Print Power

Pro

1 April 2005

Printing is something practically every company has to do. However, the cost of consumables, such as ink or toner, means that printing can be expensive. In order to cut down on printing costs, a smart company needs to choose its printers carefully, because if it doesn’t, it might as well put its money in a shredder.

If you’re a small firm that only uses a printer occasionally then an inkjet printer or an all-in-one multifunction device may be perfectly adequate for your business. But, if you tend to print large amounts of information on a regular basis, then it may be more cost-effective to switch to a laser printer.

The lowdown on inkjets

The first thing to remember about inkjets is that while the initial purchase cost may be low, businesses should keep a close eye on the cost of consumables. One of the reasons that ink cartridges are so expensive is that they include the print head which is thrown away once the cartridge is empty of ink. HP has recognised this issue and recently set up a business inkjet unit.

‘With business inkjets we separate the heads from the cartridges,’ explains Stephen McDonald, commercial imaging and printing manager at HP. ‘We have now arrived at a point where it is cheaper to print on a business inkjet than a colour laser. Don’t forget that when talking cost per page on a laser, there are costs other than toner. You have to take into account rollers and fusion units.’

According to McDonald, prices for a business inkjet start at about EUR500 and the printer would be networkable. ‘Businesses can use network management tools to manage the printer just as they would with a laserjet. Prices go up to about EUR900 for models with multiple paper trays.’

Epson, in response, is taking a close look at reducing running costs by examining the possibility of larger capacity cartridges that don’t have to be replaced so often, according to Phil Hartigan, Epson’s sales and marketing manager for business products. While he wouldn’t give a timescale for this development, he indicated it would be in the ‘not too distant future’.

Inkjets slashed by lasers

Companies doing any sort of black and white only printing will inevitably go for mono laser but colour laser is now becoming commercially viable for smaller businesses, especially those using large numbers of inkjets, according to Liam Clarke, Minolta/QMS’s man in Ireland. One of his clients recently replaced all of their ink jet devices with a few networkable Magicolor colour laser printers and slashed their running costs.

While it was a large organisation, the lessons learnt have implications for smaller businesses. ‘We started by going into one office with two people, each of whom had an inkjet attached to their PC,’ explains Clarke. ‘We took their inkjets and replaced them with a Magicolor 2300 Desklaser. Nine weeks later we went back and analysed their printing.

We found that they had printed 3600 pages in that time and we calculated that the costs of ink cartridges only would have come to EUR600 as opposed to EUR110 for laser toner.’ Based on that experiment the entire organisation in question, switched to laser.

The Magicolor range is cost effective for a number of reasons, claims Clarke. Firstly, Minolta/QMS uses a new type of polymerised, rather than pulverised, toner which gives better quality. The process also allows them to incorporate fuser oil into the toner, thereby solving the problem of fuser oil leaking onto the imaging drum-one of the most common reasons for laser printers breaking down. Minolta/QMS also offers its customers what it calls a ‘swap out’ warranty. If a user has a problem with their printer, which can’t be solved via the company’s helpline, then Minolta/QMS will ship a new one out in 24 to 48 hours.

The Magicolor 2300W with parallel and USB connections costs EUR845 while the 2300DL with Ethernet lists at EUR995. Both will work with Windows. The Magicolor 2350 comes with an Adobe PostScript interpreter and works with both Windows and Mac. List price on the 2350 is EUR1295.

Epson’s solution to cutting costs is a print driver that restricts who can print in colour combined with advances that make it cheaper to print black and white on a colour laser than on a monochrome only one.

‘We have brought the cost of black toner down to make it more attractive,’ says Phil Hartigan, sales and marketing manager for business products at Epson. ‘One of the major things we have done in colour laser is improve copy quality. We have translated a lot of colour imaging technologies into laser technologies so when we compare with competitors: we feel our quality is equal if not better than most.’

Epson’s latest products include the Acculaser range which start at EUR750 for the C900, a 4 ppm colour/16ppm mono device with duplex facility. The connection is via USB but there is also a network option. Further up the ladder, the Acculaser C1900 has a similar specification but includes Adobe PostScript while the Acculaser C4000 is the top of the range model aimed at larger groups. Networking and duplex are standard and the colour and monochrome output speeds are both 16ppm.

Multi function devices

There are two schools of thought when it comes to multi-functional devices and both have pretty strong arguments to support them. One is that if you want a fax, printer and copier you should buy a separate device for each function. That way you will get full functionality without compromise. The other is that multi-function devices may compromise functionality to get everything in the same box, but that those compromises are outweighed by convenience.

‘The fairly obvious advantage is cost in that you don’t have to buy three devices,’ says McDonald. Running costs can also be lower. ‘If you are a small company, typically you will have service contracts. If you go to an SME support reseller they will charge you per device so you can consolidate around that and around consumables. You don’t need to store spare toner for three different devices.’

McDonald points out that the quality of multi functional devices has improved in recent years, as has the reliability. ‘If you are talking inkjet-based product then the entry level device would be the HP OfficeJet 135 which combines copier, fax, printer and scanner at EUR490 plus VAT,’ he says. ‘Anything lower than that and you are talking devices aimed at home users. There is also an option for a Jetdirect print server card so you can network the device. Further up the scale the HP Laserjet 3320 has the same options but is based on a laser engine. The 3320 is networkable and comes with a document feeder. It can also link into products like Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes.’

Fixed cost contracts

One of the nuggets of information that emerged while researching this piece is that it is very difficult to calculate a cost per page when it comes to printing. Many manufacturers will quote the capacity of their ink or toner cartridges per page based on a five percent coverage, but what exactly does that mean and who exactly prints like that? Five percent coverage typically means a page of text. But what if you’re using graphics? This can cause headaches for companies trying to calculate the cost-benefit of a particular printing technology. But what if you could pay for your consumables based on your usage? Well, Xerox has come up with exactly such a scheme.

‘Xerox has introduced the Carrera, a monochrome and colour multifunction device,’ explains Gerry Gray of CK Business Solutions, a Xerox reseller. ‘Companies can make an A3 or A4 black and white print/copy for only 1c per copy or 11c per copy for A4 or A3 colour. You don’t have to buy toner or anything else, just paper. And that price is guaranteed no matter what the coverage per page.’

According to Gray the Carrera can be networked and comes with a RIP pre-installed. It is platform agnostic so users can print from Windows or Macintosh. Output speed is 16 pages per minute colour or 32 ppm black and white.

The monthly base rental charge is EUR396 plus VAT per month, but compared to other printers, users can quickly recoup their investment. ‘You lock in your charges,’ says Gray. ‘I had one client with one printer who had previously spent EUR11,000 on consumables for 18,000 prints-an average of 61c per print. In many ways we can show people savings of 50 percent, and in some cases up to 80 percent and we can guarantee return on investment in nine to 12 months.’ Gray cautions, however, that this product is not for everyone. ‘You need a certain volume,’ he says. ‘This product is aimed at companies with 15 to 30 networked screens.’

 

Manufacturers & Resellers

Brother
+353 (0)1-2411900
www.brother.ie

Canon Ireland
+353 (0)1-2052400
www.canon.ie

CK Business Solutions (Xerox distributor)
01-4659300
www.ck-business.ie

Epson
1800-409132 (Ireland only)
www.epson.ie

Eurocopier (Kyocera Mita Distributor)
+353 (0)1-419834111

HP Ireland
+353 (0)1-6158200
www.hp.com

Minolta-QMS
+353 (0)41-9887160
http://www.qms.co.uk/Irelandindex.html

Oki
+353 (0)1-4049590
www.oki.ie

Oltech (Samsung/Olivetti Distributor)
+353 (0)1-4607999
www.oltecholivetti.ie

Xerox
1850-201019 (Ireland only)
www.xerox.com

16/05/2003

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