Canon Printers Announced at Spiceworld
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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.
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@ajstringham said:
@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.
Very few companies actually own printers anymore. Most just lease MFP/Copiers now days. It saves a lot of money for the company.
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AJ please point us toward some independent analysis that show that inkjets have a lower cost per page than a laser. We simply can't trust a manufacturer to provide unbiased data in this field.
I completely agree with Scott. The companies selling printer and printer contracts would be shoving their vendors (those agreements you talked about) toward inkjets if the overall costs could be lower and the selling company could make the same or more money. If the product they sell is cheaper, they will make more sales, that's what they want.
I pay .002 cents a sheet for b/w prints on my service contract. I'd like to know how ink would ever get there.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
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.
The thing is that MPCs are mostly scams. Let me explain:
You lease a machine, that is often already used when you get it. Now, as you said, having someone to call that is responsible for it is great. However, companies that offer MPCs not only serve a purpose, but by their very existence perpetuate the idea that they are required. As I said, you get a machine that you lease under your contract. It's likely already used, so when it breaks down due to already being used, it perpetuates the myth that printers are prone to break. Who saves the day? Your leaser swoops in and fixes it, often with remanufactured parts. Also, a lot of MPCs provide toners as part of the package. However, they aren't using OEM toners as a rule. They use remanned toners, which also have a tendency to break printers, even further perpetuating the myth.
Pricing schemes vary but a flat cost/page is not unheard of. However, if you look at it, they are making out pretty good.
Buying a new printer, with a contract from the VAR or the manufacturer, and buying OEM toners, combined with good maintenance as required, will work out to be cheaper. You still have someone you can call. I don't believe in MPCs as a rule. Planned well, you can do much better buying outright your equipment. Also, if you go with a MPC, that carrier is going to be partnered with a specific company, like Xerox or Ricoh. That means that even if someone else has better equipment for what you need, you're limited by that carrier.
