{"id":35345,"date":"2019-07-25T13:08:18","date_gmt":"2019-07-25T20:08:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/?p=35345"},"modified":"2019-07-25T13:08:20","modified_gmt":"2019-07-25T20:08:20","slug":"konica-minolta-showcases-workplace-hub-to-philadelphia-area-clients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/the-week-in-imaging-twii\/editors-blog\/2019\/07\/konica-minolta-showcases-workplace-hub-to-philadelphia-area-clients\/","title":{"rendered":"Konica Minolta Showcases Workplace Hub to Philadelphia-Area Clients"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Tim Hall, product manager, Workplace Hub<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Taking a very methodical approach to the rollout of its\nWorkplace Hub, Konica Minolta welcomed about a dozen customers to its direct\noperations in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, on July 18 for an extended look\ninto the manufacturer\u2019s revolutionary IT offering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hour-plus demonstration served as the latest stop in a\n17-city tour in support of the Workplace Hub and the bizhub i-series MFP. Other\nstops have included Pittsburgh, Detroit, Miami, Los Angeles, Houston and\nAtlanta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Tim Hall, product manager for the Workplace Hub, these educational sessions have generally drawn between 15-70 customers, with a focus on the SMB space as well as enterprise clients with branch locations. The verticals represented in Plymouth Meeting, roughly 20 minutes outside of Philadelphia, included education, human services and<\/g> pest control clients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Worldwide Push<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Eugene Weldon, business solution consultant, Konica Minolta<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Long anticipated, the Workplace Hub has roughly 40 U.S.\ninstallations, according to Hall, which includes vendor and demo cites, along\nwith one being studied by Keypoint Intelligence. In Europe, there are\napproximately 80 in the field, with all performing as advertised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019d rather wait and make sure it works the way it\u2019s\nsupposed to rather than rushing out something that will fail,\u201d Hall noted.\n\u201cIt\u2019s been a process, especially incorporating the MFP into the package, so now\nthe operating system is a lot more stable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe prefer to be cautious rather than take a fire-off\napproach and let it all out there,\u201d he added. \u201cWe have to get the support\ninfrastructure internally and get people trained on it. This is not like\nshowing an MFP, it\u2019s so much different. It\u2019s selling everything\u2014IT services, IT\nhardware, MFP, solutions, the full package of everything combined into a single\nend point.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Hub comes with an impressive array of partnership accoutrements<\/g>, from the HPE brand server to the Microsoft 365 integration and the Sophos XG firewall. It is available in two versions, the Hub and the Edge with the i-series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IT Ecosystem<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Hub is a unified system that allows all of a client\u2019s IT\necosystem to be accessed and managed in one place. It is also scalable, with\nthe ability to grow as the user\u2019s needs evolve. It is targeted for the SMB\nspace to provide a comprehensive solution to a segment that may lack the\nresources to carry a dedicated IT department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEveryone is enthusiastic about it,\u201d Hall added. \u201cThey like\nthe concept of consolidation for billing and support. At lot of SMBs have\nconcerns about security, and they don\u2019t have dedicated IT on site. They have\nsomeone come in once in a while and just do patches. But they don\u2019t understand\nthe vulnerability of leaving a port open. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA lot of these IT issues, when you talk to customers about\nit, it kind of scares them a little bit. No one wants to deal with IT.\nEspecially the smaller companies because they don\u2019t have the resources to do\nso.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hall also provided attendees with an overview of the new\nbizhub i-series, which include A3 color MFPs (C360i, C300i and C250i) with\nspeeds of 36, 30 and 25 ppm, respectively; A4 color (C4050i at 42 ppm and\nC3350i at 35 ppm); the A4 color all-in-one (C3320i, 35 ppm); and two A4 color\nSFPs (C4000i, 42 ppm and C3300i, 35 ppm).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information on the Workplace Hub, visit here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Taking a very methodical approach to the rollout of its Workplace Hub, Konica Minolta welcomed about a dozen customers to its direct operations in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, on July 18 for an extended look into the manufacturer\u2019s revolutionary IT offering. The hour-plus demonstration served as the latest stop in a 17-city tour in support of the Workplace Hub and the bizhub i-series MFP. Other stops have included Pittsburgh, Detroit, Miami, Los Angeles, Houston and Atlanta. According to Tim Hall, product manager for the Workplace Hub, these educational sessions have generally drawn between 15-70 customers, with a focus on the SMB space as well as enterprise clients with branch locations. The verticals represented in Plymouth Meeting, roughly 20 minutes outside of Philadelphia, included education, human services and pest control clients. Worldwide Push Long anticipated, the Workplace Hub has roughly 40 U.S. installations, according to Hall, which includes vendor and demo cites, along with one being studied by Keypoint Intelligence. In Europe, there are approximately 80 in the field, with all performing as advertised. \u201cWe\u2019d rather wait and make sure it works the way it\u2019s supposed to rather than rushing out something that will fail,\u201d Hall noted. \u201cIt\u2019s been a process, especially incorporating the MFP into the package, so now the operating system is a lot more stable. \u201cWe prefer to be cautious rather than take a fire-off approach and let it all out there,\u201d he added. \u201cWe have to get the support infrastructure internally and get people trained on it. This is not like showing an MFP, it\u2019s so much different. It\u2019s selling everything\u2014IT services, IT hardware, MFP, solutions, the full package of everything combined into a single end point.\u201d The Hub comes with an impressive array of partnership accoutrements, from the HPE brand server to the Microsoft 365 integration and the Sophos XG firewall. It is available in two versions, the Hub and the Edge with the i-series. IT Ecosystem The Hub is a unified system that allows all of a client\u2019s IT ecosystem to be accessed and managed in one place. It is also scalable, with the ability to grow as the user\u2019s needs evolve. It is targeted for the SMB space to provide a comprehensive solution to a segment that may lack the resources to carry a dedicated IT department. \u201cEveryone is enthusiastic about it,\u201d Hall added. \u201cThey like the concept of consolidation for billing and support. At lot of SMBs have concerns about security, and they don\u2019t have dedicated IT on site. They have someone come in once in a while and just do patches. But they don\u2019t understand the vulnerability of leaving a port open. \u201cA lot of these IT issues, when you talk to customers about it, it kind of scares them a little bit. No one wants to deal with IT. Especially the smaller companies because they don\u2019t have the resources to do so.\u201d Hall also provided attendees with an overview of the new bizhub i-series, which include A3 color MFPs (C360i, C300i and C250i) with speeds of 36, 30 and 25 ppm, respectively; A4 color (C4050i at 42 ppm and C3350i at 35 ppm); the A4 color all-in-one (C3320i, 35 ppm); and two A4 color SFPs (C4000i, 42 ppm and C3300i, 35 ppm). For more information on the Workplace Hub, visit here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":166,"featured_media":35347,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[80,1650,82,1638],"tags":[3684],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35345"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/166"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35345"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35350,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35345\/revisions\/35350"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}