This Week in Imaging: Konica Minolta Seeks Boost with Paper, AI Workflows, Sharp Benefits from PC Business

by Kathleen Wirth · Published August 15, 2025 · Updated August 15, 2025

This week we saw two interesting developments – Konica Minolta launched a new paper-supply business, and Sharp posted overall good financial results for its latest quarter.

The Konica Minolta announcement was a bit of surprise, since the company continues to expand into digital – not paper – solutions, announcing for instance this week a newly designed website for its BlueIrisIQ business, which is devoted to AI-powered workflow solutions. However, iIt’s not unusual for printer and copier/MFP companies to sell paper – Canon Inc., HP Inc., Ricoh, and Xerox have been doing it for some time.

What was interesting at Sharp is that it credits its PC business for a first quarter that saw higher PC sales, which contributed to much improved operating profit and net income, with operating profit up 1.5-times year-over-year – in great part due to PC revenues. Sharp was actually one of the first commercial sellers of PCs in the early 1980s, but then exited the market in 2010. It reentered the market in 2018 by acquiring Toshiba’s PC business – a wise move it would appear.

Of course, the big news this week came from Eastman Kodak, which included “a going concern” notice in its second-quarter financial report, with the company expressing some doubt about meeting its debt obligations said to be approximately $550 million. However, it later sought to allay concerns, stating it “is confident it will be able to pay off a significant portion of its term loan well before it becomes due, and amend, extend or refinance our remaining debt and/or preferred stock obligations.”

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