Who Will Be the Next Hewlett-Packard?

During the technology-stock bubble of the 1990s, it would have been a compliment to say a company had the potential to become the next Hewlett-Packard Co. That same line would have a very different meaning now.

Today, if someone called a company the next Hewlett- Packard, this would probably mean it is a prime candidate to book huge losses because of disastrous acquisitions. What might such a company look like? Consider Xerox Corp. (XRX)

At the start of 2007, Xerox had a stock-market value of $16 billion. Since then, the Norwalk, Connecticut-based printer and copier pioneer has paid about $9.1 billion to acquire 41 other companies. It has destroyed more value than it created. At $6.79 a share, Xerox’s market value is $8.6 billion -- equivalent to 71 percent of its common shareholder equity, or book value.

The most glaring sign that large writedowns may be needed at Xerox is a line on its books called goodwill, which is the intangible asset that a company records when it pays a premium in a takeover. Xerox’s balance sheet would have investors believe that its goodwill alone, at $9 billion, is more valuable than what the market says the whole company is worth.

Xerox’s goodwill obviously isn’t worth that in reality. Goodwill exists only on paper and can’t be sold by itself. It’s a plug number, defined under the accounting rules as the difference between the purchase price for an acquisition and the fair value of the acquired company’s net assets.

‘Reference Points’

Asked about the possible need for large writedowns, a Xerox spokeswoman, Karen Arena, noted that the company will conduct its annual goodwill-impairment test this quarter.
“Share price is just one of several reference points we use to validate our assumptions,” she said. “We also look to our operational results, including cash flows, revenue growth and profit margins.”
Most of the goodwill on Xerox’s balance sheet arose from the company’s $6.5 billion acquisition in 2010 of Affiliated Computer Services Inc., a provider of information-technology services. Xerox allocated $5.1 billion of the purchase price in that deal to goodwill. Xerox’s latest balance sheet also showed $2.9 billion of other intangible assets, the bulk of which are customer relationships acquired from Affiliated Computer.
Suspiciously high goodwill was the same indicator I pointed to in an Oct. 4 blog post suggesting that more large writedowns were needed at Hewlett-Packard. (HPQ) The Palo Alto, California-based maker of computers and printers traded for a significant discount to book value at the time, and its goodwill exceeded its market value by $7.5 billion.

Hewlett-Packard last week disclosed an $8.8 billion writedown of goodwill and other intangible assets from its 2011 purchase of the U.K. software maker Autonomy Corp. It said more than $5 billion of the charge was related to financial-reporting improprieties by Autonomy. The disclosure sent Hewlett-Packard’s shares down 12 percent in a day.

Regardless of whether the allegation proves correct, Hewlett-Packard paid way too much for Autonomy, which had a reputation for aggressive accounting long before it was bought. (Just ask the analysts at the financial-research firm CFRA in New York, who wrote 14 reports from 2001 to 2010 raising doubts about Autonomy’s accounting and disclosure practices.)

Hewlett-Packard had allocated $6.9 billion of its $11 billion purchase price for Autonomy to goodwill. The writedowns disclosed last week were only the latest of their kind. Three months earlier, Hewlett-Packard recorded a $9.2 billion writedown largely related to its buyout of Electronic Data Systems Corp. in 2008.

Dubious Leaders

A search for other companies with strangely high goodwill values turned up several notable examples. Credit Agricole SA (ACA), the French bank that trades for about a third of its book value, shows goodwill of 16.9 billion euros ($21.9 billion). By comparison, its stock-market value is 14.6 billion euros.
Telecom Italia SpA (TIT), which trades for about 60 percent of its book value, has goodwill of 36.8 billion euros and a market capitalization of only 13.2 billion euros. Fiat SpA (F), the Italian automaker, trades for less than half of book and shows goodwill of 10.4 billion euros -- more than twice its market value. Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. trades for 78 percent of book and shows $5.3 billion of goodwill; its market cap is $4 billion.


Those kinds of numbers -- where the balance sheets are clearly out of whack with market sentiments -- don’t necessarily mean the companies will be required to slash asset values. But they are strong indicators that big writedowns may be needed. The test under the rules ultimately comes down to management’s cash-flow projections, and whether they are strong enough to justify the goodwill on the books. That’s why goodwill writedowns can be an important signal about the future.
Xerox had an infamous accounting scandal more than a decade ago that resulted in a $10 million fine by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The penalty was a record at the time for an accounting-fraud case. Six former executives, including former Chief Executive Officer Paul Allaire, paid $22 million in SEC settlements in 2003. The last thing Xerox and its CEO, Ursula Burns, should be giving investors is a reason to wonder whether they can trust the company’s numbers.

The market has already decided it has one.

Canon U.S.A. Announces Mobile Printing App for Home and Office Users

Submitted by Sara on Mon, 11/26/2012 - 15:01 LAKE SUCCESS, N.Y., November 26, 2012 – Canon U.S.A., Inc., a leader in digital imaging solutions, today announced its Canon Mobile Printing App for iPhone® and iPad®, extending Canon's already comprehensive support for mobile office users and consumers. Canon Mobile Printing enables users in homes and offices of all sizes to send print jobs directly from their iPhone and iPad to a compatible Canon output device.
The Canon Mobile Printing App is compatible with select Canon imageCLASS desktop laser printers and multifunction printers including the recently launched MF4000 models. The app is also compatible with Canon's recently released next generation imageRUNNER ADVANCE C5200, 6200, and 8200 enterprise multifunction office systems. Additionally, the app supports most imageRUNNER and imageRUNNER ADVANCE enterprise multifunction office systems, as well as imageRUNNER LBP printers. Users can print Microsoft® Office files (doc, docx, xls, xlsx, ppt, pptx), iWork® files (Pages, Numbers, Keynote), JPEG, GIF, BMP, PNG, TIFF and PDF files, photographs (stored in Photo Albums and taken with the device camera), and web pages directly through the app's user-friendly interface.
"With today's mobile workforce, being able to print on-the-go is becoming an increasingly valuable asset," said Sam Yoshida, vice president and general manager, Marketing, Business Imaging Solutions Group, Canon U.S.A. "The new Canon Mobile Printing App provides ease of use and places traditional print functionality at the fingertips of today's mobile worker."
The Canon Mobile Printing App features the following innovative tools:

OpenIn Compatibility Improves Efficiency

The Canon Mobile Printing user experience becomes seamless with the integration of OpenIn, a feature that allows users to capitalize on the functionality of the mobile app while navigating through files located elsewhere. The OpenIn feature allows users to easily navigate to Canon Mobile Printing directly from the application they are in, giving the customer more ways to access printing.

Variety of Supported Document Types Enhances Usability

Designed with the end-user in mind, the app supports a variety of file formats. Users can print Microsoft Office files (doc, docx, xls, xlsx, ppt, pptx), iWork files, PDF, JPEG, GIF, BMP, PNG, TIFF files, photographs, and web pages can be printed directly through the app.

Wide Range of Compatibility Provides a Satisfying End-User Experience

The app supports devices running iOS 5.1 - 6.0 and is available for the iPhone 5, iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, the new iPad, iPad 2, and the original iPad. The app also supports most imageRUNNER and imageRUNNER ADVANCE enterprise multifunction office systems and includes support for the next generation imageRUNNER ADVANCE multifunction devices. In addition, the app supports compatible imageCLASS printers and imageRUNNER LBP printers.

Intuitive Printer Communication

The app can search for and identify Canon printers within a wireless (Wi-Fi) broadcast range - and automatically save these devices for future use. If the Canon printer cannot be found within a wireless broadcast range, users can manually enter the IP address of the Canon device to list it as one of their available print devices.

Opportunity to Choose Print Settings Optimizes Workflow

The app offers a variety of built-in printing options to enhance control and performance. Users can tailor print range, paper size, color output, and number of copies directly from the app. Depending on the finishing features on the printer, documents can also be stapled directly from the menu. Additionally, users can instruct the app to feed paper automatically or via the device manual bypass.

Preview Modes Support Enhances Ease of Use

Users will be able to preview documents, photos and web pages prior to printing to determine the ideal settings for a specific print job. Items with multiple pages can also be previewed by swiping the screen to move through the document.
The Canon Mobile Printing App is available for free from the App Store℠ or at www.itunes.com/appstore. Search for "Canon Mobile Printing".
For product specifications and device information, please visit the Canon USA website at http://usa.canon.com/cusa/office/standard_display/DeviceListing

AUXILIO Signs Five Year Managed Print Services Contract with New Hampshire's LRGHealthcare

11/13/2012| 09:15am US/Eastern
AUXILIO, Inc. (OTCBB: AUXO), the nation's leading Managed Print Services (MPS) company for health care, announced a new five year contract with LRGHealthcare in New Hampshire to implement its Managed Print Services program in the care organization's Lake's Region General Hospital and Franklin Regional Hospital. LRGHealthcare is the second hospital group affiliated with the Granite Healthcare Network (GHN), a partnership of five independent New Hampshire charitable organizations, to contract with AUXILIO. Last May, Wentworth-Douglass Hospital (WDH), one of the largest acute care and multi-specialty hospitals in the Seacoast region of New Hampshire and Southern Maine, contracted with AUXILIO as its preferred MPS solutions company. AUXILIO's print services model will achieve cost cuts upwards of 20 percent in the care organizations' print environment through volume reduction initiatives, device and supply chain management and improvements in document workflow processes.
AUXILIO's unique and proprietary MPS program includes a full time, on-site staff of print services experts who will work with LRGHealthcare's management team and caregivers to deliver the company's health care exclusive, vendor neutral print management services to the 160-bed hospital system that serves several communities in New Hampshire's Belknap, Grafton, Merrimack and Carroll counties.
"We continue to expand our reach in New England, where there are high concentrations of hospitals and hospital systems, with this latest multi-year contract with LRGHealthcare," said Joseph J. Flynn, president and chief executive officer of AUXILIO. "We will work closely with the staff and administrators of the care organization, which has a prestigious history of serving the residents of New Hampshire, to customize our print services program to meet their strategic goals of driving out costs that can be redirected into patient care."
As the only vendor neutral, health care exclusive MPS company in the country, AUXILIO provides full-time, on-site teams of customer service and technical representatives to its hospital customers. It is at the forefront of providing specialized knowledge of hospital print environments that ensures cost reduction through continuous process improvements and strategies to reduce the production of documents substantially. Since December 2011, the company has doubled the number of hospitals in its national portfolio and provides its services to thousands of affiliated clinical and administrative facilities which will save in excess of $70 million for its current hospital customers over the next three to five years.
About AUXILIO, Inc.
AUXILIO, Inc. is the pioneer of managed print services for the health care industry, working exclusively with hospitals and hospital systems throughout the United States. We are vendor independent and provide intelligent solutions, a risk free program and guaranteed savings. AUXILIO assumes all costs related to print business environments through customized, streamlined and seamless integration of services at predictable fixed rates that are unmatched in the industry. We work collaboratively to assist our health care-partners in the delivery of quality patient care. The service and solutions provided by our on-site Centers of Excellence professional print strategy consultants deliver unparalleled customer service across the industry. For more information about AUXILIO, visit www.auxilioinc.com.
Forward Looking Statements
This release contains certain forward-looking statements relating to the business of AUXILIO, Inc. that can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as ``believes,'' ``expects,'' "anticipates," "may" or similar expressions. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, including uncertainties relating to product/services development, long and uncertain sales cycles, the ability to obtain or maintain patent or other proprietary intellectual property protection, market acceptance, future capital requirements, competition from other providers, the ability of our vendors to continue supplying the company with equipment, parts, supplies and services at comparable terms and prices and other factors that may cause actual results to be materially different from those described herein as anticipated, believed, estimated or expected. Certain of these risks and uncertainties are or will be described in greater detail in our Form 10-K and Form 10-Q filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which are available at http://www.sec.gov. AUXILIO, Inc. is under no obligation (and expressly disclaims any such obligation) to update or alter its forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

AUXILIO, Inc.
Clare Eckert, 401-855-2601

How to print anything from anywhere- A Complete Guide

How to print anything from anywhere: Your ultimate guide to mobile printing

Melissa Riofrio @MRiofrioPCW

• Nov 5, 2012 3:30 AM
• print

Printing anything from anywhere is no longer fantasy. In fact, it's often a necessity if using a smartphone, tablet, or laptop is an essential part of your daily workflow.
Cases in point: You receive a huge spreadsheet attachment on your smartphone, and need a way to view the document without squinting. Or you revise a PowerPoint deck just as your plane lands, and need to print it before you arrive at a meeting. Or maybe you’re just staying with family out of town, and need to print a boarding pass directly from your phone.
Whatever the case, wouldn't you like to send a print job to the printer you spot down the hall, or to a printer in an office superstore down the block? Or how about sending a document from San Francisco to your own printer back in Chicago?

Epson's iPrint app lets you print photos or documents, save to cloud storage, and more. 

Mobile printing technology makes all of this possible. Printers with wireless or Web connectivity can communicate far beyond a specific user or workgroup. And printer vendors, all too happy to help you keep printing, are rolling out solutions that use e-mail or cloud-based print servers as the backbone for sending print jobs. Big companies like Apple, Google, and HP have particularly well-developed technologies that address issues such as reaching older printers, or finding places to print when you’re on the road.

Get ready and set to print

Where and how you get started depends on how far you want to take your printing capabilities. You'll also have to consider three basic issues:
1. Find your printer, find your app: Your device and printer of choice need to find each other. Obviously, it's easy to set up mobile printing around your home or office, where you own or already have access to the printer. But what about when you must send a job to an unfamiliar printer? Luckily, checking a printer’s online feature sheet will tell you whether it supports a solution to cover your mobile device or situation. You can also visit the iOS App Store or Google Play to search for a mobile app from the company that makes the printer you want to use (conversely, you won't have much luck searching for these apps in the Windows Phone Store or Windows Store). And if you want to find printers in random places as you travel, apps can help you detect accessible printers—at places like office stores and copy shops that offer printing on the fly (for a fee).
2. Print prudently: Security is a big issue with mobile printing. You want to protect remotely printed jobs from being seen by prying eyes, and also protect your Web-connected printer from being accessed by unauthorized users—or even hackers. Simple wireless printing usually prints the job immediately, so you’ll need to be nearby to pick it up. If you’re sending to a printer that’s not immediately accessible, look for a solution that gives you a passcode and holds your job until you get to the printer and enter the code. If you’re part of a big company, your IT department may require you to stick with implementations that lie within protected networks.
3. Accept limitations: A major challenge with mobile printing is the lack of a reliable connection and an installed driver. Printer vendors have had about three years to work out the biggest transmission kinks, but it’s still possible that your print job will go astray, and you’ll have to resend it. More commonly, you’ll miss that driver when your print job comes out looking funny. While most mobile solutions will let you print Microsoft Office files, photos, and PDF files with decent results, formatting hiccups could include extra pages, cut-off pages, font substitutions, and odd scaling.

Mobilize your own printer

The easiest kind of mobile printing targets the printer you know: the one that's sitting in your home or office. If it’s on a wireless network, you can print to it directly from nearby. Conversely, if it’s connected to the Internet, you can use an e-mail-based sending app to print to it remotely. An office you’re visiting may even have a printer that you can connect to in one of these ways.

If you use an iOS device, you’re in luck: Major printer vendors—such as Brother, Canon, Dell, Epson, HP, and Lexmark—cover iOS devices through either their own app or compatibility with Apple AirPrint. AirPrint lets you print from an iOS device to any AirPrint-compatible printer that shares the same wireless network. Your iOS device will detect the printer and print to it. (If your printer doesn't support iPrint, the third-party FingerPrint app may help.) As with many direct-connect printing apps, you'll have little to no control over the details of your print job, but you'll usually get a decent, if not perfect, print.
Android devices, too, enjoy either a wireless app for direct printing from most printer vendors, or the benefits of Google Cloud Print. Google Cloud Print is notable for being brand-independent and for working with older printers as well as newer ones.
New Windows 8 devices don’t have much to work with yet, other than platform-independent solutions like Google Cloud Print and HP ePrint. Surface tablets, like devices using Apple AirPrint, will print to any printer on the same wireless network.
To use Google Cloud Print, an older printer needs to be connected to a Windows, Mac, or Linux PC that’s turned on and connected to the Internet. If you see the term “Google Cloud Print Ready” in your printer’s specs, that means it can connect directly to the Internet, skipping the computer intermediary. The sending device has to run Android or iOS and use the Chrome browser, and you have to have a Gmail account. A Print option will appear for printing Gmail attachments or files uploaded to Google Drive. You can also share your printer with friends or colleagues who have the same basic setup, either as individuals or as part of a Google Group. Not bad for an app that’s still officially in beta.

Google

When you connect to a printer or print service using Google Cloud Print, their names appear as destinations in the Chrome browser’s print dialog.

Find printers wherever you go

HP’s ePrint may be brand-specific, but it’s still the most mature mobile printing solution. It comes in enterprise as well as consumer flavors, and HP’s ePrint Public Print Locations let you print to machines at UPS Store and FedEx Office locations, as well as many hotels, airport lounges, public libraries, and other organizations. HP offers an ePrint app for iOS, Android, and BlackBerry devices that lets you locate accessible ePrint Public Print Location printers and send print jobs on the fly.
Widely deployed services like these show how you can remove some of the uncertainty from needing to print when you’re on the go, whether passing through a city or an airport. More office stores, airports, hotels, and even public libraries are adding printers that can be detected by mobile users. FedEx Office stores also accept Google Cloud Print jobs, if you choose “Print to FedEx Office” in the Cloud Print dialog box.

Your device app may be able to detect compatible printers in the area, or you may get access information from the airport-lounge manager or librarian. In most cases, after sending the job, you get back an access code to release the printout when you get to the printer. In most cases, you also pay a fee for the print.
And if you're really in a pinch, and a FedEx Office, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, or UPS store is nearby, each of those brands will let you upload a document to the cloud (a website) for printing, then pick up the job in person at the store.
Mobile printing is being embraced in multiple ways by multiple vendors, but any attempt at uniform standards is still in its infancy. Nevertheless, it’s only a matter of time—probably less, rather than more, time—before it will feel natural to print to any printer that happens to be nearby without going through hoops such as installing a driver or plugging in a cable.