TCPglobal - news, views and issues on total cost of printing

Issue #0318/3 - With consolidation of the merger between Hewlett-Packard and Compaq now almost completed after a year, Hewlett-Packard has released figures for Q1 (calendar) of 2003 that show that its financial position has strengthened each quarter. Following the inevitable losses at the time of the merger, the company now reports improving profitability in all areas over the year and gross margins that are up by 0.5 percentage points sequentially from Q4 of 2002 (calendar). Earnings per share are ahead of Wall Street expectations and ratios of sales of computer products since the merger are ahead of analysts expectations (Hewlett-Packard sales plus Compaq sales). Analysts expected a ratio of 1 to 1.5-1.7 – actuals were 1 to 1.9 for UNIX boxes, 1 to 1.8 for servers and 1 to 1.86 for PC Servers.

Issue #0318/4 - I went into a supermarket the other day. It was not my regular one, so I had to look around for the packet sauce mixes – I wanted cheese sauce and bread sauce. When I found them, there were two possibilities on offer for the cheese sauce that I could see - one was a major brand and the other was the own brand of the supermarket. Apart from the packaging design there was no instantly and easily discernable difference between the two. As always, the own brand graphics and colouring were bland in comparison to the major brand – but then, that tends to be part of the identification of any own brand. So, to begin with, I looked at the prices and noted that there was a 10 percent difference in price between the two – about what I would have expected – so I put four packs of the own brand in the trolley.

Issue #0317/1 - It always seems incredible to me that ink can be spat from holes in a piece of metal with such delicacy and precision as to create legible black text down a piece of paper that is being moved through the printer under the print head that is moving from side to side, let alone produce stunningly beautiful photographic images using 4, 6 or even 7 different coloured inks! Yet this is achieved with ever increasing speed, accuracy, smoothness and depth of colour such that black text pages can be produced at up to 22 pages in a minute and a better-than-traditional full colour 10×15 (4×6) photograph in around one minute.

Issue #0317/2 - Epson is aggressively driving down the purchase cost of some of its strategic products to assert itself more strongly in the key low cost segments. Most significant reductions are effective on the base model 16ppm mono laser, EPL-6100, and on the low-cost, 4-pass, 4/16ppm colour laser, AcuLaser C900.

Issue #0317/3 - Epson in the UK has joined printer manufacturers Minolta-QMS and Lexmark in making free promotional offers, with significant monetary values, on some of its printers. These offers are valid on purchases before the end of September. When customers buy an AcuLaser C900 or C900N colour laser printer they will also receive a free Stylus Photo 915 ink jet printer; buyers of the AcuLaser C1900 will receive both ‘PlanIT Business’ and ‘Made Safe Business’ with their purchase; and finally, buyers of the single pass AcuLaser C4000 will receive a CX-5200 All-in-One print/copy/scan device, again - completely free of charge.