A4 MAKES A STATEMENT

When Sharp rolled out a second generation of A4 products last summer, the company made a strong statement about its commitment to A4 whether or not the majority of its dealer channel was ready to make that commitment as well.

No doubt segments of the independent dealer community are not thrilled about the prospect of selling A4 devices, mostly because of the lower price point. That’s why Sharp made a concerted effort during their annual dealer meeting to dispel those fears and underscore the opportunities a menu of A4 devices offer to a dealer going head to head with printer manufacturers like HP whose stock in trade has long been A4-type devices.

But HP and Sharp are not alone in the A4 space. Names that currently stand out in the A4 space include HP, Brother, Lexmark, Sharp, Kyocera Mita, Okidata, and Samsung. Expect more to join the fray in the next 12-18 months.

Imaging industry pundits are gaga over A4, and it no doubt gives them something new to talk and write about even if some dealers feel they’re currently overstating the impact of A4.

Jon Bees, President of Imaging Strategies, an imaging consulting and research organization, doesn’t think all this talk of A4 is overrated.

“I think it’s a very real trend,” says Bees. “Where you’re not going to see a lot of change is folks selling A4 devices to replace A3 because it’s bad for business and no dealer is going to willingly do that.”

Advantages of A4

What makes A4 such a big deal? Let’s look at some of the advantages from an end-user perspective. These devices are typically smaller than A3 devices, which mean they take up less space. They consume 50 percent less power than A3 copiers, which means they’re less expensive to operate. They cost about half the price of an A3 device and are a healthy alternative for businesses that don’t need 11 x 17-inch copying and printing capability.

The dealer community has mixed feelings about A4 primarily because of the lower margins, although most everyone acknowledges it’s not such a bad thing to have in their product offerings.

“I can see where A3 copiers will probably be retained by many businesses, but with the decreased call for 11 x 7 output it is more likely that most companies will look to a print or copy shop to serve those rare needs or very high volumes,” says Ray Belanger, President and CEO of Bay Copy, a Rockland, Mass. dealer. “And as businesses continue to consolidate equipment to save on energy, space and cost, the appeal of A4 should continue to rise.”

Although Belanger sees value in A4, he acknowledges its limitations, especially with A4 devices at the lower end of the spectrum.

“That’s not to say that the A4 is for every business,” suggests Belanger. “Not all MFPs are created equally. Equipment purchased at the “Big Box” stores and on the Web may look good based on their spec sheets, but often have higher operating costs that can make them more expensive [to operate] than traditional copiers and printers.”

What Belanger, A4 office equipment manufacturers such as Sharp, and other savvy dealers get is that the support component will continue to be a prime differentiator even in an A4 world, which in essence places the independent dealer community in the driver’s seat.

“Companies that purchase cheap MFPs from “Big Box” stores or the Web will be in for big surprises when something doesn’t work right,” notes Belanger. “Onsite support for hardware and software issues that may occur should be in place. That requires comprehensive training and a support infrastructure that independent dealers can provide.”

A4 = MPS Success

As the industry gravitates towards a managed print services model and a greater emphasis on total cost of ownership, the next order of business is focusing on ways to generate documents more economically. A4 fits squarely into that equation.

“Another reason A4 will have staying power is that it’s an important part of MPS engagements,” says Bees. “The more a dealer gets into MPS, the more likely he will need to have an A4 solution.”

Still, the big hurdle is getting dealers and resellers to embrace a product with a smaller selling price.

“Dealers are still focused on, ‘I need to sell a $10,000 or $20,000 box and I’m not going to waste my time for $1,500,’” says Joseph Odore, Product Specialist, MFP/Fax, Panasonic Systems Network Company of North America (PSNA). “They’re not realizing that people aren’t spending that kind of money anymore and that they want to reduce costs and be more efficient.”

Out in the Field

Despite the industry’s A4 advocates, some dealers still feel the fuss over A4 is overrated. Glenn Plank, service and parts manager at FaxWorld in Huntington Beach, Calif. sells Ricoh devices and reports that whenever he and the company’s owner, Leonard Mingoia, meet with Ricoh they hear a lot about A4 and how important it’s going to be going forward.

“We even read in periodicals like ENX how A4 is taking the market by storm and we better watch out because HP is doing all these wonderful things and we’ve got to be there or else,” says Plank.

But when Plank and Mingoia look at how many deals they’ve lost to HP because they didn’t have A4, the reality is they haven’t lost any.

“And how many HP A4 machines have we seen in the field? None,” adds Plank. “We keep being told that it’s super important and I understand that not everybody needs 11 x 17.”

And FaxWorld’s customers aren’t asking about it either. What FaxWorld does have is plenty of customers who still need that 11 x 17 capability.

“We do a lot of work with engineering, construction, and accounting [firms and those people] like having 11 x 17,” notes Plank. “And with color machines people find they need 11 x 17 because they’re doing a lot more color advertising on their own and 11 x 17 is a useful media for doing that.”

Bees feels that the main reason FaxWorld isn’t seeing a lot of A4 or isn’t losing business to it is largely because they’re predominantly selling A3 and they’re likely engaged in an A3 to A3 transaction.

“Many of the A4 transactions are when dealers with an A4 line are targeting an HP single-function printer or an HP inkjet MFP or single-function device,” maintains Bees. “If you’re just selling A3 and not targeting HP placements, then you might not run into A4.”

That argument aside, Mingoia believes color technology still offers the most promise and in this space 11 x 17 copying and printing capability is critical, especially for customers who might want to do a two-sided color page that they can fold in half to create a booklet manually or with the finisher on the device.

“With color machines, people need to copy large items like newspaper articles, and maps,” adds Plank. “They may not use 11 x 17 very often but it does come in handy for those occasional scanning and copying applications for that odd-size material. It may not be a normal business document but it’s helpful when doing a map or trying to scan or staple a newspaper or article that doesn’t fit the common-sized stock.”

Plank is also a proponent of rotate-sort capability. “When you have a copier that does not have a finisher on it and you want to sort a big set of documents printed,” explains Plank. “If it’s all printed on letter-size paper you can turn on something called rotate-sort where if you have two paper cassettes on your machine that are letter size and have paper loaded in those cassettes, you can choose different orientations—short edge feed and long-edge feed. You can turn on rotate-sort and without a finisher—we call it cross-stack sorting—they come out and you can identify your sets. You can only do that with a machine that can handle 11-inch widths. That’s not an option with an A4 machine.”

That said, Plank and Mingoia won’t dismiss A4 even though they’ve seen a similar fuss made over other types of products such as Ricoh’s Gel Sprinter that so far has pretty much turned into a big nothing.

“I can certainly see in the future that A4 would be a nice offering to have to be competitive,” says Plank.

Meanwhile, Mingoia would like to see Ricoh introduce A4 products, particularly since he believes Ricoh has the technical know-how to do it right.

“Ricoh is missing some stuff in the $1,000-$2,000 price range, and if we had an A4 copier with a decent set of features and a good op panel I think it would be a good machine,” he says.

A4 vs. A3

One message that Bees feels dealers need to hear is that A4 isn’t necessarily a replacement for A3.

“You don’t want to sell A4 to replace an A3,” he says. “That’s not doing anybody any good, but certainly selling an A4 device to replace a single-function printer or inkjet MFP or consumer-oriented laser MFP that’s somehow found its way into a customer’s office makes sense. Any dealer who has access to A4 in their line should be targeting single-function printers.”
The bottom line is that even though A4 seems to be the technology du jour, no one thinks A3 will go away, but what we’re likely to see are more A4 devices adapting features found on A3 units.

“There’s always going to be a need for A3, but the amount of the market buying bigger product is shrinking,” says Panasonic’s Odore. “In the early part of 2000 everybody was moving towards the centralized office. Now the office is decentralizing in my opinion in the cost-saving space we’re eventually going to have that A4 product down to the price of the A3’s operating costs with lower maintenance requirements and more features.”

And when Odore mentions more features, he’s referring to more A3-like features that will be built into those products. He adds that PSNA is currently working closely with the company’s factory in Japan to determine which specific features will be added to future products.

“We have those technologies and are finding new ways to incorporate them and make the box more feature rich,” says Odore. “That’s how we’re going to be pushing the A4s.”

An Opportunity Not a Threat

Even though not everyone in the industry is completely sold on A4 yet, it’s coming on strong and will likely be a key component of most manufacturer’s and dealers’ product offerings in the near future. One thing is for sure, it should not be considered a threat to a dealer’s livelihood.
“It is not a threat, it is a compatible device for lower segment customers,” emphasizes Frank Cannata, President of Marketing Research Consultants. “Upgrading a Segment 1, 2 or even lower volume 3 becomes relatively easy when you offer an A4 MFP. At the same time those competitive customers with loads of printers are fertile ground for the placement of multiple A4 devices. Without an A4 MFP what will dealers offer when their customers are approached with a competitive A4 product? You need an A4 in your arsenal to protect your MIF (machines in field). Finally, MPS and A4 really go together because as the acronym implies it is all about capturing clicks.


Scott Cullen has been writing about the office equipment industry since 1986. He’s still a bit cynical about A4 but is glad it’s here since it gives him something new to write about.