Canon on its own?

[Internal_R&D_Analyst]

As I look at the new announcement by Kodak and its decision to further partner with Ricoh I realized that for most digital press manufacturers this is becoming common.

Oce and Konica Minolta have been sharing and rebranding machines for awhile.

Xerox and Fuji share products made both in the US and Japan.

HP indigo has not partnered with anyone but has continued to grow their market share and profits to be at the top of the industry.

Canon seams to be the one large player left that is off on its own (ignoring Xeikon and MGI). Prior to the Kodak announcement Kodak had worked with Canon to make the M700, which appears to have flopped. Before that there was the Kodak Digimaster and Canon Imagerunner relationship. That being said why would Kodak not chose to partner with Canon, did the release of the Canon 6000VP and 6000 shut down any potential sales of higher priced Kodak M700's?

Will Canon partner with someone else, and if not how big of a player will they be in the coming years to the graphic arts industry? Will it be safe to continue to consider Canon as a long term player?

 

[Craig]

Just a thought, but could the "flop" of the M700 be due to the cost difference between it and the 2100? If I recall when it was released at GraphExpo a few of the conversations at the Kodak booth was something like, if I am going to get the M700, I might as well get the 2100 and be able to use the 5th color unit and have a real NexPress.

Or maybe Kodak realized their market just wasn't mid-level production?

Didn't Canon partner with Heidelberg a while ago with the B/W?

 

[Internal_R&D_Analyst]

Just a thought, but could the "flop" of the M700 be due to the cost difference between it and the 2100? If I recall when it was released at GraphExpo a few of the conversations at the Kodak booth was something like, if I am going to get the M700, I might as well get the 2100 and be able to use the 5th color unit and have a real NexPress.

Didn't Canon partner with Heidelberg a while ago with the B/W?

Good point on the price, also if you get a basic 2100 you can upgrade it to a newer model without having pull the press off the floor. I have also head the 700 was restricted so that it didn't compete with the 2100 so much. So in reality the Canon 7000 should have more features close to a 2100 the the 700 does.

Kodak made the first NexPresses with Heidelberg. The black and white Digimasters were sold under Kodak and Heidelberg, the Digimaster is basically the same as the Canon imagePress 1XX. I believe the Digimaster is also made in the Kodak facility in Rochester, it's been a couple years since I was out there.

The Canon imagePress 1XXXX machines looks different now so I'm not sure where those are made. my guess is the same place as the 7000/6000 now.

 

[PineyBob]

Heidelberg Digital & Kodak created a company called NexPress when Heidelberg Digital bought NexPress from Kodak. The Digimaster B & W units were sold by Heidelberg, Canon, IBM and one other vendor. Heidelberg got into some money trouble back in the Fatherland and "sold" NexPress back to Kodak. And Kodak has it now.

What's interesting to me is that the newly formed Ricoh/IKON organization also purchased the Business Unit of IBM that sells the B & W NexPress. Canon's biggest by far installed base of iR110's etc are through the IKON channel. Plus IBM has access to all that yummy transactional data center click volume.

I gotta tell you Ricoh is starting to look like a player. I just wonder/worry about how much debt they took on to make these acquisitions fly?

 

[sweatyclimber]

Heidelberg Digital & Kodak created a company called NexPress when Heidelberg Digital bought NexPress from Kodak. The Digimaster B & W units were sold by Heidelberg, Canon, IBM and one other vendor. Heidelberg got into some money trouble back in the Fatherland and "sold" NexPress back to Kodak. And Kodak has it now.

What's interesting to me is that the newly formed Ricoh/IKON organization also purchased the Business Unit of IBM that sells the B & W NexPress. Canon's biggest by far installed base of iR110's etc are through the IKON channel. Plus IBM has access to all that yummy transactional data center click volume.

I gotta tell you Ricoh is starting to look like a player. I just wonder/worry about how much debt they took on to make these acquisitions fly?

Don't forget (easy since its been a little while) not long ago they also purchased: Lanier, Gestetner, Savin and have the debt from that. I think that it will be interesting to see where Ricoh heads. They certainly are building up the revenue base to compete. They also not long ago rebranded some lines because of the expense of branding that many different ways. Now they've just added two more to cost centers to brand. Certainly they are buying there way into the market, but ultimately I'm not sure where that will take them... IKON did the same as did DANKA but eventually the different culture clashes, debt and lack of true organic marketshare growth killed them. The only difference here is that Ricoh is a manufacture. But I now compete with multiple Ricoh offices and honestly I almost never see them, and if I loose to them .5% of the time then it was a really bad week.

Not to toot my company's horn, but Global Imaging who also grew threw aquisitions demanded and always achieved organic growth. That is how for 12 years they consistantly had double didget growth. If you don't get it organicly then you struggle to defend your base and eventually those buys become money sinks. That means that the real question for Ricoh is will they be able to manage and lead organic growth. They already have their scales of economy and wont realize much more profits from that. Now is where they have to prove they can grow. It is no different then those on this forum who buy a compeditor, sure you get there clicks and maybe save some on service due to higher volume, but if you don't grow the business, then your investment didn't help you much.

As for Canon, I think they'll pull through though I'm not sure which method yet. They have a relative ft. Knox of cash on hand to help them through what is currently a tough time for them. If however they are not able to establish distribution to recover lots of those placements that currently they could loose, then I would suggest there could be grounds for concern. But we won't know that for 3-5 years.

 

[lfelton]

As I look at the new announcement by Kodak and its decision to further partner with Ricoh I realized that for most digital press manufacturers this is becoming common.

Oce and Konica Minolta have been sharing and rebranding machines for awhile.

Xerox and Fuji share products made both in the US and Japan.

HP indigo has not partnered with anyone but has continued to grow their market share and profits to be at the top of the industry.

Canon seams to be the one large player left that is off on its own (ignoring Xeikon and MGI). Prior to the Kodak announcement Kodak had worked with Canon to make the M700, which appears to have flopped. Before that there was the Kodak Digimaster and Canon Imagerunner relationship. That being said why would Kodak not chose to partner with Canon, did the release of the Canon 6000VP and 6000 shut down any potential sales of higher priced Kodak M700's?

Will Canon partner with someone else, and if not how big of a player will they be in the coming years to the graphic arts industry? Will it be safe to continue to consider Canon as a long term player?

It's an interesting point. Canon are undoubtedly big enough to support the R&D and manufacturing to continue as a long term player. The question is, how bad do they want to? I don't personally know any printer with a Canon machine any more, I don't remember them having much of a presence at any recent trade shows and I've NEVER been visited by a Canon rep. We have reps in all the time, but never Canon? Canon are involved in the digital print market, but I'm not convinced that they are committed in the same way that (for example) Xerox is.

You've all heard the ham and eggs analogy? The chicken is involved in the meal. But the pig, well, he's fully committed.

 

[John Baldwin]

I think that Canon will continue to be a player in the digital production simply because of the quality of their product. I own a C7000 and I don't think that there is anything near the price of the machine that rivals the quality.

 

[Craig]

I think that Canon will continue to be a player in the digital production simply because of the quality of their product. I own a C7000 and I don't think that there is anything near the price of the machine that rivals the quality.

The sad thing with Canon is just that. The quality is there, but their commitment isn't. Trust me I've been there, it cost me $75,000.00!

 

[John Baldwin]

What happened Craig? I could use any advice you can give.

John

 

[StrikTenn913]

Consider where Canon has come from in the production print marketplace in only about a year and a half with the imagePRESS line. Having experience with both, this product far surpasses the company's former 'entry' into this space with the CLC line. The imagePRESS technology was the largest R&D investment in the history of a specific divison of Canon Inc. in Japan. The company has put a lot of dollars, and people, into its commitment to this market segment. Their growth in this segment has been very interesting to watch.

The Kodak/Ricoh relationship wasn't a surprise to me. In my opinion, they telegraphed this path at Graph Expo '08 by having Kodak actively in their booth. I watched as they were up-selling those concerned with monthly volume or imaging quality to the NexPress from their new Pro C900. Ricoh has been very agressive with its strategy for this new business and part of it does make sense. The companies have (in part) what the other does not. Ricoh has mid-low production/office products, while Kodak has the higher production devices. Ricoh now has a solid dealer force, too.

I think this is a pretty exciting time for digital printing. There are now a lot of companies in the game with "good" equipment. This competition will foster innovation in future products and lend itself to ongoing improvement.

Those who are not commited to the market and their customers will eventually be weeded out or improved upon over time.

 

[Craig]

John,
If you search posts by me, look for CLC4000 posts. This was their flagship line at the time... more like the Titanic. The supporting Dealer (Gordon Flesch) and I had absolutely no support from Canon.

 

[PineyBob]

John,
If you search posts by me, look for CLC4000 posts. This was their flagship line at the time... more like the Titanic. The supporting Dealer (Gordon Flesch) and I had absolutely no support from Canon.

Got to agree with Craig. Canon's pat answer with the CLC4000 was "It's running within Spec, nothing we can do". Many a Printer bought one thinking they were getting the old CLC type quality and performance and that was not the case.