- Mythbuster busts his own tale
- 10 open source companies to watch
- Sony recalls 73,000 Vaio laptops
- Tool to evade China's Web censorship
- Chrome and Firefox and add-ons
Newsletters | Podcasts | Chats | Opinions | RSS Feeds | This Week In Print | IT Careers | Community | Reports | Downloads | Slideshows | New Data Center
Partner Sites:App Performance | On Demand Security | Networking Solution | SOA | Value of WDS
You might think you've heard about every possible security vulnerability in your network, but what about your copiers?
"Network-connected output devices are becoming an absolute primary target of people, foreign and domestic, who are penetrating networks," according to Jim Joyce, senior vice president for office services at Xerox Global Services. "The reason for that is many of them are large devices with large disk drives, with a fair amount of memory and are network connected and are not secure. This laptop [I'm using for this presentation] is probably 10x more secure than any of the output devices we have in our environments today."
Joyce, speaking Tuesday at the two-day Office Document Solutions conference in Boston, was among a number of presenters who implored makers of printers, copiers, scanners and other such devices to start thinking about more than just selling boxes to customers .
Joyce said during an interview after his speech that Xerox has poured some $20 million in recent years into technologies to better manage office and document systems and is putting a particular emphasis on security these days. He noted that some machines, such as multifunction devices, might have several operating systems in them that could provide security holes if not protected.
Look for Xerox in the months to come to deliver more in the way of technologies that would enable document systems to be able to identify content so that companies can better prevent intellectual property and other confidential data from getting swiped. Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center has been working on such technologies, Joyce said.
Meanwhile, other office document product vendors said they too are looking to go beyond just dumping boxes on their customers.
While the term "solutions" might qualify as the single-most overused word in the IT industry over the years, presenters embraced it as a fresh concept capable of bringing new life to their industry.
Charles Pesko, a director at InfoTrends/CAP Ventures, greeted attendees at the consulting and research firm's event by stating that the U.S. copier market is maturing and that "solutions" are the answer to revenue growth. Not only do solutions - in the form of software, support and maintenance - offer revenue opportunities themselves, but vendors that succeed here will also see a rise in hardware sales. For every dollar in solutions sold, a company will sell $4 or $5 of hardware along with it, he said.

Gartner summarizes its view on Application Delivery Controllers, evaluates strengths and weaknesses...
Vulnerability Management For DummiesDownload this concise book "Vulnerability Management for Dummies," to learn about the simple steps...
The ROI and TCO Benefits of Data Deduplication for Data Protection in the EnterpriseThis paper examines and quantifies the costs and benefits of backup with deduplication storage as...

Life on the edge of your WAN has changed dramatically. With the need to deliver advanced services,...
PoE Plus: Impact on the PoE MarketThe standard for Power over Ethernet (PoE), IEEE Std. 802.3af(tm)-2003, advanced networking,...
Harnessing the power of communications to increase workplace performanceDue to the convergence of IT and telecommunications technologies, the business workplace has been...

We have so many holes punched in our firewalls today that many industry insiders question the value...
The self-managed networkWe aren't there yet, but advances in network and systems management tools are making it possible to...
Partner Content
Brilliantly simple security and control solutions for email, web and endpoint
www.sophos.com
Stopping data leakage
Learn how to exploit your current security investment to control the information that flows into, through and out of your network.
Download the white paper.
Why detection rates aren't enough
Evaluating endpoint security products is a time-consuming and daunting task. Learn the six critical questions you need to ask prospective vendors to get the right endpoint solution.
Download the white paper.
Applications: taking back control
Employees installing unauthorized applications is a growing threat to business security and productivity. Cost-effectively reduce this threat by integrating control into your malware protection.
Learn more today.
Comments (1)
RE: Hacking copiers, software focus raised at document management conferenceBy deepak on December 1, 2007, 4:40 amthanks
Reply | Read entire comment
View all comments