Future of photocopier industry?

[Dreama]

... My advice to fellow techs is to keep on training and retraining in order to keep abreast of this constantly changing technology, in order to keep being relevant in this field.
Computer knowledge and IT skills is a must!

Thanks - i totally agree. This is what i keep telling people that I work with. we have a younge guy here that is straight out of high school and I ahve told him to go do a TAFE course in IT (if thats what he wants to do), as that indutry would be better to be skilled in

[rthonpm]

Even with cloud solutions making an impact on a lot of organisations, there's still a lot of paper around and a need for generating reproductions of paper documents, either as electronic files, or physical copies. Further still, for most of the big copier markets (government, legal, and medical) the cloud just isn't there yet in terms of offering data security, liability, or easy ways to transfer data between providers.

Paper isn't going anywhere in the next five to ten years so there will still be a need for a copier, but it will finally become the data management hub that we've been promised it would be for years. Since digital copiers have come out, we've seen the development from copiers with add-on boards for additional functions to integrated machines with a true embedded operating system, and full network integration. How long before we see a manufacturer tie in a scan to cloud feature for using DropBox, SkyDrive, or Box.com? When does that then work for a paid add-on for scan to an Amazon Cloud service? Yes, we'll recognise a copier for what it is, we'll just see the distance it can reach increase.

The job of supporting the device is going to become much more IT focused rather than mechanical, but there will be a few things that stay the same: not enough money, piss poor company management, and far too many irate customers for stupid reasons.

[coolbeer]

When I started in the industry 30 years ago, I was told it was a short term prospect as the paperless office was just arround the corner.
Well its a large corner or maybe i have been going round in circles for years.

Paperless office, well i have another 10 years to go and and im not worried.

[cccjjn]

I started in the industry 20+ years ago as a typewriter tech working on IBM Selectric and Olivetti equipment. I worked for a thriving company at the time......That company went from thriving to out of business in about 2 years. Luckily I got out before the collapse and that's how I landed in the copier industry. I saw the writing on the wall when one of my biggest accounts got rid of 200+ typewriters that we had under annual service contracts at $189 each. The dealer I was working for at the time was not evolving with the times. I immediately began looking for a way out before it collapsed. Sure enough within 18 months of me leaving he closed his doors. In many ways I see the copier industry in the same way I saw the typewriter industry in 1994 when I bailed. If dealers do not evolve and come up with new sources of revenue they will be gone within the next few years. If you work for a dealer like that beware. Copiers are not going away completely but they are quickly becoming a disposable commodity. Not to mention that they just don't break down the way they used to in the days of spring clutches and bicycle chains. The days of the traditional copier lease and service plan will end soon. Where I see this heading is that the traditional copier dealer will vanish. It will be replaced by the technology hardware company. The technology vendor will control all aspects of a business's technology hardware from the network switch to the workstations to the output devices. Get with the times or get run over by progress.

[glewisme]

It's changed light years in the 15 years I've been in the business. Techs need to hybrid tech/IT now. No longer can a guy get by knowing how to turn screws! Our company is a Sharp dealer and we really need to start pushing the benefits of Sharp's OSA ! As well as MPS software.