The hardcopy market grows by a "slender" 0.2% Y-o-Y in Q3 2011, remaining virtually flat and shipping 6.4M units according to IDC-- while revenues experience a -11.9% Y-o-Y decline and fall to $2.8BN. 

In comparison, Q3 2010 revenues total $3.1BN. 

Both consumer and commercial print hardware demand are stalling across W. Europe as economies struggle with the sovereign debt crisis, the analyst says. The only segment showing "robust growth" within commercial print products is the laser MFP product segment. 

MFP shipments show "resilient growth" of 3 Read more...

Printers. There's a product category you haven't given a lot of thought about lately. It's all about making money on ink cartridges, right?

Let's look at Lexmark. Though it's a printer giant sprung whole from the loins of IBM, Lexmark is relatively small player in the printer market compared to giants like HP, Canon, Epson and the new aggressor, Samsung.

Lexmark had 5 million inkjets sold (3.6% market share) in the 88 million unit inkjet printer market in 2010. It sold 1.7 million laser printers (only 3.7% market share) in the 46 million unit laser printer market.

Naturally you think the company needs to make the transition from inkjet to laser printers: in a few years, its inkjet printer sales will shrink to fewer than 100,000 inkjet printers and laser printer sales should rise to nearly 3 million.

Of course, the mix of the lucrative printer cartridge sales must follow the changing mix of printers over the forecast period. But less printing overall means less ink cartridges, too...

InfoTrends reports over 66% of W. Europe's IT decision makers consider "green" initiatives as their organisations' top priority, according to its latest research results.

In InfoTrends' words, “Vendors and suppliers of environmentally responsible equipment, supplies, and services should aggressively promote their initiatives because environmental consciousness is an important consideration for many organizations.”

The most important environment issue survey respondents cite is recycled/certified paper usage, something InfoTrends suggests manufecturers Read more...

Office Depot partners with Xerox to offer Managed Print Services to customers across Europe.  This begins with Office Depot customers in Germany, with a European roll-out scheduled to take place throughout the remainder of the year. 

"The proven leadership of Xerox in the Managed Print Services space provides Office Depot customers with access to outstanding print service capabilities, cross-Europe delivery opportunities, and leasing agreements for both Xerox and non Xerox hardware," says Mike Elbers, Vice President of Marketing and Merchandising Read more...