Reprographers, you sell plotters and scanners, but do you also sell large-format electronic display screens? And, if not, why not?

 Yesterday, I had a conversation on the phone with a guy whose company has developed two different (but related) products – one of those products is a cloud-based document management service for A/E/C drawings – the other product is an electronic display device (so, hardware) for displaying A/E/C drawings (and it can be used to project drawings on a screen or wall.)

ARC sells SmartScreens.

Kevin Rowe’s iPlanTables business sells giant display screens.

What are YOU offering?

When I asked the guy I talked to if he’d reached out to the reprographer community, he (essentially) said, “no, we don’t think they would like our electronic display product because it would hurt their printing business.”

My response to him is that, if A/E/C customers want to find ways to reduce large-format A/E/C printing, they will do that, despite what reprographers may feel about that. The transition from “printing everything” to “printing less” isn’t in the hands of reprographers, and, if reprographers want to continue in business, continue serving the imaging and document management needs of the A/E/C community, they will be wise to find solutions that will assist their A/E/C customers find solutions those customers are interested in (and want to find) rather than trying to fight the transition.  The transition to the “print less” world is inevitable.

Read this stuff:       

http://www.newforma.com/the-ideal-construction-command-center-has-these-3-screens/

http://downloads01.smarttech.com/media/infographic/standford-ig_may29.jpg

http://cife.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/TR212.pdf