Charging More for Printers and Less for Ink - New York Times

Another sign of the "greening" of IT (it will be interesting to see how this turns out :-)

Charging More for Printers and Less for Ink - New York Times:

'...Xerox is unveiling a costly solid-ink printer for businesses that will print color pages at the same price as black and white. The printer, which can handle 30 pages a minute, will cost $2,499, about $900 more than laser printers that operate at similar speeds.

The cost of ink to print 14,000 black-and-white ink pages is about $216, in line with the price for a page from laser printers using toner.

But the cost of printing in color will be the same, $72 each for the three ink sticks needed for a wide-color spectrum. Laser toner to print the same number of color pages could cost five times as much.

“That model, pricing color sticks at one-third of black, is going to be disruptive in this industry,” predicted David R. Spencer, president of Spencer & Associates Publishing, which consults for printers and helped Xerox test the new product.

There is no question about which industry behemoth Xerox hopes to disrupt. According to IDC, the market consultants who track industry sales, Hewlett-Packard commanded almost 40 percent of the global market for color laser printers last year, up from 33 percent in 2005. Xerox’s share held steady at 10 percent in that period. And Angele Boyd, an IDC vice president who specializes in imaging and printing, doubts Xerox will gain much ground.

“The bulk of the market still wants low-cost hardware, so it’s not like this will catapult Xerox ahead of H.P., or even help it nip harder at H.P.’s heels,” she said. “But it could help Xerox sustain its position.” ...