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Issue #0805/2 - Lexmark’s newly released Business Edition/Professional inkjet multifunction AiOs represent ‘just another’ hard copy device but with a portion of the running costs bundled into a high purchase price, instead of offering the customer more than just fax functionality in addition to print, copy and scan.

Lexmark X7350

Introduced to entice small businesses not wishing to invest in laser AiO or MFP products to buy Lexmark rather than look elsewhere for more business-oriented inkjet products than Lexmark’s consumer range, Lexmark’s new Business Edition (Europe) and Professional (Americas) inkjet All-in-One printers are all part of the strategy to focus activities more strongly on higher print volume environments and to reduce reliance on its traditional emphasis on consumer inkjet.

Whereas there are fairly clear differentiations to be seen in the Hewlett-Packard range between consumer and business inkjet products, and between Brother’s MFC range and consumer ranges from other manufacturers – and even its own DCP range, Lexmark has paid lip-service, and not much more, to differentiation.

Most significant of the attempted differentiation features applied is that customers buying the Business Edition or Professional ranges receive a next business day replacement guarantee on those products.

However, the difference between the approach in Europe and the Americas is that a 3-year guarantee is offered in Europe but only one year in the Americas.

Then, in addition, customers receive two extra ink cartridges in the box when they buy the machine. In Europe, this is two high-yield black cartridges but in the Americas only one high-yield black is provided along with one high-yield colour cartridge.

For a business, there is an argument to support both approaches. Colour printing is still becoming more important to businesses, so the extra colour cartridge is valuable, but black printing is still the staple diet of most businesses, so the large quantity of extra black ink is likely to be warmly welcomed.

Further differences exist between Europe and the Americas in that the ranges offered in the two geographies are quite different. The only synergy between the two are the top-end models, the X9xxx series (and even then, there may be minor differences.

So, for the sake of a cost comparison, we’ll choose just one model from the European range and run it against suitable competitors. The middle of the range model, X7350 represents a market position where good speed is achieved but where the price point is generally under £100.

This does, however, present one minor problem. The cost of the X7350 Business Edition is quite a bit higher than the regular X7350 – 31%. To the user, however, the specification is identical to the regular X7350 model. The extra money paid effectively only buys the extra cartridges – something that could have been done with the regular model. Further to this, the value of the Business Club is unconvincing, especially as the Business Club offer is billed as being “as long as stocks last” – see last week’s article "Lexmark’s Q4 financial results hold more despair but a degree of hope".

What this means in terms of selecting competition, is that the price of the regular model (~£93) is the most appropriate price point, rather than the price of the Business Edition model (~£120) because this is the realistic competition from the specification point of view.

In terms of purchase price, there seems to be no real benefit in buying the Business Edition at all. Presumably Lexmark hopes that the lure of Business Club membership will be adequate to draw business users to the new range.

Taking this approach leaves us with models from four competitors. We have included the regular X7350 as well as the Business Edition to prove the point above. These competitors range in price from £70 to £96 and specifications are surprisingly similar between the models.

Purchase Price - Four-function Inkjet AiO

Note: prices are typical street price excluding tax

First of all, every model chosen is a four-function device, with Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) and USB 2.0 interface.

From there, we find print speeds in mono between 22ppm and 30ppm and colour speed mostly between 17ppm and 24ppm. Epson’s DX9400F stands out here with a colour print speed of only 13ppm, while Hewlett-Packard’s Officejet J5780 is the fastest of the group at 30ppm in mono and 24ppm in colour.

All but the J5780 have a PictBridge interface but only the Brother and Epson machines have memory card slots.

Brother MFC-260C

Paper input capacity tends to be fairly consistent, at 100 sheets, but Epson says that its DX9400F takes only 80 sheets.

Finally, Brother’s MFC-260C stands out in a negative sense because its fax modem is only 14.4Kbps instead of 33.6Kbps but, on the positive side, it ships with Nuance PaperPort document management software for Windows users (or NewSoft Presto! PageManager7 for the Macintosh) and Reallusion FaceFilter Studio for photographic enhancement.

Canon MX310

Only Canon’s MX-310 joins Brother by shipping NewSoft Presto! PageManager7, but for Windows users only, along with OmniPage for OCR applications. Lexmark does apparently ship productivity software with the X7350 but does not specify what this software is.

On the whole then, there is little to choose between the models on specification. Hewlett-Packard certainly wins on print speed but, without any direct printing capability, SOHO users may be put off.

Users with a fax-oriented priority will avoid the Brother on account of its slow modem, but those with specific digital document workflow demands will find the Brother’s PaperPort software particularly helpful. And then there is the FaceStudio software for photo enthusiasts (and children of all ages!) to play with.

Meanwhile, some users may avoid the Epson because of its slow colour print speed, and low paper capacity. The Canon tends towards being on the slow side in colour as well. In specification terms, Lexmark’s X7350 models seem to be fair all-rounders but lack the card slots for direct printing.

Now, on to a cost comparison.

We have established that the X7350 Business Edition costs significantly more than the regular model, meaning that it stands out head and shoulders above the competition (not in a good sense!) in the chart above.

Epson
Stylus DX9400F

One might imagine that creating a business-specific inkjet range should give the customer an overall cost advantage over consumer customers – after all, most Hewlett-Packard Officejet users benefit from lower print costs than their consumer counterparts (largely because of the expectation of higher page volumes from the users). However, not so with the Lexmark range.

Selling prices of the initial package are raised to the point where there is no Cost of Printing benefit. The customer is simply buying two cartridges up-front whether they like it or not. Any cost benefit comes only in the form of the extended guarantee if the user is unfortunate enough to need to make a claim.

In addition, the Business Edition models use the same cartridges as the regular models. In this particular instance, the Hewlett-Packard model also uses the same cartridges as non business-oriented DeskJet models, whereas many of the upper end models benefit from the much more economical HP 88 ink set. This does, however, put the J5780 and the X7350 on a level standing with one another as business machines.

Because the X7350 models use these high capacity cartridges, overall Cost of Printing is actually not as horrific as usually expected from Lexmark. Indeed, the long-term CPP comes out only a fraction higher than Hewlett-Packard’s J5780 and lower than all three of the other models.

It comes as some disappointment that the colour inks from Brother and Epson (the only machines in the group to be built on the individual ink tank configuration) are so high. This pushes the nominal colour CPP way up above the level of the other engines, resulting in a long-term CPP for each of these printers that stands out from the crowd.

Note that for these machines, the mixed mono/colour CPP over three years shown in the accompanying table is calculated on the basis of 250 pages per month; 70% pages in mono and 30% pages in colour; is based on the use of maximum capacity supplies; takes into account any standard, or starter, supplies shipped with the device; and also includes the cost of purchase. All prices are typical street price excluding tax.

Total Cost of Printing - Four-function Inkjet AiO

Note particularly though, that the long-term Cost of Printing of the two Lexmark models are identical – meaning that users really do not gain any benefit from buying the Business Edition machine unless they value the Business Club membership and have cause to claim under the three-year next day guarantee!

This approach from Lexmark merely shifts a portion of the overall cost to the user right up to the front of the equation in terms of the purchase price – something that Lexmark has fought against tooth-and-nail for the past decade, annoying other manufacturers and causing major antagonism in the ongoing price war.

No doubt some users will be sucked into a purchase by the lure of the ‘Business Edition’ tag but, in this instance, they would actually be better served by paying less up front and buying the Hewlett-Packard Officejet J5780.

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This entry was posted on Friday, February 8th, 2008 at 12:01 am and is filed under Hardware, New Products, Comparisons, Issues, Total Cost of Printing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.