112006: Paperless office more hype, as paper use rises despite Internet boom

By Manuel T. Cayon
Reporter

DAVAO CITY – Paper use in offices will continue to climb sharply despite bold predictions that the Internet boom in 2000 would augur a paperless office, a leading company in business machines and cameras said over the weekend.

Now, five or six years later, paper has demonstrated its indispensability, forcing some copier companies to bring back the fax machine in the market and introduce newer and multifunctional business machines.

In a powerpoint presentation, Canon’s regional branch officer for Luzon, Bert Cortes, said the personal use of papers had jumped to 90 kilograms in 2004, double than the average use in 1975. By 2005, it was estimated that paper use would increase by 21 percent yearly.

“Office environment is using paper and digital technology, so paper would continue to be part of the office business,” he said at the launching of Canon’s latest multifunction machines that incorporate such functions as copier, scanner, printer, data store and data retriever.

Cortes said that the Internet boom of the late 1990’s to next decade “had been talking about paperless office”, a prediction companies producing office business machines took seriously and forced some to stop producing fax machines.

“Not only were people and households owning computers, they were also being connected through the Internet,” he said.

With the advent of digital technology, the processing of information and communication, including images and graphics, the prediction seemed to take a new and real face, he said.

“Only one company continued to sell these copiers and is now the leading distributor of these machines,” he said.

Cortes said the prediction appeared to have been supported by the popularity of the Internet-based electronic mails, or emails, where countless volumes of communication were taking place without the use of paper.

“But a study soon revealed that the use of paper is still there, and that many Internet users have been found to be printing their emails, either for repeated reading at home, or for distribution,” he said.

In 2001, about 40 percent of emails sent were being printed, and this increased to 43 percent the following year. By 2003, the same study quoted by Canon shows that there were an average of 19 copies printed for each e-mail.

“Paper is 30 percent easier and faster to read than a computer screen,” he said.

The study has lit up fresh hopes for business machines, and in 2003, this encouraged one company to sell anew its fax machines in the market. The only company that continued selling it, Brother, has become the leading distributor in the market today, Cortes said.

The latest business machines now offer faster document reproduction, and new technology has allowed “a system of managing data” that cuts costs on succeeding reproduction of retrieved data.

“This means that the new technology would not force you anymore to reproduce each page even if you only need some of the data in each page. By managing them, you can compress all the data of, say 10 pages, into two or three pages only,” Cortes said.

“These are the challenges now for offices using or seeking multifunctional business machines: finding a cost-effective document management, and to keep printing cost under control,” he said.

Business Mirror
November 20, 2006