Whitepapers

Digital wall covering can be used to change a room, business, tradeshow stand, or retail environment quickly and completely. It can add detail, and give the illusion of size or visual openness to a small, closed space. It can combine photo-realistic interest with information and company branding. With the advent of new materials, printers, and inks, only imagination limits where digital wall covering can go from here.

The Advantages of Digital

Since 1997, with the introduction of Intelicoat’s latex saturated papers for use on digital printers, interest has been steadily growing in digitally-printed wall coverings for commercial and residential murals. The advantages are many, with customization and short-run availability being two of the leaders. The years since have seen the introduction of a variety of new substrates that greatly expand the possibilities in material and creative applications. While there are many applications where a smooth, paper-type covering is suitable, the added interest possible with textures and patterns has driven the introduction of vinyl embossed substrates that resemble commercially available materials already familiar to the architectural and interior decoration industry. The main difference to the digital print manufacturer is that they are available in white, ready-to-print bolts.

Substrates and Coatings

The companies bringing this material to market have done their homework. They have worked closely with digital printers as well as equipment and ink manufacturers to offer materials that meet the limited-by-imagination-only needs of today’s designers and specifi ers. In some cases, adding imagery to a wall-mountable substrate fulfi lls the need for residential murals, exhibit and tradeshow graphics and environmental graphics. This has been done on a variety of previously available materials — such as paper and pressure-sensitive adhesive vinyl — but these often lack the added visual impact of texture, are too smooth to hide wallboard defi ciencies or are too glossy. The alternatives come from companies such as Ultrafl ex, Korographics, Cooley and Dreamscapes. These companies are well-versed in the requirements of today’s digital printers and ink sets. The digital printer packages the material in dimensions suitable for handling. This includes 3-inch cores, manageable weights and consistent coatings. Further, they retain the attributes expected by wall covering installers and specifiers: 54-inch widths with nominal variation from roll to roll, compatibility with existing tools and processes (such as paste and applicators) and, of course, added visual interest.

Solution Overview

Xerox® ConnectKey™ for SharePoint® is a middleware solution that enables end users to scan directly from a Xerox® Extensible Interface Platform® enabled Multifunction Printer (MFP) to network folders or to Microsoft® SharePoint. From an administration perspective, the goal of ConnectKey for SharePoint is to simplify and mitigate the IT burden associated with configuring and maintaining workflows. ConnectKey for SharePoint interrogates the existing network folder and SharePoint environment allowing for automated configuration of desired scan workflows. Simply select a target folder or library and ConnectKey for SharePoint will configure the required index fields with appropriate label and data types (string, pick list, etc). If users authenticate at the MFP, ConnectKey for SharePoint can check user permissions prior to filing the document in a SharePoint library or to a network folder. With respect to ongoing workflow maintenance, ConnectKey for SharePoint automates the entire process. If a SharePoint administrator adds an index field or adds/removes a value within a pick list, ConnectKey for SharePoint will automatically reflect these changes to existing workflows at the MFP.

In addition to the simplified workflow setup and automated mirroring of network folder and SharePoint environments, ConnectKey for SharePoint enables users to dynamically browse each environment. For some business processes, storing to static file locations might be appropriate. However, where more flexibility is required, ConnectKey for SharePoint can do more by allowing the end users to browse through SharePoint libraries and network folders at the MFP’s local user interface in order to put their files where they want them.

In addition to the simplified workflow setup and automated mirroring of network folder and SharePoint environments, ConnectKey for SharePoint enables users to dynamically browse each environment. For some business processes, storing to static file locations might be appropriate. However, where more flexibility is required, ConnectKey for SharePoint can do more by allowing the end users to browse through SharePoint libraries and network folders at the MFP’s local user interface in order to put their files where they want them.

Sydney, Australia – February 2010 – Research commissioned by Kyocera Mita, one of the world's leading document imaging companies, has revealed that the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of a printer fleet for a typical Australian mid-market business is between $151,000 and $286,969 over a three-year period.

The study, conducted by Longhaus, also identified that the typical print fleet for a mid-sized Australian business consists of 32% A4 desktop single function devices, 30% A4 free standing multifunction devices and 22% A4 desktop multifunction devices. The most typical printer brands include HP, Canon, Kyocera Mita, Fuji Xerox and Lexmark.

“The GFC has shed light on the true cost of operation that the print-on-demand culture is costing Australian organisations,” said David Finn, Managing Director, Kyocera Mita Australia and New Zealand.

“The reality is that the Australian mid-market spends between 8-9% of its annual ICT budget on the acquisition of print devices, and a further 6% on ongoing operational costs for a typical print fleet. Totaling around 15% of the total ICT budget, this places print devices on par with telecommunications expenses as a single, identifiable expense.”

“Disturbingly, most businesses are missing out on opportunities to cut print costs by as much as 35%, simply because they are unaware of their real printing costs and therefore aren’t optimising their printer fleets. It’s a case of not being able to manage what you can’t measure.”

IDC OPINION

IDC believes that the use of color in documents can be a very effective communication tool. Compared with black-and-white-only output, color output offers significant benefits that can drive potential business opportunities. However, many potential users either are restricted from using color or are significantly limited from using it as much as they would like. The primary reason for this restriction/limitation comes from the traditionally higher costs associated with putting color on a page versus settling for monochrome output. As long as there is a significant delta between the color cost per page and black-and-white cost per page, the color market opportunity, while attractive, will be hampered by this cost obstacle. Unfortunately, this all-too-common scenario serves to limit companies' ability to capitalize on the numerous benefits available in adding color to general business documents.

Xerox, in an attempt to address the significant differential between color and black page costs, has created a new printer model for its product portfolio. The new Phaser 8860 printer incorporates a unique pricing model so that a larger share of the total costs is applied up front to the acquisition price.

This new printer has substantially lower-cost color consumables - to the point where its color output costs rival black-and-white-only output costs on most standard laser printers. This achieves three primary objectives:

1. Typical workgroup color printer users can gain significant cost savings with a Phaser 8860 versus conventionally priced color laser printers.
2. The new pricing model is designed to drive more color usage by eliminating the fear of high color costs when printing significant color volume.
3. The Phaser 8860 can produce high-impact black business-oriented documents with some color at a cost that is similar to that of black-only pages produced on other devices. As a result, Phaser 8860 users get the benefit of using color without paying more for it.