OTTO Office sale imminent? | Brother wins lawsuit | James Cropper posts paper profit | Mohawk invests in envelopes | New HQ for Memjet
A round-up of OP-related stories from around the web and elsewhere.
Reports from Germany suggest that OTTO Office is about to be acquired by the country’s leading B2B mail order operator Printus.
Brother International has won a class lawsuit in the US against four companies that alleged that buyers of certain models of Brother-brand colour laser printers were “damaged” by a variety of “inadequately disclosed” design features. The New Jersey District Court found that the plaintiffs had no evidence that Brother-brand printers do not work as advertised.
More details: Rutan
UK paper group James Cropper has posted a pre-tax profit of £3.5 million ($5.5 million) for the year ended 28 March 2015. This represents a 67% increase over the previous year. The company said that despite a 4.1% decrease in paper sales, the division experienced 19.5% profit growth.
More details: London Stock Exchange
Mohawk Fine Papers has said it already has 20 employees working at its new envelope factory in South Hadley (MA) and plans to add another 40 workers within the next few months. The company said it entered the envelope market as it was already supplying other types of office papers to businesses.
More details: Masslive
Printing component supplier Memjet is to open new global headquarters in San Diego, California. The new facility will encompass cutting-edge labs and corporate offices and combine the company’s two previous facilties.
More details: Marketwired
Paper manufacturer Domtar has been awarded a Silver Lion at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity for its Project Learning Curve to encourage handwriting. The honour came after Domtar spearheaded the creation of the world’s first handwriting tracker – an app that connects a digital pen to paper.
More details: Domtar press release
Amazon has launched the Alexa Fund, up to $100 million in investments to support developers, manufacturers and start-ups of all sizes that are passionate about creating new experiences designed around the human voice. It also announced the Alexa Voice Service (AVS) is now available for free to third-party hardware makers that want to integrate Alexa into their devices.
More details: Amazon press release
European supermarket giants Ahold and Delhaize Group have announced plans to merge, creating one of the largest grocery chains in the US. The new company, worth around $29 billion, will be based in Europe, but generate 60% of its sales in the US.
More details: WSJ
San Diego-based market data firm Gap Intelligence has partnered with Germany-based MPS software company Perform IT to launch the latter’s managed print services tool, SalesDrive, in the US. The product is designed to help sales professionals shorten sales cycles and improve productivity.
More details: WhatTheyThink?
Printer parts supplier Parts Now has announced a reconfiguration in its supplies offering due to the success of its zero waste cartridge. The cartridge has zero environmental impact, according to the company.
Quill has reached a milestone with four million ink and toner cartridges recycled since 2011. The online business offers a free pre-paid box or pre-paid mailing label to enable customers to recycle their cartridges.
More details: Quill press release
European IT and consumables distributor ALSO has expanded its group management team with the appointment of Ole Eklund and Stefan Klinglmair. Eklund is the current Managing Director of ALSO Denmark and Klinglmair is VP of Volume Distribution at ALSO Germany.
More details: ALSO press release
