Michael Turner
Edgeline MFP Marketing Director
Lowering the cost of color printing is one of the top priorities for printing purchasers. The people who pay for color printing understand it costs more because there is more coverage (ink or toner) on the page, but they always ask: “What can be done to get that page cost as close to printing it in black only?” There is something that can be done…

There are several ways we help lower and manage the cost of color printing with unique features in the MFPs with Edgeline Technology that we believe give us a leg up versus the traditional copier technology using laser imaging.
Simplicity and reliability of the device.
In the majority of MFP purchases, people buy on a ‘click charge’ basis – 1 click for monochrome and 1 click for color pages. A part of this click is usually a charge for service and maintenance of the device. Higher reliability keeps click charges down.
In our original Edgeline Technology white paper, we talked about how we leverage the physics of ink printing to create a more reliable device:
• Edgeline MFPs’ print mechanisms are simpler, have fewer moving parts and endure much less friction than do laser MFP print engines. No contact between the print head and the paper causes less wear and fewer parts to replace. Print head configuration is designed to last the life of the engine resulting less parts wear and fewer failures.
• Higher print quality is delivered and maintained over life by high nozzle density and precise droplet placement, automatic optical drop detection and nozzle recovery or substitution, and special pigmented inks and bonding agent for excellent mono and color printing on plain paper.
• Ease of use designed into our HP Easy Select Control Panel and our AutoNav functionality that reduces calls to the help desk and the MFP service organization.

To learn more, see my previous blog entry about our HP Easy Select Control Panel,or see the on-line demo
Delivering higher reliability with Edgeline Technology products enables a lower cost as a part of the click price. Consider the following:
Printing Modes that save you money when you don’t use as much color.
We have 3 types of color ‘click charges’ in MFPs with Edgeline Technology. Current copier technology products use 1 click charge for any type of color document.
Professional Color Print Mode gives you print quality that you expect from your office color MFP – excellent quality to use in your color prints. This is what professionals use when printing color for “high-stakes” communication documents.
General Office Color Print Mode simply reduces the saturation of the color in an office document. This is nothing like a traditional draft mode. Monochrome text is identically dark and opaque as in professional color documents, and color is printed with equal resolution but less saturation on general office color pages than on professional color pages. I expect that General Office Color Print Mode page pricing to be nearly 20 percent less than Professional Office Color Print Mode pricing.
Both of these modes can be selected at the driver or at the control panel of the device by the user. Or you can limit certain users and some applications to the mode you desire. For example: limiting Word document printing to General Office Print Mode, or defaulting PowerPoint to Professional Color Print Mode. (See Color Access Controls below).
Additionally, we have a Color Accent Print Mode. Have you ever thought “Why should I pay 7 to 10 times the amount of a monochrome page click price for color when there’s only a small amount of color on this page? This print mode automatically counts any pages with a small amount of color and offers a monochrome -type price when you print only a small amount of color.
These three modes are unique to MFPs with Edgeline Technology and are great ways to manage the cost of color printing to be much lower than any other alternative.
Controlling Access to Color
HP’s Color Access Controls are available across HP’s Edgeline Technology and Color LaserJet MFPs and allow you to limit users and / or applications that can print in Monochrome, General Office Color, and Professional Color modes. This enables management of users and output types to minimize costs. Very powerful!
So, three ways of innovation that we give to lowering the actual costs of color printing for customers. Ways that we actually take cost out of the system so customers can save money also.
I’ve had lots of warning from industry analysts saying, in effect, that our competition can just lower their color click price (the equivalent of our Professional Color Mode), and they may close the gap on HP’s offering an up to 30 percent cost of color printing advantage.
Admittedly, you may be able to “negotiate” a lower color click price from those that don’t offer these innovations, but if the fundamental innovation in technology does not support taking costs out of the system, you’ll always be battling a copier dealer that is looking for ways to reduce the amount of time (money) they spend with you, instead of finding more ways to help you. Does that really save you money?
I'd enjoy hearing from you on the value of these capabilities in helping with the cost of color printing. Log in and reply!
enterprise printing, edgeline, edgeline technology, hp, Hewlett Packard, multi-function printer , MFP, CM8060, CM8050, Microsoft