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

Issue #0403/4 - US Dollar weakness is causing difficulties for dealers in the European market. Service and consumables will have to pay the shortfall in hardware revenues.

Resellers in Europe are reported to be suffering from a severe squeeze on margins as the effects of customary price erosion is compounded by the exceptional fall in US Dollar exchange rates against both Sterling and the Euro.

Issue #0402/1 - Xerox has launched a new generation of solid ink page printers with faster print speeds and higher print resolution.

Xerox has launched a new colour page printer, Phaser 8400, based on its unique solid ink technology with a new generation engine that allows full page full colour printing at 24ppm – and all at the very attractive starting price of £699/€999/$999.

Issue #0402/2 - First of all, it should be clarified that ‘Page Printer’ is a generic term for those printers where the whole page is processed before any image is committed to the paper. The processing may be undertaken at either the host PC or within the printer itself, depending on the design of the machine (which significantly affects the printer’s purchase price – on-board processing is more expensive than host-based processing).

Issue #0402/3 - Originating in the colour-focussed and innovative Tektronix company as long ago as the beginning of the last decade, solid ink is capturing a growing following. IDC estimates that around 15,000-16,000 units were sold during 2003 across Western Europe and that this figure represents something in the order of half of Xerox’s colour page printer sales with about twice as many units shipped as the Phaser 6200/6250 single-pass colour laser printer.

Issue #0402/4 - Advantages and disadvantages of solid ink.

Major advantages of solid ink

• Solid ink is less susceptible to variations of media because the ink sits on the surface. Solid ink can be printed onto almost any flexible flat surface that can be fed through the machine with very little variation in image quality – potentially ranging as wide as card and toilet paper, plastic sheeting and fabric.