The Dealer Network That Taught Robots to Work

by Mason Bright

By the time most industries notice their decline, the ground has already shifted. The copier channel is lucky. It still has time to steer. At the Post Walters webcast, that steering began in public view.

The conversation pulled together the full spectrum of experience. Art Post and Greg Walters spoke for the bridge-builders. Kevin Frey represented the technical architects. Ed McLaughlin and Chip Miceli carried the institutional memory. The topic was robotics, but the subtext was survival. Could the copier channel, with all its trucks, techs, and tenacity, become the distribution and service backbone for an entirely new class of machines?

CricketsUS exists to answer that question with action. The coalition now represents the most coordinated effort yet to convert copier and IT dealers into robotic resellers, local partners who can sell, lease, install, and service autonomous machines in the same way they once handled MFPs.

Robots to the Channel, Channel to Robots

By Mason Bright

The numbers do not lie. Print volumes fall each quarter. Managed IT helped but never replaced pages. Water and VoIP filled some gaps. Production print flared, then flattened. Dealers keep diversifying, but the mix still leans 65 percent A3 and A4. Service tails shrink. Technicians age out. Recruiting stalls. The question hangs in every service bay and boardroom: what replaces the copier as the hardware that keeps the channel alive?

CricketsUS exists to answer that question. Our mission fits on a single line: we bring robots to the channel, and the channel to robots.

That means giving copier and IT dealers a bridge into the emerging world of service robotics, autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) and humanoids that move, learn, and generate recurring service revenue. It also means showing robotic manufacturers how to reach real customers through the field-service networks you already run.

Are We Experiencing a Convergence or ‘The’ Convergence? 2025 Version

By Greg Walters

In 2013 I wrote about convergence as a meeting of formerly distinct domains. Now, in 2025, that framing feels quaint. The question has shifted: we no longer approach convergence. 

We live it.