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

Issue #1115 – Litigators in North America are again having a go at extracting money from Epson on the grounds of alleged ‘wasted’ ink. Supposedly depriving the user of fully benefiting from their purchase, these are bizarre cases. It is my personal opinion that Epson is being unfairly victimised, probably for someone’s personal gain. Testing shows that it is not OEMs ink cartridges that are the worst offenders anyway – some third party brands are far, far worse.

Issue #1106 – Britain’s BBC news service is today featuring a British company that has developed a rapid manufacturing technique using relatively standard printing technology that is capable of building products from nylon that is as tough as steel. In order to demonstrate the capabilities of the technique for building everyday products in the future, the company has built a working prototype bicycle from nylon – shown on the BBC’s Breakfast TV program this morning.

Issue #1008/1 – IPEX 2010 at the NEC exhibition centre in Birmingham, UK, was the scene for the first showing of several new high-speed continuous feed web production print units – utilising inkjet technology – and pointing the way towards the future of production printing. Could this development ultimately influence the office printing market?

Issue #1007/1 – Reports are emerging of an academic study, involving both Microsoft and the Institute of Directors in the UK, suggesting that remote working will/should expand dramatically and that companies should reduce their office space in favour of either home working or renting space for employees in shared bureau facilities – or both. This would have major implications on the way IT is delivered and also on the profile of the printer and MFP market. This article considers some of the conditions, benefits and downsides relating to the demise of the office as we know it, together with consequences for printer and MFP manufacturers.

Issue #1004/2 – While on the subject of delivery, a couple of packages received recently emphasised one aspect of the product cycle and environmental argument that I suspect is not considered to be as important in certain circles as it should be. With a 16x volume difference for shipping identical products, we analyse the packaging a little further.