Oki Printing Solutions Launches Total Managed Print: Stage One - "PageStart"

Details of Oki's MPS programs are beginning to take form.

Today, Oki announced their Total Print Management MPS program for re-sellers.

A three level offering, the first of which is active today, PageStart, will be followed later this year with FleetAssist and FullAccess.

This first level is designed to get interested resellers into the MPS niche with little risk or cost.

Oki reportedly has simplified a pricing structure making it much easier for a provider to quote a CPC engagement with confidence.

But, what exactly is, "...the industry's only MPS Ready line of color and black and monochrome single function printers..."?


PageStart is a simple, turnkey program that provides the fastest way to start supporting MPS opportunities.

Partners requiring more support or those requiring complete support will benefit from the two other levels, which look to go live later this year.
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DOTC -

A big couple of weeks for the manufacturers and Managed Print Services programs. And compared to the recent Ricoh and HP announcements, Oki's could go unnoticed.

But MPS is for everyone - there is plenty of room.

What I find interesting is Oki seems to be either pacing the reluctance of their resellers, introducing MPS to the willing in baby-steps or Oki's programs haven't completely "baked" or Oki Print Solutions is itself wary of the MPS niche.

So they tip toe into the water.

But is this "only MPS ready printer" aspect?

What does that mean?

Are the cartridges "keyed" to the reseller?

Do the machines only report meters to Oki-based collection agents?

And once again, what about "blended MPS engagements"? Certainly, there will be other manufactures' machines in an Oki fleet - correct?

Interesting.

Now, the only two left are Toshiba and Canon - so I guess that really only leaves one.

Okidata Into the Fray: A Three Level Managed Print Services Offering For Dealers

Oki is in and is approaching dealers. Especially those who are tentative about entering the MPS arena.

"The channel is struggling to learn MPS, there's a little bit of a handicap there because they're just focusing on printers and copiers," Krentzman, President and Chief Executive Officer at Oki Data Americas, Inc. said. "Partners have to rethink the way they do business from "hardware centric" to "service centric."

Details are sketchy at this point, as always. There are two different pricing plans; monthly flat cost and a cost per image.

Dealers can either dip their toe or jump in head first - Oki appears to have different levels of commitment each with a higher access to all of Oki's MPS tools.

The market is certainly crowded and Oki has stiff competition. Citing Xerox's MPS program, Okidata said that there are some major options that its program offers that Xerox doesn't, including hardware training and proactive service alerts. I wonder how factual that statement really is.

Remotely interesting announcement, relative to the last few days - Ricoh, HP.

Odds are, One Day You Will Not Get Your News/Information in Print or On Your Computer

2009 -

Hyper-Local information - Point your smart phone at a building, take a picture and receive every piece of data available on that building.

"We're finding that an increasing number of young people are getting their news from smartphones," says Geeta Dayal, a Ford Foundation Fellow who teaches a class on mobile phones and journalism at University of California, Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. 

"And the more people use their phones to access information, the more they want to know what's happening where they are right now."

Imagine, the face recognition applications.

Picking someone up at the bar will be wild - aim, shoot, download everything - Facebook, Twitter name, blog, work website, phone, email addy - even background checks.

No need to exchange business cards, simply snap a pic and rock and roll.

No print, all your output presented on bended plastic, not bio-mass.

"We're finding that an increasing number of young people are getting their news from smartphones," says Geeta Dayal, a Ford Foundation Fellow who teaches a class on mobile phones and journalism at University of California, Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. "And the more people use their phones to access information, the more they want to know what's happening where they are right now."

I suggest a day when there is very little being printed at all.

As we know, the primary reason for print media is cheap portability - but cheap comes with a cost - static versus dynamic, old news versus late breaking, news/information for everyone, edited by strangers versus custom and personal- analog versus digital.

Submitted for your consideration, a "Minority Report" view from Microsoft.

In this world of 2019, there is no "print", no CPC, CPI or MPS.

Caution - when you think you see a newspaper, you are seeing an iteration of the Kindle.

Enjoy.