New office printer contract. Who is good?

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lomenak

119 posts

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#242275 18-Oct-2018 22:06

Our FX deal is finally up so will be looking into a new printer/provider. SMB with about 30 staff. Need just one A3 enabled machine, nothing out of the ordinary really. Thinking about Sharp, maybe Ricoh, Brother? Any experience with those?

Goosey

2829 posts

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#2110738 19-Oct-2018 06:51

re-negociate with FX?

Remember, cost vs PIA to change drivers and paths on everything, then re-educate the 30 staff on how to use the thing...... = kaos for a month or two.

Then you will have to consider reliability...

Dont all copier companies give you free equipment and cheap toner? or cheap equipment and free toner?

Linux

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#2110739 19-Oct-2018 06:55

Any issues with the contract / support you have now?

John

xpd

Geek @ Coastguard NZ
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#2110754 19-Oct-2018 07:28

I went through all of the big players a few years back in seeing what they could off for the office I was supporting, they all made everything seem appealing but when you actually sat down and worked it all out, they were all pretty close for cost and features. Ended up sticking with original supplier (who was FX).

Let them know you're looking elsewhere, and they'll play ball.

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

LinkTree

lomenak

119 posts

Master Geek

#2110761 19-Oct-2018 07:59

Sorry guys, should have mentioned that staying with FX is a no go. After our work got sucked into one of their shadey as committed volume deals, there is a lot of bad blood in this relationship now.

jnimmo

1097 posts

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#2110788 19-Oct-2018 09:19

It could be worth trying to start a fresh discussion, knowing what your volumes are now.

I've recently replaced a FX fleet with another company but knowing what I do now would go back to FX. Still don't think anyone else's user interface on the machines is as good.

EDIT: The people I've dealt with at Ricoh seem genuine.

trig42

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#2110801 19-Oct-2018 09:37

We have a Ricoh for an office slightly bigger.

It has been a great printer/MFC.

It orders supplies as needed (as I'm sure all of them do), though a change in our firewalls blocked it and we ran out of toner a couple of months back. Our rep brought one over for us same day (rather than overnight courier).

We are looking at Canon and Ricoh for another project, and both have put in good pricing for the printing. The difference is that one of them is offering cash for our old printer fleet, the other isn't (and is charging quite considerable setup costs - it is about 180 A4 printers/Multifunctions).

plod

272 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2110809 19-Oct-2018 09:46

lomenak:
Sorry guys, should have mentioned that staying with FX is a no go. After our work got sucked into one of their shadey as committed volume deals, there is a lot of bad blood in this relationship now.

. You are correct, avoid FX and there shady deals. They have left a lot of bad blood in the printing industry. We switched from FX to Ricoh for our office and digital production machines. Every brand has there issues with there products. FX has issues with there business practices.

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jnimmo

1097 posts

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#2110819 19-Oct-2018 10:09

plod:
lomenak:

Sorry guys, should have mentioned that staying with FX is a no go. After our work got sucked into one of their shadey as committed volume deals, there is a lot of bad blood in this relationship now.

. You are correct, avoid FX and there shady deals. They have left a lot of bad blood in the printing industry. We switched from FX to Ricoh for our office and digital production machines. Every brand has there issues with there products. FX has issues with there business practices.

Certainly the FX contract we had was nice and simple, all wrapped up in one document, one place to sign. I always go on the safe side for printing volumes though. Another vendor which was named in the previous post you end up with a contract for the lease of the machines and a separate one with a different legal entity for service. I don't know what would happen if you needed to get out of one (i.e. they were failing to meet service SLAs, you'd still be stuck with the lease contract).

plod

272 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2110833 19-Oct-2018 10:49

jnimmo:
plod:
lomenak:

Sorry guys, should have mentioned that staying with FX is a no go. After our work got sucked into one of their shadey as committed volume deals, there is a lot of bad blood in this relationship now.

. You are correct, avoid FX and there shady deals. They have left a lot of bad blood in the printing industry. We switched from FX to Ricoh for our office and digital production machines. Every brand has there issues with there products. FX has issues with there business practices.

Certainly the FX contract we had was nice and simple, all wrapped up in one document, one place to sign. I always go on the safe side for printing volumes though. Another vendor which was named in the previous post you end up with a contract for the lease of the machines and a separate one with a different legal entity for service. I don't know what would happen if you needed to get out of one (i.e. they were failing to meet service SLAs, you'd still be stuck with the lease contract).

the fact the government jolted all future bidding contracts with FX must tell you something about their dodgy accounting practices. Google is your friend.

BlueShift

1692 posts

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#2110931 19-Oct-2018 12:43

We have a fleet of Ricohs. Happy with the printers, although their interface design is unintuitive and crowded. For instance, if someone sends a job with the wrong paper size, the printer will beep and show a red light and not print, but it won't tell you what the problem is until you log in then hit Status and Printer, then it gives you the button to tell it to print it on A4 anyway.

The support we've had is excellent - a local helpdesk, very prompt tech support, quick turnaround on toner.

I called them earlier this week with a problem at 2:45, I walked past the printer at 3:40 and there was a tech up to his armpits in it. He had to order parts in, but had them in the printer by the next day.

MadEngineer

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#2111165 19-Oct-2018 19:09

+1 for Ricoh

The above issue can be resolved by setting paper type bypass on all trays to no display.

You're not on Atlantis anymore, Duncan Idaho.

lomenak

119 posts

Master Geek

#2111814 21-Oct-2018 12:01

Thanks for the feedback guys. Will be meeting someone from Ricoh next week and take it from there.