual sales agents! We provide you with everything you need including trackable banner ads and text links, reporting and related marketing tools. You earn cash for every order that originates through your affiliate links. It's incredibly easy!,

As a VistaPrint affiliate partner, you'll get:
* Special promotions such as percent off discounts and free shipping offers.
* Monthly free product promotions featuring 5-6 products.
* Great commission rates on net sales and free product orders.
* Additional bonus incentive programs.
* Earn money on every sale and order!

Reseller Program Learn More/Apply
Customize and re-sell our products to your clients. A lucrative program for print brokers, graphic designers, creative agencies and independent sales reps! As a VistaPrint Reseller, you'll get:

* Wholesale pricing
* Free shipping on orders > $150
* Reduced shipping on orders < $150 * Ability to drop-ship in unbranded packaging * Weekly specials, including free products * Free, unlimited image uploads Business Solutions Program
Learn More/Apply

Let VistaPrint be your printing fulfillment solution for your employees, sales reps and customers. This program is perfect for real estate, direct sales and MLM organizations — any company looking to offer branded printed products to a large group of people. Enjoy a scalable, co-branded web site built, hosted and supported by VistaPrint. As a VistaPrint Business Solutions Partner, you'll get:

* A web site, featuring your branded business cards and other printed products
* Enterprise pricing and revenue share
* Account management and promotional support
* Detailed monthly reporting and analysis
* Special promotional opportunities

Score one for XRX (in the UK)

read @ printweek.com

"Purvis added that, as a result of the investment, MetroMail has been able to eliminate its night shift. 'Our team's business efficiency has improved by almost 60%,' he said. 'Taking us from three shifts a day to just two shifts.'
. . .
The County Durham-based mailing house has taken delivery of a suite of Xerox kit including seven Nuvera 288s, a Xerox 650, a Xerox 495 duplex continuous feed printer, and a Xerox 700 digital colour press.
. . .
The £5m investment has given MetroMail the capacity to produce more than 3m A4 images a day – on jobs that include mail inserts, envelopes and polythene wraps.

Is there Print "Industry?". Not yet, but soon.

Another interesting thread over at PrintCeo. This was started by Andy Tribute whose opening post is titled Does the Printing Industry Exist?.
Ryan said

. . . some manufacturers get their own classification, but that’s usually only when there’s dozens of multi-billion multinational corporations in it. Let’s see, in printing, I can count the number of those companies on one hand.

It all depends how you look at it. If you are seeing an integrated infrastructure that outputs Print, the outlines of the emerging Print Industry are becoming more clear every day.

The disruptive innovation is the ability to print anywhere, not just within a commercial print shop. For consumer it's printing from the little cloud of MS Word or the big cloud that outputs photo books. For the workgroup/home office it's the MFP. When appropriate it's the pay for print or in house print shop.

The next piece is organizing the various Print output nodes.
The organizing engine for enterprises - both large and home office/workgroup may turn out to be MPS. The real energy is coming from the ground in the entrepreneurial engines that were once called copier sales and the retail outlets once called "copy shops." Copier sales have morphed into MFD's - multifunction devices (also called MFP's). Copy shops have morphed into multi location networked retail output in the model of AlphaGraphics and Staples.

The .."dozens of multi-billion multinational corporations" are the XORiHK sector (plus others whose letters I couldn't easily fit in the acronym.) Consider that HP has introduced a cloud functionality that will most likely strengthen the connection between retail (Staples and Tesco) and commercial print with the Indigo. IBM has entered the space with Ricoh, who just introduced v 2.0 of the commercial print piece. Ricoh is digesting the IKON purchase as Xerox is digesting the Global Services piece.

Free advice:
The best way to strengthen a network is incentives for all parts of it. Amazon built their business on affiliate advertising. Google built their business on Ad Sense. The faster the disruptive innovations are embedded into the commercial space with well designed incentives, the sooner all the pieces jell to create the Print Output Industry.

A possible scenario and new value creation:
Jane, who started a catering firm, when she got laid off a couple of years ago, decides that she needs a brochure and a website. She could go online to do that at VistaPrint, but it's too much hassle. Meanwhile, Jim, a copier sales person who has been calling every once in a while said that he could show her some easy ways to get that done.

In the ensuing conversations, she decides to buy a box to do them herself. She calls her friend Alice, who used to work at the Lehman's communication department, to design it for her.

Two months later, Jane will be catering a large event. JIM, who has been staying in touch to make sure everything is working well with the box sale, suggests that she produce tent cards to put at each setting. It's a great idea, but she doesn't have the time and Alice's business is really starting to take off, so she doesn't want to impose on her again.

The sales person says either A or B
A. "Let me take care of that for you."
B. "Let me connect you with someone I trust that can take care of that for you."

The new value creation:
The new value created for Jane is saving time and managing risk of failure. Everyone will pay some amount for saving time and managing risk. It then only becomes figuring out the right price.

But, why should the person on the ground get involved?
The incentive for A is clear. This works if the MFD or MPS sales outfit has gone into the production business.

But where are the incentives that reward the copier person for risking Jane's trust to deliver the new value that has been created? An affiliate, referral or finders fee seems like a no brainer, to me.

More free advice:
Since I've spent my 35 years in the game, first in the sheetfed offset and then in digital, I depend on the others to follow the action in MFPs. The best place I've found so far is Pay4PrintHotel.
There's a nice wrap up today of what's going on in MFP as of last week.

Consider:
What might happen if local newspaper ad sales people are brought into the mix with the proper incentives. Then there is the real possibility of offering true multi channel marketing campaigns to Jane and the millions like her. One trusted contact point for a Newspaper Ad, a web ad on the newspaper's web site, print collateral and signage. The time and hassle saved and decrease in risk would be a simple solution to one of her hardest problems.

Simple solutions to hard problems create lots of new value.

The 800 Pounder makes a deal with Tesco

read at vnunet.com

"HP has revealed several new additions to its printer and imaging services lines, including four new inkjet printers, a range of professional graphics and photo printers, and a new retail photo printing deal with Tesco."

Here's the cool part,

". . . Not only can customers quickly and easily create customised photo projects, but small and micro businesses can create dynamic, professional-quality, low-cost collateral at retail," said Rohit de Souza, HP vice president and general manager of business retail publishing solutions.

And after they test this out and get it just right at Tesco in the UK, and they already have a connection at Staples and they launched MarketSplash and they just had a great meeting at DSCOOP. Dare they dream . . . WalMart.

Free advice: To everybody but HP. They clearly have very good advice all ready. I would get entangled with any big box store or retail outlet you can. And I would incent every sales force you already have on the ground to get pages into the production equipment and commercial printers you have on the ground.

This window is going to close quickly. If HP keeps their lead with their first mover advantage, it's going to be a nasty next ten years. So I would do this much faster than normal corporate time.

From the Ground > Cloud > Print delivered on the Ground.

If anyone wants Free Advice for a good defensive strategy, the standing offer remains: Send me an email. I will charge you whatever the traffic will bear. Or anon comment, say "more" and you'll get for free.

Eraseable Paper and the Xerox YouTube Channel

In case you missed the comments on the last post re:erasable paper, Art Post from the always interesting Print4PayHotel added this

Here's the video :http://www.websitetoolbox.com/tool/post/copierquestions/vpost?id=3334726&pid=32253854#post32253854

Free advice: Get this to market faster rather than slower. NOW would be good. The day this is in the field, I'll add 500 shares of XRX to my IRA. It should blow out the MPS space.

In other news-to-me, it turns out that Xerox already has a channel on Youtube. Go to YouTube. Search on Xerox. As of today there are 32 videos posted.
More Free advice: Suggest to the Education - facing sales force in MPS and MFP, that they send out emails in the following form,

Subject line: Have time for a chat about how this could work for your school?

Body: Here's how we cut the registration process from 2 weeks to 1/2 hour.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7bzyUoXNoM&feature=channel

Or to the MPS/MFP salesforce:

Subject line: I think we can cut your overhead expenses without having to lay off anyone.

Body: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKCmUbdv2n4&feature=channel

Or to the folks in PSG.

Subject line: Take a look at the iGen4, it really does the change the game.
Body copy: No videos as of today. This still needs some video for printer, not corporate.

If someone can get the comp right, MPS and MFP could join together with the commercial Print salesforce to sell MPS and/or MFP and/or Commercial Print. Then all of the commercial print sales force could send out the appropriate to emails to everyone in their suspect/prospect/customer/client/fan bins and start lots of interesting conversations.

The really disruptive innovation would be to get all of them to connect with Newspaper Ad people. When that's in place, small business will have access to multi-channel marketing programs that are easy to buy, demonstrably effective. It will bring millions of new customers into the market.

A Crisis in "signing your name"

@ Healthcare NBIC:
"Gardiner quotes Dr. David Gratzer of the Manhattan Institute who noted that coverage is more available than is regularly assumed. A third of the 46 million Americans who are uninsured are already eligible for government-subsidized insurance but have not signed up; another third earn $50,000 or more. 'That seems to be a crisis in signing your name to a piece of paper, rather than a crisis in coverage,' Gratzer grumped."

So, if it turns out that it's a signing your name to a piece of paper problem, Print and the Print Output industry should be able to help.

Less noise in New Zealand. Easier to get the signal.

The thing that's cool about New Zealand is that they are much closer to another engine of global economic growth - Asia. Unfortunately, I can't read either Japanese or Chinese and Google translate is not quite there yet. But in New Zealand and Australia they write in English!

From The Enterprise Ground to the Cloud to . . . Print . . . to the Ground.

In short, HP is moving from being a printer company to being a printing company, he says.

Computerworld > New technologies reengineer printing: "Richard Bailey, South Pacific vice president of Hewlett-Packard’s imaging and printing group (IPG), says the market is now defined by pages rather than units and HP is on a journey to find out how big the market for pages is. In short, HP is moving from being a printer company to being a printing company, he says.

Using the term Print 2.0, Bailey outlines a vision of “print on demand” that embraces the web as a channel to make printing more accessible, customisable and less expensive. The vision includes workflows and storage, and embraces small enterprises as well as corporates. As such, printing now becomes an IT discussion as much as a printing one, he says."

Meanwhile, Ricoh says,

For Ricoh, software is becoming key to its customer discussions as well. Managing director Michael Pollok says information is moved in a range of formats and people want quick and easy access to that information at all times, and on a wide range of devices.

“Our role is to provide the tools to create, distribute, store and retrieve information anytime,” he says. “At some point that might be sent to print. If we provide the tools that enable management, there’s a good chance that will be to a Ricoh device.”

And Fuji Xerox weighs in with

While Fuji Xerox’s Murray Miskelly (see below ‘Staying up with the play’) says few New Zealand businesses can afford to run their own in-house print shops, Ricoh’s Pollok says that is changing. Lower cost devices are allowing some to consider insourcing their billing runs, while some are overcoming such costs by sharing facilities.

For Fuji Xerox, redefining workflows and enabling analysis of printing use and costs is also a key driver of business. Rod Vickers, solutions product marketing manager, Fuji Xerox New Zealand, says the effort is designed to help businesses “fine-tune” what is printed within the business.

Oops! $3500 buys a $1,000,000 contract for a Ricoh Sales Rep

from MidHudson News: Covering the Hudson to the Catskills!:
"Arthur Rose, 50, of Mount Vernon, was convicted of soliciting and accepting a bribe of $10,000 to donate to his church from a vendor of custodial supplies in exchange for future business, which was later awarded.

He also accepted a $3,500 bridge from a sales representative of Ricoh Americas Corporation for his assurance the company would receive a five year contract from the school district for 73 digital copiers, support products and related services. Based on his recommendation, the district awarded the contract with a cost of over $1 million."

Ricoh into the Production Printing Space

The Ricoh Pro C900s is available at a suggested retail price of US$ 136,500 for the standard configuration.

read @Computer Technology Review:
"Ricoh launches its Pro C900s color production system
Monday, 02 March 2009 01:28

The Production Printing Business Group (PPBG) of Ricoh Americas Corp. announced the official launch of the Ricoh Pro C900s, a production-class multi-functional color system designed to address customers’ needs to produce high-quality, efficient and affordable printing, scanning and copying in one system.

This flexible system is targeted at corporate and commercial professional print environments with demanding application needs and duty cycle requirements up to 400,000 color images per month. The Ricoh Pro C900s, with its scanning capability, is the next generation of the Ricoh Pro C900, which PPBG officially launched at GRAPH EXPO in October last year."

Maybe Ricoh will figure out a way for to make a bet on PPBG, without having to figure out where all the other money comes from.

Interesting...OceHelps Quebecor World Power Up Digital Book Printing Infrastructure

The printing systems in the Dubuque plant primarily produce textbooks for leading educational publishers that demand sophisticated versioning capabilities, speed to market

Any one know how versioned? What speed to market?

The problem is not the tech. The problem is the timing of the education system.

Oce Helps Quebecor World Power Up Digital Book Printing Infrastructure: "Today, Quebecor World's Dubuque digital production line runs three shifts, 24 hours a day, five days a week, with average run lengths ranging from 200 to 400 books. With the Oce equipment, Quebecor World is positioned to capitalize on the growing digital book printing opportunity and produce books faster, in shorter runs, with excellent image quality and superior quality halftones. The printing systems in the Dubuque plant primarily produce textbooks for leading educational publishers that demand sophisticated versioning capabilities, speed to market and excellent quality."

Score one for Oce.

read @Business Direct Marketing

"Denver, CO (PRWEB) February 26, 2009 -- At a time when TransPromo (relationship) marketing is growing more specialized and companies are demanding better ways to connect with their customers, Denver's i3output unveiled Colorado's first Oce ColorStream 10000 digital press, a new $2 million, four-color, web-fed machine that heralds the future of digital printing. One of only three in the U.S. and six in the world, the new press allows companies to produce cost-effective, on-demand, individualized marketing materials at high speeds without having to sacrifice color consistency or data integrity."

Erasable Paper? Managed Print Services: The green light at the end of the tunnel

I have to believe that erasable paper gives Xerox a significant advantage in MPS. Anyone have any news on when that's going to get to market?

read at it-director.com:

"Clearly the pain of tighter budgets is not confined to the printer industry—all hardware manufacturers are being hit by a slump in sales as businesses delay purchases. However, there is a glimmer of hope for printer manufacturers as many businesses continue to pay to outsource. While the weakening economy may close some doors to new hardware sales, it can open other opportunities for printer manufacturers to help businesses maximise their existing investments in printers and also reduce their environmental impact, through delivering managed print services (MPS)."

Formal K -12 Education = Enterprise Marketing?

Consider what might happen if textbooks were reframed as textbooklets. To see what I mean by textbooklets read here and here.

Consider further if textbooklets were embedded in a multi channel marketing campaign in the service of learning.

The disruptive innovation in education is being made possible because of the technology of mass customization of print/web information products. For the first time in human history, there is a clear path to deliver exactly the right information in the right form at the right time to every student at an affordable cost.

The mantra of marketing is the right information in the right form at the right time for every customer. The conventional wisdom is either marketing is bad, education is good or marketing is the real world, education is just school. The reality is that the outcome of each process can be seen as very similar.

A person learns some new information. The information triggers a decision to acquire a new tool. That tool is used to solve proximate problems. Using the tool creates skill and the emergence of new problems. The tool is refined or replaced. The process continues.

@ Bloomberg.com: U.S.:

"Feb. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Xerox Corp., the copier pioneer pummeled by losses in the previous economic slump, has emerged trim enough to be eyeing acquisitions made cheaper by the current recession.

The maker of high-speed color printers had $1.2 billion in cash at the end of 2008, boosted by Chief Executive Officer Anne Mulcahy’s spending cuts since the last slump. Now Xerox is seeking makers of software that helps tailor advertising to consumers, known as enterprise marketing, said John Kelly, head of the North American services unit. He declined to name targets."

According to wikipedia,
(Enterprise Marketing) EMM is a superset of other marketing software categories such as Web Analytics, Campaign Management, Marketing Resource Management, Marketing Dashboards, Lead Management, Event-driven Marketing, Predictive Modeling and more.

Consider the effect of analytics on student progress. Management of campaigns to improve reading and literacy in general. Lead management of student's college choices. And most especially Predictive Modeling to get to predictable educational results.

Marketing is about communications. Education is about communications. Framed correctly it's the same business.

Meanwhile, why would Xerox buy a company, instead of network with a company? That's just more value chain thinking, in a user network world.

Root, root, root for the home team . . .

Canterbury printer grows sales by 25% with Xerox buy | printweek.com

"Tim Sheahan, printweek.com, 26 February 2009

Parkers Digital Press has opened the door to the short-run book printing market and boosted sales by around 25% after investing in a Xerox DocuColor 5000AP digital printer.

The Canterbury-based digital printer has also broken into variable data printing with the Xerox machine, which has replaced an existing Xerox 5252, producing targeted mailings for a major department store."

More from the UK.. Printers print books, newsLetters, and posters. "Targeted mailings" are a hybrid product very small posters + highly illustrated newsLetters.

Ain't Print Grand?

@ Beyond-Print
HP ekes out a profit in a tough quarter:

"In IPG, the part of HP that includes Indigo, sales were $6 billion, down 19% compared with Q1 of last year. Still, IPG managed a profit of $1.1 billion. IPG’s financial information is dominated by sales of printer supplies, which account for 68% of the Group’s sales.
. . .
There was one note about Indigo among the financial information: the number of pages printed on Indigo machines was up 25% from Q1 of last year.

And the good part:

This shows that print volumes continue to grow in spite of the economy.

It's a little noisy because it might just mean there are 25% more indigos on the street and/or the folks who have Indigos are doing well. But it is an intriguing statement. If we can get a little better data, it might suggest that pages are an enterprise staple, just like WalMart and P&G are consumer staples.

And this from it-director.com

Accounting for more than 40% of HP's operating profit, its printer division has long been considered one of its crown jewels . . .

It would be soon nice for my IRA, if I could just bet on the the crown jewel, without all the other stuff.

Maybe Wall Street is right. "It's the Print, Stupid!

Is it them or is it us?
I'm starting to think it's us.

According to the WSJ,
The Electronic Office Equipment sector went down -30.38% YTD.
The Business Support Services sector only went down -15.06%. YTD.

Xerox, Ricoh, Canon, et al live in Electronic Office Equipment (Technology)
HP lives in Computer Hardware, (Technology)
Kodak lives in Recreational (Consumer Goods)

RR Donelly lives in Business Support Services
Bowne lives in Business Support Services
VistaPrint lives in Business Support Services.

Print is a service that supports business.

We make our money servicing Print.
We organize Print with MPS.
We expand Print with MFPs.
We nurture Print with production equipment.

To paraphrase that famous quote from the 1992 U.S. Presidential election,

"It's the Print, stupid!"

Meanwhile every vendor is asking their communication people to make sense of a corporate story that finally doesn't make any sense. Where is the pure play on Print?