The Sharp Document Solutions Company has purchased Pinnacle Document Systems in the San Francisco, California, area and opened it as a launch for a regional Sharp Business Systems sales operation.

All Pinnacle employees, including the Pinnacle management team, were asked to join the new operation. The SDSCA plans to establish more than 20 local Sharp Business Systems branches during the next few years.

Sharp, with USA headquarters in Mahwah, NJ, has also been providing other companies with multifunction machines. It's common for manufacturers to provide products to other copier-industry companies; many major name brands do the same. But Sharp providing monochrome and color digital copiers to Duplo, Santa Ana, California, is supposed to be secret. Duplo unveiled its Sharp-made Docucate copiers last August to coordinate with Duplo's duplicating and finishing-option line of products.

The alliance may create a Duplo double advance. Duplo digital duplicators use tonerless technology and low-power (DP-330Le - 60-250 watts), rapid-printing alternatives. Duplo's penetration of its line of digital duplicators appears secure as environmental-consciousness increases among corporations.

Duplo's Japanese roots date from 1951 after a spirit duplicator was developed by Juko Shima in Japan and the company began. Duplicators penetrated schools, church offices and some workplaces in that era before copiers were commonplace.

Duplo USA began in 1979 in Gardena, Calif., moving three years later to Orange County, California. One star product was a vertical collator that started a generation or products in the finishing area. In 1998, a distribution facility in Suwanee, Georgia, northeast of Atlanta, was established. Duplo's diverse finishing alternatives that include collators and creasers complement its digital duplicator lines and now, its digital copier-printers.

Coming in April - read the first of three 2007 Copier Careers Salary Surveys about the copier industry. Here are the links and the time schedule:

Copier Careers Technician Salary Survey Web site (Published in April):
http://www.copiercareers.com/salary_survey/cc07_salary_survey_tech_f.pdf

Copier Careers Sales Managers' Salary Survey Web site (Published in May):
http://www.copiercareers.com/salary_survey/salary_survey_salesmgr_cc_f.pdf

Copier Careers Service Managers' Salary Survey Web site (Published in June):
http://www.copiercareers.com/salary_survey/cc_salary_survey_svcmgt_f.pdf

Please visit the following link to participate in the next 2008 Copier Careers survey:
http://www.copiercareers.com/salary_survey/salarysurveys_form.shtml

After cutting its central workforce to a little over 300, Xerox will move by this summer from its Stamford, Connecticut headquarters to a smaller building in Norwalk, Conn., about 10 miles away.

CEO Anne Mulcahy announced that the company was considering a move over a year ago, and announced the move at a Partner Summit in March. Xerox headquarter is moving from its 25 acre area in Stamford with a huge, four-story complex encompassing over 200,000 square feet to a much smaller site on Glover Avenue in Norwalk.

The workforce has been trimmed as part of the downsizing of the company initiated by Mulcahy, with twice as many employees employed as recently as seven years ago.

Xerox has called Stamford its headquarters since 1969, when it moved from long-time headquarters in Rochester, N.Y. Xerox was formerly the Haloid Company, known primarily as a photo-paper making company formed in 1906 in Rochester. The company purchased the copier technology of Chester Carlson in 1947 and the company became Xerox in 1959 before moving to Stamford a decade later.

Footnote: Mulcahy is to be the next chairman of the Corporate Governance Task Force and a member the Policy Committee for the Business Roundtable, an association of 160 CEOs of major U.S. corporations.

Canon has an imageCLASS MF4690 for small offices that has built-in networking features and duplexing for $399. Also introduced: imageRUNNER 5055 (55 ppm, $17,000), 5065 (65 ppm, $21,500) and 5075 (75 ppm, $28,000).

Xerox has seven new products starting at $499, including the Xerox Phaser 6360, (42 ppm color, B W, $1,399); Phaser 8560 (30 ppm color, B W, $799); Phaser 8560MFP model adds copying, scanning and faxing, starting at $1,499; Phaser 6115MFP (5 ppm color, 20 B W, $799); Phaser 6180 (10 ppm color, 26 B W, $499 and the FaxCentre 2121 ($999 ) and FaxCentre 2218 ($1,799).

Panasonic has announced the release of three high-output MFPs. No suggested prices are listed for the 35-page-per-minute DP-8035, the 45-ppm DP-8045 and the 60-ppm DP-8060.

Kyocera Mita and Copystar introduced the FS-C8100DN networked printer with MFP capability at 32 ppm and a price of $7,624.

Ricoh has launched a new series, the Aficio MP1600 (16 ppm, $2,300) and MP 2000 (20 ppm, $2,950) with add-on pricing for extra features for the MFPs.

Konica Minolta announced its bizhub 360 will provide monochrome 36 ppm MFP (printer/copier/scanner/fax) capability for workgroups for a price of $9,200.

Katun is marketing a cost accounting, logistics, printing and printer-service management solution called Next-Generation Performance Software Solution.

Konica Minolta is supporting and seeking donations to New Orleans' "Little Red School House" campaign, trying to raise $200,000 for school repairs.

A longtime supporter of zero waste technology, Ricoh announced its support of the Global Roundtable on Climate Change joint statement. HP announced recycling to reduce the environmental impact of IT products, including packaging to reduce greenhouse gases 37 million pounds this year.

Some day you may come into see the person on the other side of the cubicle sitting on a large rubber ball.

Demoted? Bad financials this quarter? No, exercise balls are sometimes replacing the office chair among 20-somethings in the workplace. An episode of NBC's "The Office" got into the act as the repeated bouncing irritated a worker enough to stab it.

What are the benefits of the ball? For one, the 30-inch balls are supposed to increase tension in the lower back and abdomen and therefore help posture. Yet some medical experts recommend the ball only for people under 50 in good physical condition. An alternative: Specialty shops that make balls more like chairs.

Critics say sitting on a ball without adjustments, back support or arm support can lead more office workers to select to sit on the caster-supported option. And don't let it roll over in your cubicle mates' way.

Another hazard to being on the ball? Falling off while on the phone. It has happened.

X-Tech Systems, an independent office-equipment dealer based in the coastal town of Goleta, Calif., with print-for-pay offices in Santa Barbara and Chatsworth, sells and services to companies in a 175-mile area north of Los Angeles from San Luis 0bispo to Burbank, Calif.

"We are big enough to get the job done, yet small enough to care," is the slogan on the company Web site. Owner Sandy Roberts, who presides over the company, was a service technician for Xerox before founding the company in 1981. The company started servicing accounts with universities and internationally-known companies. Within five years, X-Tech moved into selling remanufactured copiers.

Three salespeople and seven service techs - a total of 30 staff in all - work at X-Tech Systems. Konica Minolta, Kyocera, Copystar and Muratec equipment, plus KIP wide-format machines are sold and serviced. Most of the equipment is in the mid-segment 30-65 page-per-minute area, said Mario Quezada, the operations manager, but higher-segment equipment running 75-92 ppm is in demand in the company's high-tech area along the west coast. X-Tech specializes with customers who have multiple locations.

As operations manager, Quezada coordinates company areas such as service, sales, network connectivity and human resources. The fast-paced area sometimes has high expectations, but Quezada says it's a more relaxed locale than Los Angeles.

Roberts' Xerox background is a common company foundation. Quezada started with Xerox in 1976 and was hired in technical service at X-Tech in 1985. The X-Tech sales manager, Stephen Smith, is likewise from Xerox. And longevity runs in the company. "We have people with a lot of experience," Quezada said, "…some techs with as much as 14 years."

The modern printer is sometimes a scanner, sometimes a fax machine and sometimes a copier. It's so essential that a national telephone survey reveals the printer is something high-tech people say they need to do their work.

A study commissioned by Lexmark International and done by Ipsos Public Affairs, headquartered in Washington, D.C., showed people felt their printer was essential.

The study of 711 workers to gauge workplace and technology trends was done in latter October last year.

The study showed people who use a computer for such tasks as database applications, word processing, spreadsheet, and Internet and e-mail applications said 94 percent of the time the printer is essential. By contrast, the study showed the copier with an 86 percent essential response.

It showed the Internet was deemed essential by 93 percent and e-mail by 92 percent. The respondents also said they wanted wireless printing in the workplace office (81 percent) and over a third (34 percent) wanted wireless printing in a vehicle or public conveyance such as a bus or train.

With laptops a service-technician staple, it's understandable that a lost or stolen laptops can generate panic because it means sensitive data has been compromised.

Now Seagate says ASI Computer Technologies. Richardson , Texas, will have full disk encryption on a notebook featuring Seagate's 80-gigabyte drive with "DriveTrust" technology.

Called "Fixed Disk Encryption" (FDE), the drive encrypts all data on the drive with a user key, providing less vulnerability to hacking or tampering. The encryption also allows a secure procedure for instant erasure and re-use of the drive.

ASI is a relatively small manufacturer of laptops and Seagate is talking to larger manufacturers about use of FDE-enabled drives. This type of encryption is expected to be quickly adapted by security-conscious firms, including those working with governments.

Sales Manager - Randolph, NJ

Sales Associate - Randolph, NJ

Technician - Billings, MT

Sales Representatives - Los Angeles and surrounding area down to San Diego

Ricoh Technician - Houston, TX

Service Manager - Austin, TX

Technician - Boston, MA

Regional Sales Manager - West Coast

Regional Sales Manager - East Coast Tri-State Area

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