Xerox’s announcement on September 24th, 2007, may have some customers taking a look at Solid Ink technology for their color business printing requirements. We hope customers take a close look at the technology, and the history of Solid Ink vs. Color Laser or business-focused inkjet devices and make an informed decision about which technologies are the best.
It’s important to consider that Xerox acquired Solid Ink technology when they purchased Tektronix in January of 2000. In the 1980’s, Solid Ink printers had captured an early niche in the graphics departments as proofing devices. Graphic artists liked the 11”X17” format and glossy, vibrant colors that solid ink offered. And, at the time, the nascent inkjet technology business was just emerging. Inkjet was delivering only 180 dpi on special paper. Color laser printers were not commercially feasible back then. We dreamed of someday selling a Color LaserJet printer for $1,000. Today, of course, the technology is much less expensive—HP Color LaserJet printers start at just $299.
But as the technology matured and color printing spread into other parts of the office, color laser became the dominant technology of choice. There were significant differences in the needs of the office users vs. the graphics department. (hp also has strong offerings for the Graphic Arts). Office users needed permanent output that could be handled, copied, annotated and archived. Permanence was especially important in contracts, legal documents, purchase agreements, proposals, etc. Solid Ink technology could not match color laser/dry toner technology in these areas. Also, color laser technology was able to deliver sharper text quality which was also critical in high-value business documents.
General office users also needed fast output. Again, Solid Ink technology had some drawbacks compared to color laser, many of which are documented in this side by side comparison. If a Solid Ink device is turned off, or if nozzles clog, there is up to a 12.5 minute delay to cycle the printer. A color laser printer can be power cycled in less than two minutes. This was another key advantage for color laser.
In addition, color laser technology provided simplicity at print time for users. With HP Color LaserJets users get best print quality in default mode. There’s no need to go into the print driver and fiddle with settings. But with Solid Ink technology, there was a dramatic relationship between quality and performance. If you wanted fastest performance you'd get a draft quality and printing would slow down to a fraction of the maximum print speed for highest quality. This extra complexity was an additional disadvantage for Solid Ink in the office. Users and helpdesks preferred the simplicity of the color laser user model–file print and great output without performance penalties, and no need to change settings in the print driver.
And the Solid Ink devices did not earn an Energy Star approval. They used 4 to 5 times the amount of power as color laser printers. Xerox created some special bundles that were Energy Star compliant, but the top-selling Solid Ink models were not and are still not Energy Star products. This was another reason to go with Color Laser technology.
Solid Ink technology maintained a niche with early adopters and graphics departments, but never experienced the mainstream adoption in the general office because it had fundamental shortcomings that make it inferior to color laser technology. As office color printing boomed, color laser technology boomed and became the de-facto technology standard and hp was, and still is, the leading vendor. Today, additional investments are being made in inkjet printing, like hp’s Officejet Pro and Edgeline Technology, that allow business quality results from inkjet printers tuned to SMB and Enterprise applications and customer needs. The result--as of 2007, Solid Ink technology is used in less than 5% of color laser class printer applications.
Will Xerox’s recent announcement change things? There’s a new pricing strategy-–more expensive printers and cheaper supplies. But has the technology changed? I don’t think so. Solid Ink still has inferior permanence to color laser/dry toner. Color Laser still warms up in 2 minutes (from Power Off, while printing much faster from Powersave Mode, using Instant-on Technology) vs. 12.5 minutes for Solid Ink. Solid ink still requires significant delays for best print quality and solid ink printers still use 4 to 5 times the power.
I wouldn’t be distracted by new cost per page claims from Xerox. This is a defensive competitive play—one that Xerox seems more comfortable initiating than something that is truly new and innovative. A while back, I wrote about how Xerox responded to hp’s hugely successful printer-based MFP. From a technology standpoint, nothing has changed.
Raising the price of the printers and dropping cost-per-page is an alternative business model not unlike what Kodak is trying to do with consumer inkjet printing. What is really important is Total Cost per Page (TCPP)—where you look at hardware prices, cost per page, up time, support costs, down time, etc., to derive the real cost of printing. Stick with the right technology for office color printing, color laser.
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