Xerox Blogs

Focus Friday: Great Leaders Help You Focus

bobwagner — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 17:00:40 +0000

By, Bob Wagner, Corporate Director, Global Communications, Technology Business, Xerox “Narrow your focus to expand your opportunity.” I’ve heard that adage from several great leaders here at Xerox in my 20-plus years with the company. It’s timeless, rock-solid management advice—whether you’re selling printers or potatoes. Keep it Simple: The first person who taught me to “keep it simple” was Len Vickers, a charismatic corporate marketing chief who helped our public relations team introduce the wildly successful Xerox DocuTech Publishing System in 1990. Len helped us strip out all the clichés and refine our story to the key messages around the truly breakthrough values this system offered. The DocuTech series went on to create the print-on-demand market and revolutionize the digital printing industry. The products were great and, I’m proud to say, the PR did them justice. Narrow ‘n Deep: Another manager, and mentor, who espoused taking a “narrow and deep” marketing approach was graphic communications industry icon Frank Steenburgh. In 1999, Frank established a dedicated industry team to address the highly specialized requirements of the graphic communications market—our “print-for-pay” customers. The experts Frank assembled each led a team that focused—some would say, “obsessed”—on one of the key market segments: creative services, prepress, commercial print, quick and franchise print, book publishing and transaction print. Frank’s segment-based approach helped us pioneer what was, in effect, a whole new way of looking at this important market we serve, and his organization is the predecessor to the larger and more sophisticated team that’s in place here today. Be Great at Fewer Things: Fast-forward to the present. Today, the president of our Technology Business, Armando Zagalo de Lima, leads all of the company’s core, technology-driven business lines—representing about $14 billion of our nearly $23 billion in annual revenue. Like Len and Frank, Armando’s a strong advocate of tightening our focus to fuel business growth. He believes that by focusing on fewer things, we are better positioned to yield best-in-class results in what we choose to do. And, he adds, it’s the fastest and most efficient way to meet our customers’ needs as the pace of change continues to accelerate in our dynamic markets. From Len to Frank to Armando . . . so many things have changed in our Xerox world, and in yours. But one thing remains constant—the need to stay focused on what you do best. In fact, that belief underlies what today’s Xerox is really all about. That is, we give customers the freedom to focus on what they do best: their Real Business.

Back to Basics - Copy Layout Adjustments

Cheryl Otstott — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 18:00:41 +0000

Let’s talk about a couple of features used in the basic copy function - Edge erase and Image shift. These layout adjustments help to give you the highest quality copies possible by fixing some of the edge and alignment issues you might encounter if you use a less than perfect original. The edge erase will allow you to erase marks on copies that are made by punched holes, staples, headers, footers and any other stray marks in the margins. By modifying the edge deletion parameters you can eliminate those unsightly marks so your original will look clean and show no evidence of the holes or staples. With the edge erase feature you can choose All Edges which will produce a consistent margin erase on all margins from 0 to 2 inches in size. The Individual Edges independently erases each margin in differing amounts between 0 to 2 inches. The Individual Edges feature gives you more flexibility; you can choose top, bottom, left or right and repeat the setting for 2 sided copies. [caption id="attachment_1537" align="alignnone" width="449" caption="Edge Erase Screen Example"][/caption] The Image Shift feature is a layout adjustment feature that will allow you to auto center the copy or adjust the image shift independently using the margin shift or the preset shift right and shift down features. The image can be shifted in an amount from 0 to 2 inches. Copies can also be made with a margin added to the top, bottom, left, or right. When making two-sided prints, the shift position can be set for both side one and side two. [caption id="attachment_1538" align="alignnone" width="449" caption="Image Shift Screen Example"][/caption] To find the instructions for using these features on your machine access the support page for your machine and then search on edge erase or image shift. Try incorporating these features next time you have a less than perfect original that you need to copy. You will be surprised at how much better your copy will look. .

Security Requires Vigilance; Xerox Integrates McAfee Technology

Guest Blogger — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 16:03:36 +0000

Doug Tallinger, Platform Planning Manager

Xerox Global Development Group

When it comes to securing printers and multifunction printers (MFPs), Xerox has a long history and proven track record of innovation. I know first-hand as I’ve helped design and develop many of the security features in our products. We were the first to introduce Secure Print which allows you to print documents only after you type in a PIN at the front panel. And when our customers started asking for removable hard drives they could remove and replace daily, we introduced an additional mode of Image Overwrite which overwrites the print/copy/scan/fax data immediately after the job is completed. The philosophy of providing comprehensive security as part of our standard feature set remains today. We even have a dedicated web site with RSS feeds, assurance data and vulnerability patches when necessary. Like most high-tech business tools, multifunction printers contain computers which make them a vulnerable entry point into an organization’s network and private databases. So earlier this week, Xerox announced we are teaming up with McAfee to extend the security protection profile of our products. This new level of protection will help us stay ahead of the new and sophisticated security threats emerging every day. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs9EmKDXGTY&feature=relmfu[/youtube] We want our solution to be easy for IT and our small business professionals and do not want to add the burden of additional daily tasks such as building new security profiles or running anti-virus updates. We’ve determined integrating McAfee software into Xerox technology along with white listing, whereby the MFP’s factory installed files are protected as part of an approved list, would be a perfect fit. In fact, any other file access - read, write, add, modify and execute - is considered malicious. Stated simply, ‘known is good, anything unknown is bad’. The solution will also be designed to automatically report security events to help our customers track and investigate potential issues. This extends security on multifunction printers to a whole new dimension which has typically only been present on devices such as ATMs. I am excited to be a part of this new initiative that will ensure our MFPs are compliant endpoints that work within our customers’ extensive security policies. With the dizzying array of industry compliance regulations and new threats, it’s more important than ever to remain vigilant.

Xerox’s Leadership in the Graphic Communications Market

Joel Basa — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 01:02:24 +0000

Written by Jerry Murray Vice President, Marketing, Graphic Communications Business Group Xerox Corporation I always read with great interest when a major news outlet such as The Wall Street Journal covers the graphic communications industry – whether about how the role of print is changing, the rise of self-publishing or especially when a company identifies graphic communications as a major growth platform, as has been the case with Kodak and HP recently. It’s no wonder that our competition is fighting for a piece of the digital print market – Caslon forecasts that digital page volume will reach 800 billion pages by 2013 (600B mono, 200B color), with 27% growth in color pages, driven by collateral, transactional, direct marketing, and books. As the company that literally created the digital on-demand industry, Xerox has continued to evolve its market-leading technology, workflow software and business development support. Success in the market – for vendors and for print providers – is dependent on so much more than the press itself. Xerox is the market leader in the U.S. and Europe in the production color segment, leaning on the strength of the iGen family and award-winning Color 800/1000 presses. And Q4 saw a 15 percent increase in installs of these high-end color systems. From the popular Xerox Color 550/560 printers to the high-speed Xerox CiPress 500 Production Inkjet System we offer a digital press for any print operation, regardless of volume or application requirements. For example, Standard Register recently purchased eight iGen4 EXP Presses to deliver high-quality marketing materials to its clients; dmh marketing partners calls its CiPress 500 system a “revolutionary, industry-changing solution.” We’ll continue to focus on what matters most to our customers – providing digital technology and services to take their productivity and profit to the next level.

Next Target: SMBs Are Under Attack - Is Your Business Ready?

Guest Blogger — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 12:00:32 +0000

By Suma Potini, Product Marketing Manager, Enterprise Business Group The security headlines tend to be dominated by big business and government hacks creating the false impression that smaller organizations are too small to worry about security. But in reality, small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) rely on technology and networks as much as any business and face the same significant and constant risks as any enterprise. As a small business owner, you might be thinking who would be interested in attacking my business when there are many large and more appealing businesses to hack? Well, from a hacker’s point of view, they are looking for a weak point or a vulnerability to start their launch from. SMBs with insufficient security measures are an easy target to inject a worm, harvest credit card numbers or launch an email attack that can compromise their network and send out infected emails to all their clients and penetrate other networks. Just imagine the damage that does to that particular small business and how it can manifest itself into a larger attack. A few weeks ago, I was with a small business owner that was interested in purchasing a MFP. I asked him, “Is security one of your considerations when purchasing these printers?” His immediate response was, you guessed it…“No, who would be interested in our data, we are in a small animal feed business.” I said, “How about this - do you handle your clients’ personal and account information, orders, invoices, payments, billing, etc.? Do you have to be compliant with the government regulations? Or honor your customers’ requirements for confidentiality? What does the loss of this data mean to your business?” After a little pause, he turned to me and said, “Yes, it’s absolutely critical that we safeguard this information.” When considering security whether it’s SMB or large enterprise there are three things to keep in mind: people, technology and processes. People have to be part of the security solution and properly safeguard data they handle every day. For example, don’t leave post-it notes with passwords on them or leave documents lying around, and always password protect access to critical business information. On the technology side, it critical to ensure all of the PCs, printers, tablets, and applications are properly configured, maintained, and disposed of, when necessary. When it comes to business operations, it’s important to ensure sufficient network security safeguards are in place to prevent intrusion, exploits, data breech, and stay current with evolving threats. As the use of technology rises for all businesses of all sizes, so does the threat rate. As security is getting tighter at larger companies, small businesses are looking increasingly tempting to attackers. These threats are real, no one is immune and SMBs must respond and take action to protect their information, systems and networks.

Défaillances d'entreprises : le bilan de l'année 2011

Francois Gouverneur — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 11:41:35 +0000

Le monde des affaires est rude et l'énergie des chefs d'entreprise est grande. 2012 verra certainement des évolutions dans l'organisation du monde économique. La solidarité et l'échange des connaissances sont plus que jamais indispensables à la réussite des projets et à la continuité de la vie des entreprises. Le développement durable prend tout son sens. L'Observatoire de la communication Globale, partenaire d'Altares vient de publier sur son Blog la dernière analyse pour les défaillances en France tous secteurs confondus. Prenez le temps de regarder cette analyse, elle éclaire bien sur les entreprises qui souffrent le plus. Le temps du décloisonnement prôné par l'OHM depuis 2008 est devenu urgent. Le monde de la communication est lui même en complet changement. 295 Milliards de mails par jour dont 90% de Spams! La vidéo personnelle arrive en force pour compléter la panoplie du Cross Media. Et vous dans ce monde où l'information doit servir l'économie, comment vous situer vous? Quelle est votre maîtrise des réseaux sociaux? Comment le papier contribue-t-il à votre efficacité au jour le jour? 2012 sera indéniablement une année charnière de reflexion sur la place de l'information au service des entreprises. Leur bonne santé en dépend...

How's a guy (or gal) supposed to make any money any more?

Mike Steinharter — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 19:38:32 +0000

So I'm visiting one of the big banks in NYC this past week, and while we're kibbitzing a bit, preparing to start our meeting, I casually mention to the 'C' level exec I am with that my daughter happens to be down the street, interviewing for a summer internship. She looked at me like I was a crazy, horribly irresponsible father. "You would allow her to work in banking?" So what's going on that has them all so depressed? It's tougher than ever to make a decent amount of money (as opposed to an indecent amount) these days. Barclays was the latest to cap the cash portion of their bonuses, in this case at $102,400. The bonus pool was cut by 32% overall (profits were down 16%). Morgan Stanley was first - their cash bonus is capped at $125k. A "buck and a quarter" isn't much for some of these folks, you know. Deutsche Bank made a similar announcement. You might quickly point out that cash isn't the only recompense for a hard day's work at one of these banks, and that they often get a great deal of value from the restricted stock that they get. That's still true, but also under pressure, with more and more qualifications to the stock, including vesting periods, split payout, and the like. But that's not what has them all so incredibly depressed...it's because nobody thinks this is a temporary situation. This won't just be a bad year for bonuses. This is more like the proverbial 'dead cat bounce" and will likely be the way of the industry for the forseeable future. I still think my daughter deserves a chance, though, don't you?

iGen4s

Scott Titus — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 14:46:29 +0000

Did you hear that Standard Register bought 8 new iGEn4 Digital presses. Find out why. http://seekingalpha.com/news-article/2134462-standard-register-meets-customer-demands-for-consistent-brand-look-with-eight-new-xerox-igen4-exp-presses Pretty awesome!

Cloud Elation: It’s Business As Usual, Even in the Worst Disaster

Sharon Varalli — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 18:54:09 +0000

Submitted by Guest Blogger, Becky Alexander, Director, cloud backup and disaster recovery product manager, IT Outsourcing, Xerox Corp. Doomsayers are like stars in the sky. They always show up, and while they may shine, they’re always surrounded by darkness and gloom. So when we talk disasters, we’re not pointing our fingers and telling you to stock up on canned goods, water and fuel. We’re just sharing a realistic truth: Disasters happen, often without warning. For example, see what the National Fire Protection Association reported about 2010: --U.S. fire departments responded to an estimated 1.3 million fires in 2010. --These fires resulted an estimated $11.6 billion in direct property loss If you add flooding, hurricanes, earthquakes or something as seemingly benign as a power surge or transformer blow-out, then the business risk becomes real. Too real. The answer is simple: Be prepared (See and hear the video story of one business owner who faced a hurricane and flood). But, historically, the actual preparation hasn’t been so easy or inexpensive. Setting up redundancy services, keeping the pipelines clear isn’t just a budgeting line-item. Well, it can be now. Cloud computing takes us one step further to making backup and disaster recovery services almost as easy as ordering a book from Amazon. Backup and Disaster Recovery What’s important to know?

Many cloud providers - for enterprises or SMBs - do not support multiple operating systems, databases, legacy applications and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, all of which require backup and disaster recovery.
The Xerox Cloud offers Infrastructure as a Service, plus complete backup and recovery of data, applications and operating systems-- everything on the server can be restored in less than 24 hours.
Affordability is a must from any cloud provider—for enterprises and SMBs. Monthly, utility-based price (customers pay for what they use) is the way to go.
Avoid long-term contracts. They are not necessary.
Know—really know—that data backup is replicated, secured, encrypted and conducted daily.

A key consideration, especially for SMBs evaluating the cloud: No matter the size, scope or location of a company, the common denominator is how to manage costs and risks. That means finding a cloud provider with a utility model approach, intense security controls, systems and data redundancy, even a customized company-wide disaster recovery plan. We know exactly who that cloud provider is. And now, you do too. Follow on Twitter

Where are eReaders going?

Francois Ragnet — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 09:10:18 +0000

CES is usually a great festival for new technologies. But ePaper was not one of these technologies, unfortunately. There has been very few announcements around eReaders... An ePaper printer from Gembird (print directly to your e-Reader), the Cybook Odyssey from Bookeen, with very high customizability, high speed screen refresh which allows some (very basic...) animation - see video below: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZXyCzx-T5w#![/youtube] That is quite surprising, especially when e-Readers (but also tablet) sales have soared over the holiday period. A recent study by the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project, showed that the percentage of adults who owned tablet computers increased to 19 percent in early January from 10 percent in November through mid-December. The survey found the same percentage increase in the number of adults who owned e-readers. Both devices are most popular with high-income families, but e-Readers are more popular with women. More detailed results can be found here (text in french, but results in english). So are ePaper eReaders on a temporary pause, or will they be totally replaced by tablets and more interactive devices? My guess would be that black and white eReaders are going to disappear, but "hybrid" devices which provide both the interactivity and color of tablets and the reading comfort and power consumption of eReaders with find their spot. Devices like the Bambook for the chinese market or its sibling Kyobo for the Korean market are the first examples of this new breed. Both are based on the Mirasol color ePaper - as you'll see from the video below, the device looks more like a tablet than an eReader, capable of reading videos, showing animations, etc... - except that it boasts great readability in direct sunlight and extra low power when in bistable mode (e.g. stable image, no animation). [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImIXKkK2gvM[/youtube]