Konica Minolta buys Danka

Konica Minolta announced it would buy copier dealer chain Danka Office Imaging by one of its suppliers,. The US company is a division of UK-based Danka Business Systems PLC, which is planning to dissolve. The deal was for $240 million.

Danka (which is 31 years old) was once a major power in the copier industry, with a wide network in North America and Europe. In 2006, it sold off its European operations to Ricoh for $210 million. Last year, the remainder of the business lost almost $30 million.

For Konica Minolta, the deal is part of a campaign for it to move up into the first tier of U/S? copier companies, to join rivals Canon, Ricoh, and Xerox. The move was also a reaction to Xerox's buyout of copier retail chain Global Imaging last year, as more and more the copier manufacturers swallow up the most profitable part of dealer layer that stands between them and the customer.

Authentication at your fingertips

One of the hottest new security features for the office product world is biometric authentication, especially in the form of finger-based identification. The use of analog fingerprint identification over 140 years has proven that no two people’s fingerprints are identical. Now that expertise has gone digital, with major breakthroughs over the past year.

The technique available for office use is finger vein authentication. This involves placing a finger on an authentication device which scans the blood vessel patterns, and cross-checks them with a database of previously stored scans. Manufacturers (Hitachi is the leader) claim that this is even more secure than regular fingerprint identification, since you are measuring internal, rather than external, patterns. According to claims, the method is highly accurate, with virtually no mistaken rejections of valid users.

Finger vein authentication devices are fast and compact, and it is getting better rapidly. Hitachi is the main manufacturer, and it is introducing the technology into door handles, automobile steering wheels, PCs, and ATMs. Hitachi has also released software development kits, and we expect that the applications will multiply.

Konica Minolta has been a leader in applying this technology as an option in its copiers (and now printers). It enables secure print, secure fax, and mailbox access. We expect that it will become an option on virtually all office equipment over the next year.

Konica Minolta’s new printer strategy

The printer product line at Konica Minolta has always seemed a little confused to me. In 1999 Minolta bought controlling interest in QMS, an Alabama-based pioneer in color laser printing. At that time, the printing operation seemed to be run as a separate organization with a different audience (often low end) than that for Minolta’s copier products. From the outside, at least, there seemed to be little shared technology.

In 2003, Minolta and Konica merged, and the situation didn’t change, as the new Konica Minolta had its hands full, combining both two sets of personnel and a confusing array of copier products with little in common. Starting in 2004 and moving forward, Konica Minolta started releasing the bizhub copiers and gradually built the newly unified technologies into to one of the most comprehensive and unified product lines in the business. Just last year, Konica Minolta had built a series of very successful color production MFPs (including the now top-of-the-line bizhub PRO C6500), which are giving Xerox’s DocuColor models a run for the money.

Now it is the turn of the (somewhat) neglected printer line. Konica Minolta just announced the release of two new PagePro black-and-white printers, two new families of magicolor color lasers, and an updated magicolor MFP. These new products are based on some of the technology developed for the bizhub copiers, including the same Emperon print controller. They use the same advanced Simitri toner and they share some of the same administration and security software from the bizhub line.

The most interesting product is the magicolor 8650DN, which looks like a 35ppm, printer-only version of the high-end color MFPs. It has a generous paper supply, solid finishing capability (including a booklet maker), and works with appropriate productivity software available with the higher-end bizhubs. We don’t have any prices yet, but this elegant and versatile printer looks like it will be leader in its market, somewhere between serious office use and light production.