Well, I feel somewhat like Rip Van Winkle. When I hit the couch for a much needed nap (recommended by a doctor who kept using the dreaded phrase, “a man of your age …”), inkjet printers had been relegated to home offices or the lightest of office use. While the purchase price for the printer or MFP was (and remains) extremely low (some for less than $100), the cost per page , especially for color output, was high, often exceeding 10 cents per page. 
At the same time, hardware cost for laser, toner based systems began to drop dramatically, making these systems more cost effective than inkjet for volumes of any significance. In addition, laser systems required a service component (contract) making them completely compatible with the dealer service model. Inkjet systems, on the other hand did not. What’s more, significant numbers of users would visit the Internet to purchase supplies at below dealer cost.
Bummer! Inkjet printers and All In Ones (AIOs) carried a low price with no margin coupled with no residual service or supply revenues. Dealers howled and for the most part ignored these products. Pundits gleefully ganged up on the technology and relegated it to either low volumes or specialized applications such as photo printers.
But, then, I awoke from my nap and found the world had reversed itself. Inkjet was back. And back with a vengeance. It leapfrogged from low volume, specialized applications to high volume digital printing driven by the need for shorter run on-demand or transactional applications. In fact, our friends at InfoTrends have forecasted that, within the next few years, inkjet will account for 40% of digital press output.
What about the office? Inkjet manufacturers (HP and Brother in particular) are currently featuring products that they claim offer full color output at half the cost of laser printing. Moreover, the Brother system features a lateral feed system that allows for A3 printing without an appreciable increase in hardware cost.
What happened? Has the world gone mad? Not exactly. However, several trends emerged almost at the same time to produce a “perfect storm” of inkjet potential. Here are just a few.
Pigment Based Ink – until now, most inkjet inks were water or dye based. Yes, they were less expensive. But they tended to fade over time and were sensitive to the substrate (paper) being used. Porous papers would cause the ink to spread, reducing image quality. More recently, pigment based inks have gained traction. These are less sensitive to the substrate selection. Colors are brighter. And images, while not necessarily archival, will outlive us all.
Office Printing – while the world was focused on inkjet technology for digital presses, Hewlett-Packard leveraged their Page-Wide Technology that features a fixed “Page Wide Array” print head the width of the page. Since the print head doesn’t move, the system is theoretically able to print as fast as you can move paper. It sounds similar to the now defunct Edgeline™ products. But those used water-based inks. These use pigment based inks, eliminating many of the problems found in the older systems. Typical of HP, they took a good idea and made it better. How much better? How about 70 full color pages per minute on a multifunctional system that retails for about $800.00? The newly released HP Officejet Pro X576dw AIO and its printer version, the OfficeJet Pro X. Moreover, HP claims a cost per page that is half that of toner based, laser systems. You can see a YouTube video of the AIO printing by visiting this address or scan the QR code. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hHI2fXkl9k&feature=youtu.be
Kodak’s Prosper Systems – featuring continuous in-line inkjet printing and roll feed, Kodak’s Prosper system offers superb image quality on two sides at speeds of up to 650 feet per minute.
Please don’t make me do the math, since the system can print “n-up” images. Suffice it to say that it’s REALLY REALLY fast. Walk behind the press and you’ll note ink being fed from 50-gallon drums. Kodak took us to a massive customer production facility in South Dakota to see it in action. Big data meets VDP presses. This may well be the most profitable segment of Kodak’s business.
Xerox Acquires Impika – a French manufacturer of high-speed inkjet digital presses using water (dye) based ink. This is a departure for Xerox who, until now, had been promoting their solid ink technology in their CiPress products. Impika uses the piezoelectric D.O.D. inkjet technology generating ink drops by mechanical distortion, as opposed to thermal D.O.D., which generates them by temperature increase. Some say the move signals trouble for solid ink in a production environment, while others say it allows Xerox to offer something for everyone.
Memjet and Fuji Xerox – remember Memjet? Believe it or not, the company has been with us for more than 10 years! They were touting page width array inkjet printing at the same time that HP launched their own system in their Edgeline products. Now, in partnership with Fuji Xerox and others, the company has launched a 60 page per minute water based system targeted toward the office space. The company says that the new systems will be available using an “all in” pricing plan that includes hardware, service and supplies on a per page basis. Sounds a lot like MPS to me.
Landa – yes, Benny is still with us. Now, the company has announced a series of new aqueous inkjet digital presses capable of speeds of up to 13,000 cut sheets per hour. The innovative technology is said to dry the ink on an intermediate blanket before applying the image to the paper. This, in theory, will eliminate many of the problems associated with water-based ink. I was impressed with their launch video from DRUPA. You can check it out at (or scan the QR code). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKRzDwzYens
Get the picture? Inkjet is coming at us from all sides. It’s a technology we’ve avoided simply because it didn’t fit our business model. I don’t think we can ignore it any longer. Perhaps we need to take another look at the business model itself.
Full color MFPs at 70 ppm for $800. Would you rather sell it or compete with it?
