Multifunction Printers and Contracts

[Cupis]

Hi All you IT Managers out there,

I am looking into new contracts for my company, and I want to see some feedback from all of you of your experiences you have with brands of printers and the Service Providers, so with that been lets have a discussion around these sort of questions

1) What Printers are you fond of, and why did you arrive at that? Bad experience with other brands?

2) What Service providers give you the service you deem worthy, and what experience have you had with others.

At the moment I am a bit on the fence, I do not know any providers other than Nashua and Canon. I had a bit of a tiff with Nashua once, with regards to selling me a printer and hiding the fact that I had to buy a PCU for the printer every 10 000 prints or something, and those things are expensive. Canon have been pretty good with me, but they seem to be a little bit of the pricey side of things.

As for the Printers, I have had good quality out of Canon machines and Samsung machines. I am not sure if there are any issues with the brands, as they are providing quality machines, especially in the department of Office Multifunction machines.

Anyone have any experience with Minolta machines? Are they reliable?

[Stuart]

We have to Konica Minolta machines here at work. The first was an absolute disaster, but that is pretty much because of the dealer we took it through. They sold us the wrong machine for our needs and followed it up with the most atrocious service ever. The dealership is Konica Minolta Direct. Stay FAR away from them!

Our second bizhub was from Konica Minolta North, and it's done everything we've expected from it. We went with KM North because we wanted a second hand machine for a particular purpose here and they offered us the best deal. If we were going new I would've gone directly with Konica Minolta South Africa.

I went to the KMSA show room at the head office to demo some machines and was quite impressed with them.

All of that said, I know a guy in India who does a LOT of digital printing. He has used machines from just about every manufacturer under the sun and he swears by Canon. They are pricier than other machines in India too, but he reckons that they offer the best quality, reliability and (at least in India) service.

Then again, when I was looking recently I made an appointment with a Canon rep who just never showed up. He then called about two weeks later to apologise and reschedule, but by that time we had already settled on the bizhub.

[Cupis]

I received a quotation from Bizhub too, I have never Dealt with KM so I don't know what to expect. However the Sales rep was actually the first one to point out that I was asking for quotations for a machine that exceeds what we actually need, and he quoted me on a better solution as well as the comparitive machine I asked for. I am impressed so far....

[Stuart]

Which KM was it that quoted you, may I ask? You in Gauteng?

[Cupis]

bizhub was from Konica Minolta North - Exact same people. I am based in Durban, However I am busy communicating with the Joburg guys as I am purchasing for both Joburg and Durban branches

They even offered me a demo machine to test it with our software (as we running a customized ERP system,). To even show them off more they told me they have in house developere which can tweak the printing software to your needs.

The trying to sell the following models to me

Bizhub C35 and the C220, have you had any experience with these models?

[doo_much]

I'd normally say stay away from Nashua - but my neighbour is a rep for them and she's rather good looking.

Oh wait.

She's married.


Stay away from Nashua.

[Prime]

We have Bytes - Xerox at varsity. Stay far away from Bytes. Their products or service are awful.

*stab*

[Stuart]

bizhub was from Konica Minolta North - Exact same people. I am based in Durban, However I am busy communicating with the Joburg guys as I am purchasing for both Joburg and Durban branches

They even offered me a demo machine to test it with our software (as we running a customized ERP system,). To even show them off more they told me they have in house developere which can tweak the printing software to your needs.

The trying to sell the following models to me

Bizhub C35 and the C220, have you had any experience with these models?

How many users do you have an what sort of monthly volumes are you looking at? We were also quoted on both machines. For various reasons, we opted in the end to take a used black machine for now, but out of those two we were definitely eyeing the C220. The C35 was too small for our needs, but then I work for a church where 200 people have access to the machine for a whole variety of reasons. I spent quite a bit of time at the KMSA head office playing with the C220 and was suitably impressed.

I was really impressed with the guys at KM North (I dealt with Le Roux), so I'm quite confident that whatever they offer you will be suitable for your needs. You might consider just getting a second KM quote from Konica Minolta South Africa. They came in a little cheaper than KM North on new machines.

[Cupis]

Wow dude what Church do you work at

Well I think it should be fine for my network. I am glad you metioned it however, because on second look it does not give me any idea what the recommended monthly usage should be. My Durban network is about 30 people which will be covered by 4 MFP's and Jhb is about 20 and that will be covered by 3 MFP. So I will most likely be getting a mixture of the two depending on my departments. Like 100 prints a day will be the smaller model and the +-500 print a day the bigger model.

@Prime, I would have never imagined to go with Bytes anyway, are they not a telecommunication company, working with VOIP and PABX systems? Madness to trust them

@Doo_much Absolutely agree, I think they sneaky company. In fact I asked for a quote from them 3 times this month, I have not had any feedback, They not interested in any more business?

[Stuart]

Wow dude what Church do you work at

Lol, we only have about six people on staff here, but the copier is pretty much open to all church members. They pay for personal copies, of course, but we charge at our cost. On the second hand B220 that we got we pay 8c per copy. If we provide the paper we charge church members 10c per copy, which is significantly cheaper than the local libary or Post Net, so when people need to do copies for whatever reason they come here to do them. We have lots of traffic in and out using the copier, not just staff.

Well I think it should be fine for my network. I am glad you metioned it however, because on second look it does not give me any idea what the recommended monthly usage should be. My Durban network is about 30 people which will be covered by 4 MFP's and Jhb is about 20 and that will be covered by 3 MFP. So I will most likely be getting a mixture of the two depending on my departments. Like 100 prints a day will be the smaller model and the +-500 print a day the bigger model.

You see, I still have my quotes in front of me here. The C35 has a recommended monthly volume of 15k. Assuming a five-day workweek, divide 15k by, say, 24 and you hit 625 copies per day.

The same dealer quoted us on the C220 and stated a recommended monthly volume of 30k per month.

HOWEVER, a second dealer quoted us on the C220 at a recommended monthly volume of 20k per month.

Now, this is important, because you want to clarify up front what the copy costs will be once you exceed the recommended monthly volume stated in the quote.

For example, on our bizhub C10 (with Konica Minolta Direct) we pay 25c per copy up to the recommended level, and then 50c per copy above that. That's insane. Which is exactly why we went for a second machine.

KMSA's quote on the C220 came in at 39.43c per colour copy up to the recommended volume, and 59.14c per colour copy after that. The black copies were quoted at 6.85c per copy up to the recommended volume and 10.27c per copy above the recommended volume.

KM North offered us a flat rate on all copies, both below and above the recommended rate. But then that is on a second hand machine which we bought cash, so I'm not sure of their policy on new machines. You want to clarify this up front.

Also just be aware that you pay the full colour/mono rate regardless of how much colour/black is on the page. So, for example, if you print an A4 page of text that has a single blue hyperlink in it, you pay the full colour cost for that page. On the other hand, if you print a full page colour photo you also pay the full colour cost. It doesn't matter how much or how little colour there is, you pay the full cost regardless.

[Cupis]

Thanks for the tips,

I am focusing on the C35 at the moment, as this is probably going to be the more heavily used machine.

After checking through my proposal more carefully I did find that recommended monthly usage is only 8000 prints. I did check with him if this is their service limitation, or if it is hardware limitation. I do not believe it is the latter, as according to the system specs on their site, the printer can handle up to a 120 000 a month. That is massive, so it seems like a durable little machine.

The offer was incredible price wise, its honestly half of any other offer I have received so far. This will most likely change if they up the monthly usage.

Toshiba is offering me a free laptop with each printer we sign up. Cool, what are the toshiba printers like anyone with experience?

[Stuart]

When Toshiba quoted us they actually brought the printer out to our office in the back of a van and did a demo in our parking lot. (They called it a road show.) There were certain functions of the printer that I preferred over the KM, but it was significantly more expensive in the end, which is why we settled for KM.