BOSS is at the h2o Hackathon. It is our third year in sponsoring this event hosted at the San Joaquin Office of Education. High school students are all in attendance to develop their app to help reduce water use in their schools by 20% by 2020. This initiative being a state sponsored program for all of California.

Samsung shared details on an upcoming deal closure of Samsung Printer division to HP at the 2017 National Dealer Meeting on Chandler Arizona.

Starting sometime in the 2nd half of 2017 the switch will be made.  However all support and brand identity will remain the same for 2 more years past the date of the deal being finalized.

BOSS Business Systems remains a partner with Samsung and will continue through the transition to become an HP partner, supporting our customer base.  The outcome is predicted to be an even more robust product line from HP.

The key technology that is driving the success of Samsung printer and copier line is the Smart UX interface.  A fully customizable Android tablet control panel allowing for very flexible software solutions being integrated directly at the copier or printer panel.  This lends to the future of IOT, AI and mobile and cloud printing and interactions.

Tuan Tran, head of global printer division for HP, said “Our vision is to create technology that makes life better for everyone, everywhere. The acquisition of the  Samsung printer division is to create new opportunities for technology in the workplace.”

Key to this new technology ended with the launch of a brand new A3 MFP from HP using the much anticipated PageWide technology.  An inkjet enterprise size MFP!  With print speeds of 60 pages per minute this is the slowest of an upcoming line of industry disruptive MFPs about to launch.

BERLIN, Germany (24 March, 2017) – Konica Minolta, Inc. (Konica Minolta) has introduced Workplace Hub, an innovative new enterprise IT solution that unifies all of an organisation’s technology via a single centralised platform. Designed to future-proof workplaces of every size as they work towards digital transformation, version one of Workplace Hub, available from Autumn 2017, directly addresses growing IT complexity by providing more efficient and effective management of the disparate array of tools, services and devices used by modern organisations.

This new platform represents the next phase of Konica Minolta’s long history in innovation, marking its position in the IT services market and perfectly placing the firm to meet the evolving needs of business customers. Acting as a central hub that simplifies IT for an organisation, Workplace Hub drives efficiencies by reducing the overall costs of IT management and service provision, and providing real-time data-driven insights that help to improve business processes. By creating an ecosystem to manage and coordinate the entire IT infrastructure and services across existing and future IT systems, devices and services, Workplace Hub provides users with a central dashboard showing 360-degree visibility of IT usage patterns across the whole business, allowing for simple management and optimisation of systems.

Moreover, the platform’s product roadmap includes future integration of IoT, Artificial Intelligence, Intelligent Edge and Decision Support capabilities as they become more central to the business environment of tomorrow. Adding this cognitive layer of organisational insight unleashes an intuitive understanding of the world that empowers people to collaborate better and to make smarter, data-driven decisions more effectively and easily.

Global partnerships with Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Sophos and Microsoft deliver best in class hardware, security and IT solutions. Additional services from Canonical and BrainTribe bring the power of open source and advanced data management, helping to facilitate effective digital transformation for any business.

Dennis Curry, a Vice President and Director of Business Innovation and R&D at Konica Minolta, said “Workplace Hub will evolve to become the most comprehensive platform for the services and capabilities demanded by the workplace of the future. It means businesses can grow and manage their IT in tandem with changing business needs. It simplifies IT operations today and paves the way for exciting new integrations, such as AI and intelligent edge computing, to become a central part of the digital organisation of the future.”

This strategic shift will allow Konica Minolta to deliver more comprehensive digital transformation solutions, while continuing its heritage of providing the very best products and services for the business market as a whole.

“The workplace is evolving at an unparalleled rate and digital transformation is becoming increasingly important to both survival and future prosperity,” said Shoei Yamana, CEO and President of Konica Minolta Inc. “Workplace Hub not only allows businesses of all sizes to achieve effective transformation, but future-proof themselves against the next wave of technology innovations already infiltrating the business environment.”

Workplace Hub version one will be available from Autumn 2017 to organisations looking for enterprise quality managed services at an affordable price.

The 2017 h2o Hackathon got underway at 8 AM on 24 March 2017 at the San Joaquin Office of Education in Stockton, CA.   BOSS has volunteered for the last 2 years to support this effort to bring technology to the local area and into our schools.  Over 100 students turned out to develop their application to help improve the accountability of water use in California while also learning about this important topic.

IBM Bluemix was a main sponsor of the event and the application solutions were built primarily on their cloud platform.  The students competed for a 5k grand prize for the best application.  Also in attendance were major industry water experts from all over California.   BOSS with its partner company Media Creations created t-shirts, printed material and the Hackathon website to help promote this successful event.