To help fight that security threat, Toshiba recently announced a new set of hard disk drives that offer both self-encryption and a “key wipe” feature. The new 2.5 inch drives are being marketed especially for use in copier and printer multifunctionals.

The drives protect companies in two ways. They automatically use a security key to encrypt all data written on the disk. Then, when the device is unplugged and moved, it destroys that key. Therefore, when the disk is moved out of the company, all the stray data on the disk is totally unreadable.

All this is far easier than having to blank out the disk using disk erase software or overwriting the disk sector-by-sector, best practices that often get omitted when companies transfer disks. This feature also works if someone manages to detach the hard disk and walk it out the door.

Of course, you wouldn’t want to store any permanent data on the hard disk for the multifunctional, even though copier companies keep offering that as a feature. In our opinion, critical data belongs on centralized and (presumably) secured servers.

These models are an upgrade to the heart of Toshiba office copier line, with improvements over earlier models in a wide variety of features. Toshiba has taken a somewhat disjointed office copier lineup and made a consistent product platform from 20ppm to 85ppm in black-0and-white.

The members of the new family are:

• the e-STUDIO205L ($5,095), which prints and copies at 20ppm
• the e-STUDIO255 ($6,650), 25ppm
• the e-STUDIO305 ($8,050), 30ppm
• the e-STUDIO355 ($8,625), 35ppm
• the e-STUDIO455 ($10,799), 45ppm

For those that need higher speeds and volumes, Toshiba offers e-STUDIO models up to 85ppm with similar designs (see our next High Volume Copier & Multifunctional Guide).

One of the big changes is a large 8.5″ color touchscreen. These models support Toshiba’s Open Platform architecture, which allows the touchscreen to support third-part programs, including Microsoft’s SharePoint.

First copy out times are fast, ranging from 4.7 seconds on the 205L to 3.7 seconds on the 455.

Unlike earlier Toshiba models, these ones come with printing and scanning standard. The print function includes PCL, and PostScript printing.

The color scanning feature supports LDAP address book integration, and network scanning to JPEG, TIFF, PDF and XPS is supported. An add-on option allows you to create searchable PDF files.

There machines have extremely low power use. They also have remarkably fast warm up speeds of 20 seconds, so that you don’t have to keep the machines in a ready state all the time, instead it can be in sleep mode That’s a big plus for companies wanting to reduce their carbon footprint.

For a fuller review and for information on other similar products, see the Better Buys for Business Office Copier Guide.

Managed print services are often thought of as an option for huge companies. But is it also a strategy that can help small or mid-size businesses?

We talked with Bill Melo at Toshiba America about Managed Print Services (MPS), an area where Toshiba has been active for five years and one that is growing steadily. With MPS, vendors or their dealers take over the client’s whole printing and copying infrastructure. That means allowing the client to treat printing and copying as a utility, which is supplied by the dealer, and paid for (much like electricity or water) on a usage basis at the end of each month. All the headaches (maintaining equipment, managing inventories, and integrating into corporate IT operations) are handled by the dealer/vendor.

What are the main reasons that a company would decide to use MPS?

Historically speaking, the basic advantages are in terms of the three factors: cost, control and convenience. Cost: We have seen that companies have regularly shown savings of 20-30% over their current costs of printing and copying. Control: Most companies for the first time have an accurate measure of how much they are spending on these activities. Convenience: The IT or the purchasing department is relieved from having to worry about supplies management, equipment malfunctions and complex billing issues. The convenience of a single monthly bill with a detailed accounting for both color and black-and-white usage allows most executives to understand and manage for the first time the costs of outputting office documents.

You said “historically.” Are there more recent trends?

We are now seeing two new aspects of Managed Print Services. More and more customers want us to help them with environmental concerns as part of a corporate green initiative. That can involve measuring and improving such areas as electricity use, paper waste, CO₂ generation and solid waste recycling. They want us to provide a measurable solution.

A second area is security. Most companies are getting better at protecting their servers and their internal network traffic. But they are just waking up to the idea that their printers and MFPs have hard disks and generate their own confidential network traffic. All new machines have a wealth of features for setting up security, but they are hard to set up and harder to coordinate into a company-wide plan. So companies come to us or our dealers to put together a security plan as part of the MPS.

I think most people think that MPS would be a no-brainer for a Fortune 1000 company, but that a company that makes $10 million or has 100 employees can’t afford it.

On the contrary, we think that the proportional savings might be even greater for smaller companies. The biggest impact on cash flow is that with MPS you pay for services actually used, rather than buying or leasing equipment and stockpiling supplies. In smaller companies, the IT and purchasing departments are even more hard pressed than in the largest ones. For example, one of our Florida dealers worked with a small company that had only two copier/MFPs and five printers. Using MPS, they were able to realize hard savings of 20-30% by bringing some order to the consumables and service issues.

One fear I would imagine most potential customers would have is that you would tear out all the older equipment, including paid-off printers and MFPs, just so you could move more Toshiba equipment.

While we are glad to install Toshiba equipment when needed, we typically will maintain as much as possible the existing equipment that works. One of our first jobs is to do an audit of the current configuration. We try to make best use of what you have, and we replace machines only where there is newer and more cost-effective technology. Most of our sites, for example, have printers and MFPs from HP or Lexmark. We will maintain and deliver supplies for the equipment you have if that makes the most sense for the customer.

Isn’t it something new for you and your dealers — instead of pushing more boxes, you’re selling a service? How are you adjusting?

Actually, it wasn’t hard for the dealers — in general, they see themselves as selling services already. It was harder at corporate — we needed a mindset shift. What we have come to realize is that hiring a company to manage print services is much like hiring a company to renovate your kitchen. In the end, the customer wants to get quoted a single price, not having to worry about the cost of paint or tiles. Our challenge is to provide services that match and surpass what customers had before and, at the same time, improve our costs of doing business to increase profitability. It’s a different revenue model for Toshiba, but we see that it’s the wave of the future.

Bill Melo is Vice President of Marketing & Enterprise Services and Solutions at Toshiba America Business Solutions, Inc. (TABS). Bill oversees product and services marketing including the development and delivery of Toshiba’s Encompass Document Management and Output Assessment and Managed Print programs.

They run at 53pppm, 60ppm, 72ppm, and 95ppm, respectively.

These upgraded models add two significant features. First, they are designed to accommodate Windows Vista XPS graphics files. This upgrade makes it simpler to print Microsoft Office 2007. Second, Toshiba has upgraded security features for these models, with extended support for user authentication on the Internet, whether conventional or wireless. It also adds the ability to create encrypted PDF files for your scans.

The list of strong features is not limited to the models’ multifunctional architecture alone. For example, the machines have something Toshiba calls e-FILING. This feature is a highly developed system for storing scanned hard-copy documents, faxes, and print files using the 40GB hard drive inside the copiers. Users are able to store the images in a series of up to 200 individual software mailboxes, each of which contains 100 folders. Up to 1,000 documents can be held in each folder. The mailboxes can be used for on-demand applications involving the storage of forms and manuals, as well as merging scanned hard copy and print files from your PC.

Another important feature is the advanced touchscreen control panel. It is very large in size (one-half VGA) and uses a well-designed series of menus and prompts for programming jobs.

To read the full review, see the Better Buys for Business High-Volume Copier Guide.