The Last Tail: How Robots Replace the Copier Model

by Mason Bright

For fifty years, the office technology channel has lived on the same rhythm. Quote. Lease. Deliver. Service. Renew. Every copier in the field carried a tail that fed technicians, back offices, and sales commissions. Dealers built their culture on that cadence. But the math no longer works. Print volumes fall. Leasing cycles stretch. Technicians retire faster than replacements arrive.

At the Post Walters webcast this fall, that reality met its replacement. The conversation that began as a routine check-in became a turning point. It confirmed what a handful of dealers already suspected: the next service tail will not come from pages. 

CricketsUS exists to make that future familiar enough to act on. The idea is not to romanticize robots, but to make them ordinary, to make them as practical and serviceable as a copier once was.

It will come from robots.

CricketsUS was built to make that possible. Its mission is simple enough to print on a T-shirt: We bring robots to the channel, and the channel to robots. The idea sounds bold until you realize how similar the mechanics already are. Robots need the same things copiers needed: installation, networking, firmware updates, service contracts, and local technicians who show up. The difference is movement. Instead of paper through rollers, you have payloads on wheels.

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.

CricketsUS - Bringing Robots to the Channel and the Channel to Robots.

Robots in the Office: We’ve Seen This Before

Back in the 1980s, Xerox built an empire on a simple formula. Sell the machine at thin margins, but lock in every cartridge, drum, and service call for years. Dealers thrived because they didn’t just sell boxes. They serviced them. They showed up when the machine broke. They built relationships that outlasted product cycles.

Now look at what just landed. Figure, the humanoid robotics startup, has cut a deal with Brookfield, one of the largest property managers in the world. More than 500 million square feet of office space, plus 160 million of logistics facilities, are being turned into a training ground for humanoids. Forget showroom floors or TED stages. These robots are heading into lobbies, cafeterias, and mailrooms, everywhere copier dealers dominate.

You’re Not Selling a Machine. You’re Selling Time.

When I started in this business, I thought I was selling copiers. 

Machines. Toner. Maybe a contract or two. 

The truth didn’t hit me until a client said this: “Greg, I don’t care what brand it is, just make sure my people don’t have to think about it.”

That’s when it clicked.

They weren’t buying a copier. They were buying time.

You can dress it up all you want. Feed rates, duplex speed, finishing options, mobile compatibility. None of it matters if the buyer still feels like they’re wasting time. That’s the true cost center.

Here’s the part that’s hard for new reps to swallow. Most of what you’re trained to say—the machine specs, the upgrades, the lease deal—none of that really addresses the real value prop. The C-suite is not looking for a slightly faster warm-up time. They want their operations to move smoother. They want to stop hearing complaints about the printer jamming or the receptionist asking for another toner order.

They want to stop wasting time on things that are not their business.

So the next time you're in front of a buyer, stop selling the box. Sell the time the box gives back.