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.