Inkjet Reborn?
Wednesday, June 27th, 2007Where’s the least likely place you’d expect to find an inkjet printer?
- a) In your home
- b) At the workplace
- c) In the Skip, along with its messy, expensive cartridges
Many people would likely answer b) to that question (although c. would also be acceptable), as laser is the technology of choice for office printing. Cheap inkjet printers–primarily consumer and home units–have given the inkjet technology a bad name.
That perception may be changing as new technology advances in inkjet printing, coupled with the rise of business colour printing, could make inkjet printers a serious challenger to business-class laser printing.
Sceptical? You should be.
Inkjet technology has largely earned the reputation of being inferior to laser in black-and-white office printing. But if colour printing continues to make inroads in the office, inkjet–which has colour-printing advantages over laser–is getting a second look.
“We see a very large opportunity for ink to be successful in business from SMBs up through the enterprise,” says Hatem Mostafa, senior vice president of Hewlett-Packard’s inkjet systems.
Several inkjet printer manufacturers are developing next-generation inkjet printers, which they say are faster and more reliable than their predecessors.
The Money of Colour
Colour laser is the fastest-growing segment of the Global printer market, with a compound annual growth rate of 15 percent from 2005 to 2010, according to market research firm IDC.
There are some doubts, however, about how much impact colour have on the office, as many businesses are still concerned about the high costs of colour printing. Still, though, if colour reaches even 25 percent of printing in businesses, the door is wide open for inkjet printers. In 2006, the total market for digital hard-copy peripherals, ink and toner supplies was about $35.5 billion, according to IDC.
Two years ago, HP introduced its Scalable Print Technology, the fruit of a $1.4 billion, five-year research and development initiative that changed the way HP designed and made inkjet print heads.
The new print head architecture enables faster development cycles at half the cost, improves the accuracy of ink-drop placement and allows for more nozzles to fit on a single print head. In addition, the print head width, and the number of nozzles and inks can be changed depending on desired performance and cost. That way, the manufacturer can use a single technology to scale from the consumer market all the way up to the enterprise.
At the launch of the new architecture, HP introduced several new photo printers. Since then, it’s also launched several new office products. For instance, last year it released the OfficeJet Pro K550 colour printer, which became the fastest desktop printer in its segment–of any inkjet or laser printer. HP followed that up last March with an all-in-one series, the OfficeJet Pro L7000, positioned for small businesses. The all-in-ones print at speeds comparable to that of low-end colour laser printers and cost about £0.05 pence per colour page–comparable to laser printers in the same class. The printers use new HP ink and paper supplies that enable the ink to dry more quickly.
Most recently, HP rolled out a new line of department-level multifunction printers based on its Edgeline technology, an extension of the Scalable Print technology. Edgeline, which employs a large array of fixed printheads which are stationary and span the width of the page, so that as the paper passes under the printhead the paper moves and not the printhead, which results in more accurate ink-drop placement and potentially faster speeds. HP says the printheads offer improved reliability, less maintenance and lower operating costs.
That’s not to say HP is abandoning its laser-printing business. For now, it’s targeting its ink products at SMBs and company departments, leaving the workgroup printing market to lasers.
Of course, HP isn’t the only major printing and imaging vendor seeking to drive ink deeper into the business space. Ricoh has developed its own ink-based technology for business, called GelSprinter, designed for entry-level monochrome and colour printing, and Xerox has seen year-over-year growth of its solid-ink business since its introduction in the early 1990s.
Xerox now has solid-ink printers and Multi Function Printers in the letter-sized printer line, but the company’s also looking to expand its solid-ink line into other business market segments.
Some solution providers aren’t sold that inkjet could be in their best interests–or in their users’.
HP, for one, says it has reduced maintenance required with the design of its Edgeline printers, but the perceptions around inkjet are still very pervasive in the market.
“A lot of the manufacturers are saying this makes inkjet just as good as laser, but why not just use laser then? Where is the pent-up demand for inkjet?
