Epson WorkForce Pro 6590
Epson continues to raise its profile within the commercial business inkjet printer market with a new line of WorkForce Pro workgroup printers introduced on Oct. 27. The new A4 models, the WorkForce Pro WF-6590 multifunction printer and WF-6090 single-function device, reportedly deliver up to 50 percent lower printing costs versus color lasers and require minimal intervention to maximize productivity.
Epson also describes these devices as its fastest letter/legal-size office printers to date with color and black print speeds of 24 pages per minute.
“It’s not a personal printer, although it’s letter/legal size, because of its form factor and configurability it is really designed for workgroups,” states Pam Schulz, product manager, Business Ink Jet Printers, Epson America. “We’re positioning it against our tabloid/ledger-size WorkForce Pro 8000 series [originally introduced last December with cartridge models introduced in January, and the replaceable ink pack version in March].”
Epson WorkForce Pro 6090
She explains that the ledger/tabloid size addresses a particular market need.
“While it can be used as a desktop unit, you’d have to be printing an awful lot of pages to rationalize that investment because it’s configured in such a way with extra letter trays which is helpful if you’re [using] different media,” she explains. “It also takes our largest size cartridges which are the same cartridges used in the ledger-size line so it can print up to 7,000 color pages or 10,000 black pages before you need to replenish.”
Schulz further explains that’s why it makes it ideal for use in a network being shared by multiple users.
The market Epson is targeting are those who are typically printing a higher color page volume of up to 5,000 pages in a month (recommended), and the color printing done in these environments is often centralized with MPS contracts and centralized MFPs. Here the workflow has been directed to the centralized color copier not only for management and control but also drive down the cost of color, which is expensive in the laser world.
“What we’re doing with the new 6000 Series and what we did with the larger 8000 Series is we positioned them as products that are ideal for balanced deployment,” explains Schulz. “They’re not intended to replace a color MFP with finishing capabilities and higher speeds, but intended to augment, for those workgroups that routinely print a lot of color and/or their workflow would be interrupted if they had to constantly travel to a centralized device to get their output.”
Earlier in October Epson announced the 6530, a model that will be sold via retail contract outlets. That device is a similar size but cannot be configured with the additional paper trays and does not have built in IP and security tools like the 6590 and 6090.
“One of the other selling attributes of the 6000 series is that because it takes the larger capacity cartridge with a higher yield, the cost per page is about half a cent lower color versus the current A4 5000 series,” reveals Schulz.
The devices’ high-yield cartridge can print up to 14 reams of paper before replacement is required and have a capacity of up to 1,580 sheets of paper.
“That’s what makes it ideal for use where it’s shared by multiple users,” says Schulz.
Features include auto-duplexing, support for PCL4, PostScript3, remote printing, and cloud access. The WF-6590 and WF-6090 include standard security-related features such as PIN-based confidential job release; access and usage control; and SSL/TLS communication.
Those security tools can be used as needed or not at all, according to Schulz who also points out that “The security tools are top of mind questions that IT decision makers tend to ask [about].”
The new models also enable remote data collection using third-party MPS software solutions such as PrintFleet, ECi FMAudit, and Print Audit.
The WorkForce Pro WF-6590 ($549.99 USD; $669.99 CDN) and WF-6090 ($349.99 USD; $429.99 CDN) are available now.
