Page Impressions
- Article 1 of 2
- Document output management, May 2005
The rapid evolution in printer technology has left even the industry gasping for breath.
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But colour printing represents an increased revenue opportunity for vendors, and they have been putting considerable marketing investment into making colour attractive to business purchasers.
Moreover, the cost of colour consumables has come down and different colours of ink cartridges are now available separately, rather than as all-in-one purchases; colour page printing speeds are now almost as good as mono print rates; and many mid-range printers now come with colour capabilities built in, leaving it up to the purchaser to decide whether to buy colour consumables to enable the capability. Yet, colour consumables are still more expensive than black ones, making them a bigger revenue source than mono.
Despite the big push for colour, most emphasis in development is now on improved print speeds and additional features, rather than the continued improvement in resolution and quality that drove the industry during the 1990s.
“I believe printing technology is good enough,” says Kyocera Mita’s Rawling Church. “I’m not saying it won’t improve: lots of people want technology for technology’s sake and IT purchasers in general do want to have the fastest, best, crispest whatever. But really, for most business purposes, 300dpi (dots per square inch) is ample. Most printers today offer 1200dpi, but even for graphic output 600dpi is more than enough. As soon as someone does 2,400dpi, that will be the new standard, but you’re not going to get radical improvement in the effectiveness of the documents, which is ultimately what it’s all about.”
Xerox’s Birkett agrees that the drive for resolution will have a limit. “The end point will be colour laser printing at 2,400dpi for less than £1,000 – you can see some printers with that on the market already. The major hurdle will be local storage. A job like that could require 512MB of [printer-based] storage and processing.” The push is likely to be from the laser end of the market downwards rather than inkjet upwards, simply because of the nature of the two technologies and the fact that lasers already have the business-friendly features needed. Photo-quality lasers are unlikely, as are hybrid printers, so inkjets will continue to be an occasional purchase for most organisations that need photo quality. Otherwise, the higher volumes, speeds and affordable consumables of laser will keep it at the forefront of businesses printer purchasing concerns.
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