Gartner Says Printer, Copier and Multifunctional Product Market in EMEA Declined 8 Per Cent in 2008 - 11% for HP

And Managed Print Services is the way to go...

(pressebox) Egham/UK, 17.02.2009,

The combined printer, copier and multifunctional product (MFP) shipments market in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) totalled 48.2 million units, a decline of 8.4 per cent over 2007 (see Table 1), according to Gartner, Inc.

“The fourth quarter of 2008 was a pivot point for the world economy, creating a very challenging selling environment for all printer, copier and MFP hardware and software providers. The rapidly deteriorating economic environment is forcing technology providers to look at their business models and make significant adjustments,” said Tosh Prabhakar, senior research analyst at Gartner.

Gartner said buyers reduced printer and MFP spending in light of low confidence in the market. Sales of consumer devices were down 9 per cent in 2008. In addition, businesses delayed product upgrades and/or cancelled investment in new office devices as budgets and cost containment policies became a priority.

The tough economic climate created a lot of caution and uncertainty among both consumers and businesses. Reduced credit availability for consumers, start-up businesses and SMBs across a majority of the European markets during the next 12 months will exacerbate the situation in the short term. It will also continue to have a detrimental impact on the consumer market during 2009, with similar declines expected.

Mr Prabhakar said:

“Businesses are holding back on investment of new office equipment. However, these businesses should instead consider adopting strategic and deployment alternatives such as managed print services (MPS), smart MFP and fleet document management systems to help better control costs and better manage their office devices with cost optimisation in mind.”

Most vendors suffered in 2008. Hewlett-Packard remained market leader in the overall EMEA printer; copier and MFP market, but sales were down almost 11 per cent in 2008. Lexmark experienced the greatest unit losses during the year as the organisation continued to lose market share as a result of it shifting its focus to the more profitable high-end workgroup space. Samsung Electronics posted the highest year-on-year market growth with a 16.3 per cent increase in 2008, which helped it maintain second position in the page market and narrow the gap on Hewlett-Packard.

Mr Prabhakar concluded: “The print market will continue to feel the pressure during the next 12 months, as the economic uncertainty worsens. A worst-case scenario will be that both unit shipments and end-user spending will be lower than in 2008 and that recovery should not be expected to start until early 2010.”

Additional information is available in the Gartner report “Printer, Copier, MFP Combined Annual Market Share EMEA: Database”. The report is available on Gartner’s website at http://www.gartner.com/....

Article here.

Gartner Press Release here.
Click to email me.

Recycling: Still Green or Back to the Landfills? It's all About Supply and Demand

Last summer I visited a recycling center in NAPA during an HP Green Symposium. The tour was fascinating but the winery tour was better.

At that time, the recycling center had pallets of plastic, paper, etc. stacked nearly three stories tall, ready for shipment to China.

Each pallet represented $1,200.00 of revenue.

This was a great example of how our(the U.S.) green initiatives were working - reducing landfill materials, allowing emerging economies to take advantage of already processed materials and making money.

This also made we "Global Citizens" feel better.

Since that trip to NAPA, I have discussed with many clients how the Green Initiative "...finally took off, only after we figured out how to make or save money by implementing certain programs...it is all about the Color of Money..."

Of course, I am routinely accused of being "cynical" - most want to believe that they are doing their part to "save the planet" without monetary motivation. And they are, just not the way they think they are.

"If I can prevent just one tree from being cut down, then I can sleep better at night..."

A mantra repeated all over the globe...right...

Consider this sales model -

I charge my clients a monthly amount - for this charge, I will visit them each week, and remove their unwanted materials - waste. I will also charge an additional flat amount to provide a special container which my client will fill with other materials; materials that can be "recycled".

This requires clients to pre-sort "bad waste" from "good waste" - a task they are willing to allow their employees to do, on the company dime.

As a sales person, once a week I visit 240 customers.

I remove both waste materials - the recycling goes to my multi-million dollar plant where everything is sorted and made ready for shipment all over the world; especially China.

My big huge machine separates and processes all this junk and I sell it all overseas.

Because there is a demand.

That was the summer of 2008 before the Chinese Olympics - right after the Olympics, China decided not to import anymore US trash - boom.

And today, many large recyclers say they are accumulating tons of material, either because they have contracts with big cities to continue to take the scrap or because they are banking on a price rebound in the next six months to a year.

“We’re warehousing it and warehousing it and warehousing it,” said Johnny Gold, senior vice president at the Newark Group. His company has 13 recycling plants across the country. He said the industry had seen downturns before but not like this. “We never saw this coming.”

You think the stock market has dropped - you ain't seen nothing like this.

On the West Coast, for example, mixed paper is selling for $20 to $25 a ton, down from $105 in October, according to Official Board Markets.

And recyclers say tin is worth about $5 a ton, down from $327 earlier this year. There is greater domestic demand for glass, so its price has not fallen as much.



Click to email me.

Killer Toner is Back: New Study Confirms Laser Printers release "tiny toxic particles" - But so does making Toast.

July, 2009

First reported here nearly a year ago, researchers found "toxic particles" are released whenever an office laser printer heats up.

In 2007, Physicist, Professor Lidia Morawska, from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Brisbane and colleagues were the first to show that laser printers in offices produce high levels of ultrafine particles (UFPs), less than 100 nanometres in width (also called nanoparticles).

From the study:

"The high standard deviation of the average emission rates estimated in this study also indicates that the particle emission process and the behavior of individual printers are complex and that they are still far from being completely understood," the study said. "Many factors, such as printer model, printer age, cartridge model, and cartridge age may affect the particle emission process and all of these factors require further study." - Huh?

Did a primary buffer panel just fall off my ship, for no apparent reason?

Or does the above paragraph simply translate into, "...we really don't know if all this means anything..."?

The study included Canon (NYSE: CAJ), Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), Ricoh, and Toshiba printers sold in Australia and the United States.

Incorrectly reported over a year ago, toner particles are not being emitted.

From a different study in Braunschweig, Germany, researchers examined modified printers that “print” without any paper or toner.

From the study:

“The amazing thing is that the ultra-fine particles are still produced even in this case. The cause is the fixing unit – a component that heats up as high as 220°C during the printing process in order to fix the toner particles on the paper,” explains WKI scientist Dr. Michael Wensing.

“...what some printers do emit are ultra-fine particles made of volatile organic-chemical substances,” says WKI head of department Prof. Dr. Tunga Salthammer. “One essential property of these ultra-fine particles is their volatility, which indicates that we are not looking at toner dust.”

The high temperatures cause volatile substances such as paraffins and silicon oils to evaporate, and these accumulate as ulta-fine particles.

The scientists from Braunschweig observed similar phenomena – the formation of ultra-fine particles of volatile organic substances when heated – during typical household activities such as cooking, baking, or making toast.

After reading dozens of articles and composites of the actual studies this is what I see:

1. No toner is being emitted by any output device.

2. The studies are inconclusive, although there is proof that nano-particles are being emitted.

3. There is NO evidence or even a study being conducted to prove or disprove harm may result from exposure to these nano-particles.

4. Articles regarding this development are full of scare words and tactics. Implicitly comparing these nano-particles with smoking and alluding to unproven health problems.

So, beware - the Toner police are about to come down on the printer industry.

Or maybe they will simply confiscate our toasters...

Want to learn more?

Check this out:

Photocopiers and Laser Printers Health Hazards
Coates Electrographics Addresses Toner Health Concerns