PRINT.IT
17
MFP
Mark Ash, Head of Print, Samsung UK
& Ireland, describes 2014 as ‘by far
and away the best year’ Samsung’s
print business has ever had.
“Our hardware business grew 37%
last year and we delivered our best
performance in our 24-year history.
When you delve below the surface,
the A3 growth was phenomenal.
Overall, we quadrupled our A3
business (up 387%). We were the
fastest growing vendor and the only
vendor that showed quarter-on-
quarter growth throughout the year.
That’s really exciting for us,” he said.
Ash attributes Samsung’s success
to a number of factors including:
n
the recruitment of more copier
dealers – the number of Samsung
trading accounts in the office
automation (OA) channel has gone up
from 26 to 87;
n
the introduction of innovative
new products, notably the MX4 (A4)
and MX7 (A3) MFPs featuring a new
Android interface; and
n
Samsung’s expertise in other
business areas, such as mobility and
displays, which is helping to broaden
its appeal, especially amongst
enterprise customers.
“The growth we have experienced
in the Samsung B2B and Samsung
Business Enterprise Teams has been
phenomenal, and it is largely driven
by the prowess we have shown in our
consumer business,” he said. “We
now find ourselves around the board
table with C-suite executives, typically
CIOs, who already use Samsung
technology in their personal lives,
talking about how print is integrated
in their business... I’ve yet to find a
CIO who says ‘Mark, I’ve got a burning
desire to talk to you about print’. But
they will talk to you about mobility.”
Samsung’s early integration of
NFC into its print devices is a good
example of how it uses technology
to position print in the context of
broader strategic discussions, such
as enterprise mobility.
Samsung is building on a successful 2014 with the launch of its
most powerful MFP to date.
Enterprises,
here we come
The complete solution
The MultiXpress 7 (MX7) A3 colour MFP has been designed to meet the needs of
enterprises and SMBs with a requirement for smarter, more productive print devices.
Offering print speeds of up to 60ppm, the MX7 is the only A3 MFP on the market powered
by a Quadcore CPU for faster operation. It takes just 18 seconds to boot and 12 seconds
to wake from sleep mode. The first page out time is 3 seconds for a mono page and 4.5
seconds for colour prints. Print quality is 1200 dpi even when running at full speed.
A major attraction for paper-intensive businesses is the high speed scanner offering an
industry-leading scan speed of up to 120 pages per minute or 240 images per minute on
two-sided documents.
Other productivity enhancements include an 802.11ac-capable network chip, which is
three times faster than the older 802.11n standard, and Bluetooth Low Energy connectivity,
which gives users ‘always-on’ connectivity when in close proximity to the device.
The MX7 features a 10.1-inch Android-powered display running Samsung Smart UX 2.0,
which can be customised with Samsung and third party apps offering additional functionality
and seamless integration with existing office cloud and server networks (printingapps.
samsung.com).
The MX7 is capable of printing up to 300,000 pages a month and comes with an optional
large toner cartridge with a capacity of 30,000 (C,M,Y) or 45,000 (K) pages. Other options
include an automated document stapler capable of stapling 60 sheets or an 80-page A4
booklet.
“The MX7 has got NFC and
Bluetooth LTE – a low energy variant
of Bluetooth – which has implications
for how you authenticate yourself
at a device, configure the device
personally to your requirements and
also release jobs. NFC is definitely
part of the mobility strategy of many
businesses,” Ash explained.
Although Samsung has won the
Buyers Lab Inc.
Monochrome Printer/
MFP Line of the Year Award
for two
years in a row, in the past its printer
hardware offering has not been
broad enough to meet the needs
of enterprise customers. With the
launch of the MX7 that is no longer
the case, claims Ash.
“We manufacture some great
products, but there are certain types
of vertical market that take on higher
end products – professional services,
legal services – and to date we have
not had a product that catered for
every single requirement,” he said.
“The MX7 takes us into 93% of
the addressable market and it gives
us a powerful proposition to really
compete in those markets. The
differentiators, the very mundane
things, mean a lot, like 300gsm
paper handling, SRA3, 200gsm
duplex capacity, a 240 images per
minute scanner. We are putting a hell
of a lot of productivity into the hands
of the workforce now.”
In this context, the introduction of
the Android platform on the MX4 and
MX7, the opening of an app store for
the Smart UX platform and the launch
of a software development kit that
will enable third parties to develop
their own apps are significant.
“We have High Street retailers
who are developing apps that enable
them to use the display on the device
as a kiosk, so someone can walk in,
access the retailer’s website and pull
off content. We are also working with
some well known DIY chains in the
UK and it’s incredibly exciting looking
at what they plan to do with it,”
explained Ash.
Mark Ash:
Samsung’s
‘best year’
