Printers

Digital cameras have become a necessity for businesses. They’re inexpensive, easy to use and create a message that cannot be expressed with words. Of course getting the pictures onto a marketing statement or proposal is another step that needs to be addressed. Businesses are now using color multifunction systems to print color digital photos at blazing speeds at a fraction of the cost of slow photo printers. Personal Photo Printers vs. Color Multifunction Systems (MFPs) · Personal photo printers are slower than MFPs taking multiple minutes to print a photo compared to an MFP’s speeds of up to 45 photos per minute. · Most personal printers do not allow you to print on letter-sized paper, limiting you to a 4 X 6 size. MFPs conveniently let you print high-resolution photos on normal 8.5 X 11 size paper. · Photo printer paper is expensive and cost per photo can be from 25 to 80 cents per page. MFPs can reduce that cost.

My last couple blogs have been about the unseen costs of printing and the benefits of color. So how can you responsibly incorporate color printing into your business plan without running up costs? 1. Reduce Use of Ink Jet Printers Inexpensive to purchase, inkjet printers are actually the most expensive color output devices to operate. This goes hand-in-hand with office supply stores advertisements focusing on their high profit ink jet cartridges. While convenient for small home office print jobs, ink jet printers become inefficient, slow and costly when running lengthy full color documents. 2. Cut back on Unnecessary Background Color Documents with solid color backgrounds use significantly more toner and increase the cost of printing. Instead, use bright colors on a white background. Your handouts will be easier to read and look more professional.

By Craig Faczan Many VARs neglect imaging supplies in their product portfolios, and for good reason: There is very little margin on printers and OEM cartridges. With high-quality aftermarket products, however, you can develop a good source of recurring profits. According to market research firm InfoTrends, OEMs own 73 percent of the market in monochrome cartridges and 93 percent in color cartridges—statistics that are lost on many solution providers. Generally speaking, competing with aftermarket cartridges is a losing battle: The market is small, price-driven, and saturated with competition. Why compete with thousands of companies fighting for a small percentage of the business when you can strategically convert customers from high-priced OEM cartridges and reap the rewards? In the life of a typical laser printer, 80 to 90 percent of its total cost of ownership (TCO) is from cartridges. A high-end network laser printer that outputs a million pages may cost $1,000. Over its life, the printer will probably use about $8,000 in cartridges and require about $1,000 worth of service. To compete with local providers, the Internet, and even the OEMs, you likely would need to sell at 10 percent margins to reap about $1,000 of profit over the life of the printer. Clearly, that is not a compelling business model.

By Corey Smith With the financial challenges of current market conditions, being green can provide your organization with much needed fiscal relief. Being green can help you to save money. There are more factors in being green in printing than you might think. eWeek has published an interesting article on this very topic.

HP has released a new eBook for assisting companies with marketing. They are releasing a chapter per month and Chapter 2 has recently been released. You might find it interesting.

From the HP landing page:

This book provides actionable marketing and sales information for business owners and marketing managers. Sponsored by HP, all chapters can be downloaded for free six months before the official publishing date (regular retail value is $39.95). Beautifully illustrated and chock full of check lists, worksheets, tips and tricks, the book provides you with updated information on

• Finding your business focus
• Getting more client appointments
• Optimizing your web activities for search engines
• Creating word of mouth through new media tools like blogs, wikis, optimized landing pages and much, much, more

You can click through to the HP Landing Page and download the second chapter now. If you subscribe to this feed, we’ll let you know when the next chapter is available.

Vince Ferraro of the HP Laser Jet Blog points us to the PC Magazine Review of monochrome laser printers.

Here is what Vince said in his blog post:

This week, PC Magazine featured a roundup of four affordably-priced monochrome laser printers best suited for SOHO use - two of which included HP LaserJet Printers. The roundup included the HP LaserJet P1006, the HP LaserJet P1505 Printer (an editor's choice pick from an earlier review), OKI Printing Solutions B4400, and the SamsungML-1630.

The review praised the HP models for their speed and small size, and reviewer David Stone said that while "the ML-1630, for example, offers a designer look, for those who care about such things, [...] the P1505 and B4400 are noticeably faster than the other two models. Any one of them could be your personal monochrome laser of choice."

There is a great deal of debate, in the industry, in terms of how fast the market (and users) will covert to color business printing. To be sure, the price and performance of color laser printers is declining - making them more affordable than ever. However, if you are not yet ready for color, mono laser printers in this price range offer surprisingly good value in terms of print quality, performance (usually faster than equivalently-priced color printers), and performance.

HP has released a new eBook for assisting companies with marketing. They are releasing a chapter per month and you might find it interesting.

From the HP landing page:

This book provides actionable marketing and sales information for business owners and marketing managers. Sponsored by HP, all chapters can be downloaded for free six months before the official publishing date (regular retail value is $39.95). Beautifully illustrated and chock full of check lists, worksheets, tips and tricks, the book provides you with updated information on

• Finding your business focus
• Getting more client appointments
• Optimizing your web activities for search engines
• Creating word of mouth through new media tools like blogs, wikis, optimized landing pages and much, much, more

You can click through to the HP Landing Page and download the first chapter right now. If you subscribe to this feed, we'll let you know when the next chapter is available.