Canon Printers Announced at Spiceworld
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I guess inkjet ink is no longer made out of unicorn blood
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@Nic said:
I guess inkjet ink is no longer made out of unicorn blood
The technology has improved significantly. Even your upper-end consumer inkjet, like the HP OJ 8600 or Epson WF-4530 is plenty fit for an SMB. They've gotten more reliable. The HP OJ 8500 had print heads, but the 8600 fixed that issue by adopting an approach of a machine without print heads. Considering that print heads are often what goes first (that or the feed rollers) and are both most likely to break and most expensive to replace, doing this improved the model. While they still lack some of the business-grade features you find on actual business equipment, for a SOHO or the like, they work well.
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I still have a hard time believing that inkjet went to 10x as expensive to .5x in just a few years. How did this happen? The ink must be nearly free today to do that. Laser is so cheap that I can't imagine how inkjet is competing. How much do these ink replacements cost?
Here is HP's disclaimer: " Officejet Pro X Series: Majority of color laser MFPs <$1000 USD and color laser printers <$800 USD as of August 2013; Officejet Pro 8100 and 8600: Majority of color lasers <US$300 and color laser AiOs <US$600, June 2013; Officejet Pro 200 Series: Majority of color lasers <US$300 and color laser AiOs <US$500, June 2013; based on market share as reported by IDC as of Q2 2013. Officejet Enterprise X series: Majority of color laser MFPs <$3,000 USD as of November 2013 based on market share as reported by IDC as of Q3 2013. For details, see www.hp.com/officejet. Cost per page (CPP) comparisons for laser supplies are based on published specifications of the manufacturers’ highest capacity cartridges. HP Officejet CPP based on high-capacity HP 970XL/971XL, 950/951 XL and standard-capacity HP 980 ink cartridges estimated street price, published yield for color prints and continuous printing in default mode. Actual prices and yields can vary. See www.hp.com/go/learnaboutsupplies."
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Agreed, I've seen the ink prices on the shelves at Best Buy and Walmart - it's still outrageous! How are they cheaper than laser?
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Maybe the second-hand inkjet ink market, plus the drop of inkjet printers, convinced them to stop gouging everyone.
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@scottalanmiller , the technology got better. They used different substances in the ink now, and different means of printing to make it more efficient. The 970XL is about $120, but I want to say its yield is around 9,000 pages. Your average HP toner that cost $80-90 yields 2,000-4,000 pages. The color cartridges yield 4-5,000 pages each on that X series as well. It's been more than half a decade since lasers were really more cost effective than inkjets. If you buy the high end lasers and low-end inkjets, then yeah, it's cheaper. The cheapest lasers are by far Brother, and their top-end units still get destroyed by the upper-end inkjets.
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A little tidbit fact for everyone: at Staples, when you take the total profit of the technology department, so excluding office supplies and furniture, about 40% of their profit comes from ink and toner sales. If you think about it, the prices of printing with inkjet have gone up over the years, especially with the transition from 2 cartridge to 4 cartridge printers. The tri-color cartridge has been split up. However, this increase in total dollars and cents on materials has also increased efficiency and decreased real cost. In the tri-color method, if the magenta is gone, replacing the whole cartridge is the only option. Now, you replace just what you need. As I already said, printers have gotten more efficient through new technology. Better quality, longer life, etc. While laser will be the choice of businesses for as long as I can see, machines like HP's X-series are a game changer. Fast and efficient, at a fraction of the price of a comparable laser in all aspects, maintenance included.
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@ajstringham said:
It's been more than half a decade since lasers were really more cost effective than inkjets.
It's within the last half decade that I've seen the 20x laser over inkjet value. I've not seen any inkjet competitive with a laser. I've not purchased in the last year, but two years ago there was no inkjet worth talking about on the market to the best of my knowledge. If the theory is that they've been better than long, I think that makes me less inclined to believe that they are competitive now.
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@ajstringham said:
Better quality, longer life, etc. While laser will be the choice of businesses for as long as I can see, ......
Why do you feel that that would remain the case for even another month if inkjet is really cheaper and competitive now?
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@scottalanmiller said:
@ajstringham said:
It's been more than half a decade since lasers were really more cost effective than inkjets.
It's within the last half decade that I've seen the 20x laser over inkjet value. I've not seen any inkjet competitive with a laser. I've not purchased in the last year, but two years ago there was no inkjet worth talking about on the market to the best of my knowledge. If the theory is that they've been better than long, I think that makes me less inclined to believe that they are competitive now.
Umm...if you think two years ago there were no inkjets were talking about, you were blind to reality. Inkjets have been outperforming a majority of lasers in terms of cost for at least 6 years now. Admit it though, you aren't exactly a printer buff.
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I guess I have been under a rock. This is the first time I have ever heard of inkjets being more efficient than laser printers
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@scottalanmiller said:
@ajstringham said:
Better quality, longer life, etc. While laser will be the choice of businesses for as long as I can see, ......
Why do you feel that that would remain the case for even another month if inkjet is really cheaper and competitive now?
Because businesses don't like change and so they don't. Enterprise often has a managed print contract, which is another beast in and of itself. Medium businesses operate on the bias you have because that's how it's been since printing was founding, they've always bought laser, and that's how it'll be. The ones who will be the first adopters will be the small businesses with 100 employees or less. Inkjets have had extremely efficient models for more than 5 years now. However, the HP X-series is the game changer. If anything will make the shift from laser to inkjet in the business world, it will be that and comparable models.
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@IRJ said:
I guess I have been under a rock. This is the first time I have ever heard of inkjets being more efficient than laser printers
I'm a printer buff. For me, this is one thing I specialize in.
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I absolutely hate printers. I don't know how anyone could be a printer buff...
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@ajstringham said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@ajstringham said:
Better quality, longer life, etc. While laser will be the choice of businesses for as long as I can see, ......
Why do you feel that that would remain the case for even another month if inkjet is really cheaper and competitive now?
Because businesses don't like change and so they don't. Enterprise often has a managed print contract, which is another beast in and of itself. Medium businesses operate on the bias you have because that's how it's been since printing was founding, they've always bought laser, and that's how it'll be. The ones who will be the first adopters will be the small businesses with 100 employees or less. Inkjets have had extremely efficient models for more than 5 years now. However, the HP X-series is the game changer. If anything will make the shift from laser to inkjet in the business world, it will be that and comparable models.
Printer support contracts should, in theory, push new technologies even faster because it is the direct profit of the printer support company to move to the most efficient technology.
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@IRJ said:
I absolutely hate printers. I don't know how anyone could be a printer buff...
Comes from my retail days. I latched onto learning about printers and really enjoyed it. Therefore, I'm VERY good with printers.
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And it is a valuable niche. Very few people have any appreciable amount of printer skills.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@ajstringham said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@ajstringham said:
Better quality, longer life, etc. While laser will be the choice of businesses for as long as I can see, ......
Why do you feel that that would remain the case for even another month if inkjet is really cheaper and competitive now?
Because businesses don't like change and so they don't. Enterprise often has a managed print contract, which is another beast in and of itself. Medium businesses operate on the bias you have because that's how it's been since printing was founding, they've always bought laser, and that's how it'll be. The ones who will be the first adopters will be the small businesses with 100 employees or less. Inkjets have had extremely efficient models for more than 5 years now. However, the HP X-series is the game changer. If anything will make the shift from laser to inkjet in the business world, it will be that and comparable models.
Printer support contracts should, in theory, push new technologies even faster because it is the direct profit of the printer support company to move to the most efficient technology.
The thing is...most managed print contracts are with companies who are partnered with companies like Ricoh, Xerox, HP, and Lexmark. Again, remember, bias doesn't change quickly. Also, you don't have major enterprise units, like the large MFPs, in an inkjet model. Those are all laser. This could change in time. However, inkjets are designed to be desk units or specialty machines, like large plotters and wide format printers.
Inkjets and lasers have resided in separate realms since the beginning. It is only over the past 18 months or so that these two realms are starting to fuse. If you look at lasers vs inkjets, over the past 10 years, inkjets have changed and improved many times over. Laser has really only made small changes in that time. You don't see the yield on toners skyrocketing like it has been on inkjets. It's been pretty static, with only slight increases. Also, lasers are released less often. You'll have three separate new lines of inkjets released before the same manufacturer has even released one new comparable laser.
Like I said, I think this X-series will be a game changer. If HP could create a large, enterprise MFP version of the X-series, I think we'd see the signal that laser was almost dead right in front of us.
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@scottalanmiller said:
And it is a valuable niche. Very few people have any appreciable amount of printer skills.
It hasn't proven to be especially marketable that I've seen. However, every job I've ever had, I've been the printer go-to guy. Staples, Ridgeway, NTG, Centrada, all of them. IT people hate printers as a rule, as @IRJ reiterated. But yes, it is definitely a niche area.
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I always want any printer under contract... It's a machine.. a printer is not IT responsibility anymore than manufactoring machine that interfaces with a computer.. No reason we should be expected to repair/troubleshoot that side of them that is not our expertise.
