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

Issue #1108 – If you think third party inks will give you the same quality and durability as original inks, you are most certainly mistaken! Following on from the investigation concerning the implications of the glossy paper used for printing photos "Print quality and durability – effects of paper", in this article we investigate the much more dramatic implications of using different inks for photo printing.

Issue #1104 – When two new products are placed under offers that reduce their price by as much as 66%, one has to sit up and take notice. Lexmark’s brand new Genesis S815 inkjet AiO and Xerox’s re-branded ColorQube 8570 (formerly Phaser) solid ink desktop printer are both being offered in the UK with £200 cash back! Note: Lexmark is offering cash back of up to £2,000 on some models.

Issue #1006/1 – Q. When is a printer error not a printer error? A. When it is a routine maintenance issue requiring little more than sliding one box out and another box in. Many inkjet printers have a killer-trigger that makes the owner believe there is a serious problem and that the printer could have failed altogether. This is far from the truth and something the manufacturers do not clarify.

Issue #1005/2 – Following the unrest and strike action by Hewlett-Packard Staff (EDS employees) in the UK and parts of Europe over recent months (see "Hewlett-Packard’s need to return profit is showing cracks"), it is now reported that Hewlett-Packard’s rejection from the public sector bidding list in the UK has been confirmed – despite appealing against the original decision.

Issue #1004/1 – Guess what? A full eight weeks after placing the order for Dell supplies from the Dell website ("Reasons to buy printers from Dell – are there any?"), the order was finally delivered! This is only eight weeks of printer downtime – what is wrong with that? Can you imaging not being able to print an invoice for your customers for eight weeks? Or print a proposal, quotation, business intelligence report, or any number of other business-critical documents for eight weeks? Having just completed a series of articles on the costs associated with unreliability, let’s consider the potential impact of not being able to print for nearly two months.