Below is a message from Expert Laser Services CEO Luke Carpentier.
After 15 years of World Expos I'll be skipping the Recharger show in Las Vegas this summer.
The "Managed Print Services Summit" -- now the show's opening event and big drawing card -- typifies my reasons for not going. The "Summit" is really just a sales pitch camouflaged as an MPS-101 course. It encourages everyone-and-his-uncle to dive into the market, then tells them they need a toner vendor or a printer-copier manufacturer as their "MPS partner."
It's a great scam and -- you know what? -- there's still a sucker born every minute.
But, believe me, the new competition isn't the issue. The vast majority of those who buy-in to the spiel will definitely "come up craps" -- to use the Vegas' vernacular.
But it rips me to see our industry -- an industry which has had to fight long and hard to gain respectability and secure our seat at the table -- dragged back down into the muck by a bunch of greedy, know-nothing talking heads. The drill-and-fill and void-my-warranty fears of the remanufacturing industry's past will be replaced by a managed print services label of incompetence, short-ships and product failures.
A wild prediction? -- I wish it were.
The industry is already seeing shortages of virgin monochrome cores. There is nowhere for that trend to go but up, particularly while the MPS space is dominated by the hardware manufacturers. Most of their toner recharging is "one-and-done." They split the core, weakening the integrity of the cartridge, and it becomes either a throw-away or a "use it anyway and watch it fail" commodity.
Customers with companies like ours won't have to worry. We dropped off and pick up our own toners and remanufacture without cutting the core. Our process means a cartridge can be reused up to 10 times.
But we are a tiny minority, I'm afraid. (Are we the only one left???)
And, when the mud starts flying, we'll be labeled with the same ugly reputation as all these other johnny-come-lately MPS providers.
So, who wants to rub elbows with that crowd?
I'll be back for World Expo 2015. By then the dirt should be washed away along with this latest generation of gold-diggers. Then the World Expo can be a true Recharger show again.
Luke Carpentier
Expert Laser Services, Inc.
