Is paperless finally becoming a reality? The health of paper-based companies tells the tale.
Let’s start with Hewlett-Packard (News - Alert). The company effectively invented the ink jet printer, and printing still accounts for roughly 21 percent of the company’s total revenue.
It is telling, then, that the company’s shares are down 12 percent following a disappointing quarter.
Printing revenue declined 3.6 percent from the prior year, while earnings before taxes were down more than 4 percent.
Driving home the point that the whole industry is suffering, Hewlett-Packard is gaining market share in that segment, according to CEO Meg Whitman, despite this revenue decline.
Then there is Canon (News - Alert). Canon has two main lines of business: cameras and printers. And while I just bought myself a snazzy new Canon DSLR camera, let me tell you that I’m not replacing my Canon printer and I’m not alone.
Canon shares have lost more than 21 percent of their value this year, and both its laser printer and ink jet printer business saw decreased demands.
Staples (News - Alert) is Exhibit C. The company doesn’t make printers, but it makes its money selling printers, paper and other paper-based supplies for the most part. Shares in the company plunged 14 percent on Wednesday when the company reported poor results. Staple's sales declined 2 percent from the prior year, and income from continuing operations fell roughly 17 percent.
All three of these companies point in the direction of a less paper-based society—and with good reason.
More consumers and businesses are moving away from paper and toward a digital workflow. This is being accomplished with tablets such as the iPad and smartphones like the Samsung (News - Alert) Galaxy series.
Paper documents not only are being replaced by e-mail and electronic delivery, but those that are still using paper are moving away from it.
I, for instance, have been digitizing my paper collection by using a document scanner that I picked up for a couple hundred dollars. So while newspapers are sending me paper still, I’m correcting their “mistake” by digitizing the paper and keeping my office paper-free or at least as paper-minimal as possible.
The same is happening with faxing. Faxing still is an important part of business, but companies (and individuals!) are increasingly moving away from traditional fax and toward fax-over-IP (FoIP). FoIP lets businesses send and receive faxes digitally, thereby cutting out the paper and taking advantage of the benefits of digital—including advanced document routing and added security.
Solutions such as AudioCodes’ (News - Alert) FaxBack solution even let existing fax machines take advantage of FoIP.
The days of paper are numbered.
Edited by Rory J. Thompson