Digitized Flashbacks

Ricoh Company of Japan today announced an additional investment in  Asuene Inc., a Japan-based sustainability AI company. Ricoh financed the investment through its Ricoh Innovation Fund, its corporate venture capital fund. The company says it’s expanding solutions that support the transition to a decarbonized society, part of a broader shift commonly referred to in Japan as green transformation.…

Kyocera Document Solutions America and Sharp Corporation recently unveiled a preview of what the companies will be showing at the  2026 PRINTING United Expo that will be held  September 23rd to 25th in Las Vegas, Nevada. Kyocera Kyocera will showcase two new additions to its production inkjet portfolio, the TASKalfa Pro Tandem and the TASKalfa Pro 15000b at its booth entitled Inkjet For All. The…

On July 21st, Katun Corporation reported that its Arivia copier/MFP portfolio is now fully compatible with Cartadis’ TCM4, TCM4-BLE (Bluetooth), and TCM4-Mini radio-frequency identification (RFID) contactless card readers. The firm says this compatibility enables organizations to implement secure, card-based user authentication directly at the device, helping protect sensitive documents, simplify…

Canon Inc. of Japan today announced that it has successfully removed certain toner cartridge offerings from selected European Amazon marketplaces using methods including the Amazon reporting tool, letters of inquiry, and notices regarding its intellectual property rights. The offerings concern third-party laser printer toner cartridges that Canon believes infringe its European Patent 4,235,315…

We’ve just passed the halfway mark for 2026, and we thought we’d take a look at the state of dealer acquisitions. Following are the United States’ largest independent office equipment dealers, the acquisitions they’ve made so far in 2026, and what their strategy looks like: DEX Imaging DEX Imaging is widely recognized as the nation’s largest independent copier dealer. Headquartered in Tampa,…

On June 22, 2026, the United States government issued two executive orders: “Securing the Nation Against Advanced Cryptographic Attacks” and “Ushering in the Next Frontier of Quantum Innovation.” Together, they mandate that U.S. federal agencies and government contractors institute post-quantum cryptography (PQC) across their operations. The mandate is designed to prevent hackers from harvesting…

The world’s leading PC maker, Lenovo, which is headquartered in Beijing, China, announced a novel new use for inkjet-printing: the Legion R9000P laptop PC featuring a breakthrough inkjet-printed OLED (IJP OLED) display from TCL CSOT, a leader in advanced display technologies and a subsidiary of TCL Technology. This partnership marks the first time TCL CSOT’s IJP OLED technology has been…

On July 17th Brother International U.S.A. launched its new GTX300 Hybrid Garment Printer, a professional-grade hybrid color inkjet printer with both direct-to-garment (DTG) and direct-to-film (DTF) capabilities in a single system. The GTX300 allows apparel decorators to switch seamlessly between DTG and DTF workflows to meet a wide range of customer demands without adding equipment or complexity.…

ConnectWise, the Florida-based provider of software solutions for managed service providers, reported on July 16th the general availability of the ConnectWise Platform, which it says is the industry’s first purpose-built managed service provider (MSP) solution for predictive maintenance.  The platform is said to provide a unified, AI-native operating model that connects the systems where service…

On July 16th, Canon UK and Ireland launched Ultra, a new flat-rate printer-support subscription program. With the Ultra plan, there’s  one flat fee covering prints, service, and consumables, eliminating unpredictable charges. Key benefits include: Flat rate pricing, eliminating unexpected spend spikes. Simplified budgeting and forecasting. Protection against usage fluctuations, with consistent…

Artificial intelligence is one of the most controversial topics today, but one area where it’s making big improvements is with office document workflows. AI is making these document workflows measurably more efficient by moving processes from manual with human intervention to autonomous and intelligent with minimal human intervention.  Its main strengths are in features such as automatically…

On July 14th, SpencerMetrics, a New York-based provider of production print and manufacturing analytics solutions, announced that Canon U.S.A. has become a licensed reseller of its software suite. Through the agreement, Canon and its customers will gain access to SpencerMetrics’ vendor-neutral device monitoring and analytics platform. Spenceretrics solutions will enable Canon production print…

Fujifilm Business Innovation of Japan has introduced an AI-powered, cloud-based Integrated Maintenance Support Platform to improve the efficiency of maintaining its office printers and copier/MFPs. The company will begin rolling out the platform this month  across Japan, the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, and North America. The platform centrally manages maintenance-related information in the…

Canon’s imageFORCE platform We recently looked at how HP Inc. is evolving its print-business strategy. In this post, we look at how one of its major competitors, Canon Inc., is also evolving its print-business strategy. Canon is pivoting its print operations from traditional consumer hardware toward high-efficiency production, industrial inkjet, and automated digital workflows. By aligning…

Pantum Technology (formerly Ninestar) of Zuhai, China, is projecting  improved financial results for the first half of 2026,  driven by a surge in its semiconductor and printer-consumables’ businesses. While overal printer revenue was down, revenue and sales rose overseas. The company forecasts first-half net profit of about $13.3 million for the six months that ended on June 30th, compared with…

In an interesting new blog post, Toshiba America Business Solutions explained why more and more businesses are adopting cloud-based print management. In the office, the blog notes, print infrastructure rarely gets attention until something goes wrong. That could be a print server reaching end-of-life, employees unable to print from remote locations, or IT teams spending  hours troubleshooting…

On July 9th, Loffler Companies, one of the largest independent office equipment and business technology dealers in the United States, announced that it had acquired Fisher’s Technology for an undisclosed sum. Fisher’s Technology is an office technology company providing managed IT and managed print services that has been serving businesses across Idaho, Montana, Utah, and Washington since 1936.…