Tidbits

- The blowback continues from the CBS TV report on copier hard drive security, as the states of New Jersey, Arizona and Washington have all introduced bills into their respective state legislatures, that would impose heavy fines on vendors who do not remove or erase contents of hard drives at end of lease.

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- University of Iowa Hospitals in Iowa City announced it is conducting an investigation after a screening showed the electronic medical records of 13 University of Iowa football players may have been accessed inappropriately.

o The hospital says under the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the patient medical records can only be accessed by health care workers with legitimate reasons to review those records. The hospital says it routinely screens for possible privacy violations to protect the confidentiality of patients, including those with "high public profiles."
o The football players have drawn national attention after they fell ill following off-season workouts. They have been in the hospital since Monday. Since then, there have been media reports on the results of drug tests and the player's conditions


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- In an interview in Computer Resellers News magazine, Ricoh U.S. president and CEO, Jeffrey Hickling, stated; “While a much larger share of our revenue comes from direct, we increased our investment in dealer support 50% in 2010”. “In what we’d call the midmarket and the commercial accounts, a direct coverage model alone can be prohibitively expensive”

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- Xerox reported its last quarter’s financials:

o earnings per share of 12 cents
o total revenue up 42% (includes ACS)
o cash flow of $1.3 billion
o operating margin of 10.4%
o 11% increase in revenue from Business Process Outsourcing
o 5% increase in IT outsourcing revenue
o 13% increase in service signings
o 4% increase in equipment sales
 Color equipment sales revenue up 6%
 25% increase in A4 b/w units
 27% increase in A4 color units
 4% increase in color printer units
 2% decrease in midrange b/w units
 22% increase in midrange color units
 11% decrease in b/w production print units
 19% increase in color production print units
 Gross margin decreased 1% to 34.1%
o Total liabilities of $18 billion
o Bad debt expense decreased by $45 million
o Digital pages under contract declined 2%
 Color pages under contract increased 11%
o $264 million in employee severance costs from 6,000 employee layoff
o $19 million loss associated with sale of operations in Venezuela

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- Kodak reported its 2010 financial results:

o total sales of $7.187 billion, down 6%
o digital sales revenue up 1%
o Inkjet and Workflow Software revenue up 18%
o Inkjet revenue up 35%
o Loss of $58 million
o Graphic Communications Group (NexPress, Digimaster, Stream, etc.) total sales of $2.681 billion, down 2%
o $322 spent on R&D
o 27.1% gross profit margin

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- Lexmark announces new connector for its MFPs, called “Interact”:

o Allows panel integration with Perceptive imageNOW document management solution
o Connections also available for Pharos, eCopy, Kofax and NSi AutoStore

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- According to Eric de Goeijen, a print for pay industry analyst, the total print opportunity for 2011 is estimated to be 10 trillion pages. Of that number, 216 billion pages will be from digital production print devices.

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-HIPAA Breach News: The Office of Civil Rights (OCR) reports that the number of entities reporting breaches of patient files affecting 500 or more patients has hit 225, since the first breach was reported to OCR in 9/2009.

o 10 reports of breaches impacting more than 100,000 patients
o 4 reports of breaches impacting between 50,000 and 99,999 patients
o 6 reports of breaches impacting between 25,000 and 49,999 patients
o 27 reports of breaches impacting between 10,000 and 24,999 patients
o 61 reports of breaches that involved a laptop computer

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- According to Lyra, here are average monthly volumes in the healthcare vertical:

o B/W midrange MFPs = 6,525 pages/month
o Color midrange MFPs = 7,160 pages/month
o B/w desktop printers = 2,165 pages/month
o Color desktop printers = 1,235 pages/month
o Inkjet printers/MFPs = 675 pages/month

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- A computer hacker named Deral Heiland invented a program called “Praeda” (which is Latin for plunder) which supposedly can be used to hack into printers and MFPs that are connected to the Internet, that don’t have the appropriate data security features. The hacking software can be used to enter a customer’s network through the connected printer or MFP and steal data or take over other devices.

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- InfoTrends predicts that document outsourcing will increase 2.2% by 2014.

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- Xerox’s chief financial officer (CFO), Lawrence Zimmerman, announced he is leaving the company. Replacement will be Lucan Maestri, formerly of Nokia Siemens.

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- Global Graphics, which makes print controllers, claims that it has developed an option for printing from smartphones or tablets without need for drivers:

o no need for print drivers
o do not need to be connected to Internet
o uses Bluetooth or WiFi
o is small device that would be embedded into printer or MFP
o device contains Intel Atom processor and raster image processing technology from Global Graphics
o pricing and availability not announced

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- Canon announced its last quarter’s operating profit was $1.2 billion, up 9%

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- In Japan, Fuji has taken the old single OPC engine from the Xerox DocuColor 12 color MFP, and reintroduced it as the DocuColor 1450, now running at 14ppm, and using polymerized toner (EA emulsion aggregate) instead of pulverized toner with fusing oil. Unknown if Xerox will sell this in the U.S.

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- Quality Systems, Inc. (NextGen EHR) turns in record Q3 numbers:

o Revenue up 23% to $91.9 million
o Board chair, founder, and former CEO Sheldon Razin holds almost $400 million worth of shares.
 He started the company in his garage in 1973 with $2,000 in capital and took it public in 1982. Its market cap is now over $2 billion.

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- Police arrested John Kenneth Martin of Diboll, Texas after they caught him trying to use fake $10 dollar bills he created on a color copier in order to get a burger from Jack in the Box fast food restaurant.

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