Cheaper Ink Coming
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After putting Hewlett-Packard’s printer line in their cross hairs in 2007, Eastman Kodak and startup The Memjet Cos. are looking to ramp up their assault this year.Kodak went after the lucrative market for inkjet printers in February 2007 when it unveiled printers aimed at users frustrated with high-priced replacement cartridges.
Soon after Kodak’s inkjet rollout, Memjet unveiled what many observers called a technological breakthrough for inkjet printers, with eye-popping speeds and quality prints. Memjet wants to license the technology, rather than make its own printers, but it has yet to announce any licensees.
Kodak has high hopes for the printer market. For years, the multibillion-dollar inkjet printer industry has wooed buyers with money-losing printers and made up for losses with sales of pricey replacement ink cartridges.
Kodak did the opposite. It opted to charge more for its printers but offer replacement cartridges for as little as half industry rates.
Kodak is asking people to change the way they buy their printers. Changing consumer behavior is never simple, but Kodak is making some inroads with users frustrated by high cartridge costs, analysts say.
Some analysts are higher on Memjet than they are on Kodak.
Memjet is the brainchild of Australia’s Silverbrook Research. The company says its printer technology pumps out full-color pages at 60 pages per minute, at least twice as fast as many inkjet printers and about as fast as high-end laser printers. HP says it has similar technology in its existing Edgeline printers.
Memjet says its printers might sell for a few hundred dollars, a bit higher than average, and ink refills for a fraction of the cost of most brand-name printer cartridges. So its tack is similar to Kodak’s.
Memjet had targeted 2008 for the launch of the first product made by a licensee of its technology, a photo printer. Kim Beswick, vice president of marketing for Memjet, says the firm changed course last year to first focus on larger-format printers for the consumer/office market.
She says the larger-format printer market is far larger than the photo printer market. She also says some potential licensees are more interested in the larger-format market. Beswick says Memjet could announce its first licensee by year’s end, with a possible product rollout in 2009.
Copies.com
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