All Hail Tech Support!

I apologize in advance to anyone under 35 reading this introduction. It involves a true story about floppy disks (that's diSks). Back in the '90s, my friend, Heather, who worked in tech support at major financial firm got a call from a woman in marketing, let's call her Jane:

Jane: Every morning I come to work and all my work is gone.

Heather: What do you mean gone? Did you save it?

Jane: Yes. I saved it to a floppy. I also checked that I can read it, but when I come back in the morning, the disk is always empty.

Heather walks through the process with Jane on the phone and confirms the data is on the floppy. The next morning she hears from Jane that the data is gone ("I told you it would be!" Puzzled, Heather visits Jane watch the process in person. She sees Jane carefully save her work on the floppy disk and check to make sure it is readable. Jane then puts it in a sleeve and sticks it on her whiteboard with a magnet. (If you don't know why that is a problem, ask a boomer.)

This reminds me of a kinder, gentler time when most of our technical problems were self-inflicted wounds (many still are!) However, Rackspace, one of the top ten email hosting providers in the US has been the victim of?an unspecified "security incident"?that has taken down all of its customers using Microsoft Exchange since last Thursday. Sadly, I am one of the many who spent hours on hold waiting to speak to "a Racker" only to be disconnected.

Way back in 2018 we published a?white paper on end-to-end security for printers. I have heard several larger printing companies say that they believe it is just a matter of when, not if, they will be attacked. When a problem happens, large or small, you will expect tech support to bail you out. That may be your own support team, or the team from your OEM or software partner, or all of the above. Do you have the processes and contacts backed up to an air-gapped source that can be accessed in the case of a malicious attack? Would you like to see more coverage of these issues on Inkjet Insight??Let us know.

Meanwhile, in happier news, we're covering 19 press installations at 17 companies in our?November Inkjet Installation Roundup. December is looking like it will be a big month also, based on what we are seeing so far. Ralf Schlozer keeps pinging me with more European sites. Sheet-fed continues to lead web-fed for production inkjet applications (not packaging or industrial) for the 3rd month in a row. We continued to expand our horizons a bit with Pat McGrew M-edp by looking at?wide format applications that could be transitioned to B2 sheet or even web-fed inkjet presses to drive down costs and drive up volume.

As you are evaluating your product mix and how you can best serve customers in 2023, check out the latest in our Growth & Innovation series with Dan Adams . This week Dan is talking about?understanding customers "jobs to be done"?and using that to frame your offers in terms of improvements to customers products or processes.

Also, in case you missed it:?Inkjet Insight is now a wholly owned subsidiary of WhatTheyThink. Earlier this year,?WhatTheyThink was acquired by APTech?who said that the acquisition "signals a continuing effort to help print businesses grow by providing a platform for education, inspiration, and connection." But will we have better tech support?

Elizabeth