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2012: Key Trends
Richard Rints
,
Marketing Director,
Océ UK
A big trend in office and light
production printing in 2012
will the integration of office
and print room workflows.
This will happen as companies
and organisations continue
to seek to make the best use
of their assets and reduce
costs. Great strides are being
made to improve print room
efficiency and add value by
providing additional services
in them: I see this process
accelerating in 2012. As a
result of economic pressures,
I can see businesses, at
best, maintaining colour print
production volumes at current
levels. Cost benefits mean
that black & white printing
will remain significant.
There will be even stronger
competition in the office space,
with all products continuing
to be feature-rich to ensure
compliance with tender
responses. With the continued
focus on print and managed
services, people expect more
from their systems; it’s not just a
case of providing a printer, they
want service and support as well.
Finally, sustainability will still
be a factor for companies, but
with a bias to the cost benefits
of being green, such as lower
power costs.
Vincent Vanderpoel
,
Vice President & General
Manager, LaserJet and
Enterprise Solutions, Imaging
and Printing Group, EMEA,
HP
Next year, we believe that the
growth of printers that can
connect directly to the cloud
will drive two key trends.
Remote printing – the ability
to print via mobile devices
independently of a computer –
will certainly be a technological
trend for 2012. At HP, we have
an installed base of 10 million
web-connected devices with
the ability to do this. However,
as users seek more agile ways
of working, we estimate that by
the end of 2012, this figure will
reach 50 million.
Secondly, as more and more
consumers and businesses seek
instant gratification through
fresh content, we envisage that
there will be an increase in print
applications, accessible directly
from both the printer and online.
These will deliver a variety of
content from some of the world’s
largest brands. For instance,
imagine kids in Prague being
able to print Disney colouring
pages straight from their printer.
There is a constant interplay
between physical and digital
content in our lives. We believe
that imaging technologies such
as scanners will increasingly
become platforms for information
– photos, documents and more.
Technology that’s integral to the
transfer, exchange and sharing of
content will enable end users to
make their mark.
Phil Jones
,
Sales and marketing
director,
Brother UK
The consumerisation of IT
will bring huge threats and
big opportunities to the
print industry in 2012. The
concept of ‘bring your own
technology’ may disrupt how
resellers supply I.T. products
to businesses, with a shift from
dealing with the business as
a whole to potentially each
individual employee. In essence
this is like opting out of the
company technology scheme, in
the same way you would with a
company car, and receiving an
allowance towards it instead.
With tablets successfully
penetrating the Enterprise space,
the concept of the paperless
office is taking a seismic leap
along with the trend of roam-
working (people working on
the move). Expect to see an
increased demand for network
scanners, mobile scanners and
printers, as well as cloud printing
to help facilitate these new
working practices.
While MPS has been around
for a while, the market is yet
to go mainstream. However, a
tight economy and demand on
employee resources means that
customers are now looking for
improved tracking and visibility
of print costs, along with the
capability to predict print
expenses.
Overall, 2012 will see a major
focus on OPEX, or operational
expenses, with everyone from
manufacturer to distributor to
reseller to end user trying to
reduce costs further to protect
profits and stay competitive.
Nigel Allen
,
Director of Product and Channel
Marketing,
Kyocera Mita
A challenging economic outlook
means that in 2012 customers
will continue to focus on the
bottom line and value for money.
In this context, a growing number
of businesses will choose to
outsource the management of
their printer fleets: Managed
Document Services was a key
growth area for Kyocera in 2011
will continue to be so this year.
Another important innovation
is variable billing. A key feature
of Kyocera’s latest MFDs, this
allows resellers to charge
a different cost per page
depending on the amount of
toner used, giving resellers more
flexibility and allaying customers’
fears about colour print costs,
by ensuring that they are not
charged a full colour page cost
if the only colour element is a
corporate logo.
If forecasts are correct and
cost-cutting stays at the top
of the agenda, 2012 will be
another good year for Kyocera.
Alan McLeish
,
Senior product marketing
manager,
OKI
We see growth returning to
many sectors including colour
laser printers, mono laser
MFPs and colour laser MFPs.
And we expect that growth to
continue through 2012 and
beyond. Even the serial impact
dot matrix (SIDM) market,
which has been in decline
for years, is showing signs of
recovery.
In the colour laser MFP
sector, both A4 and A3
categories are growing
dynamically. The A4 sector is
growing fastest but there is an
increasing trend for A3 colour
MFPs to be sold at or below the
price point of A3 mono MFPs, so
customers are buying colour to
replace their mono devices.
Driven by a customer focus
on purchase value, many of the
new mono laser MFPs will be
in the 20-30 pages per minute
(ppm) segment while we are
seeing a lot of new colour laser
MFPs in the 10-20ppm category.
In 2012, we expect to see
other vendors switching from
laser to LED, particularly for
colour devices, something that
OKI has been pioneering for
more than 20 years. Epson
recently announced desktop
colour LED devices. Xerox
is using LED in its A3 colour
devices. We are even seeing
traditional MFP manufacturers
using the technology. That
is a trend that looks set to
continue as organisations
increasingly recognise the
benefits of the technology from a
manufacturing, cost and design
perspective.