Anne Mulcahy - From InsuranceNewsNet.com, Xerox Corporation at JPMorgan. A question posed to A. Mulchay ask what Xerox thought of regarding Edgeline.
The response - "...On HP and Edgeline, I think for all of you who followed it, I think there certainly was a lot of fanfare about Edgeline really being the entry with inkjet into the office marketplace for HP.
I think it would be fair to say that it has been extremely quiet. That any information available would suggest that it has had very little impact right now on the marketplace in total.
I think the challenges are ones that are inherent in liquid inkjet, which really doesn't allow you a lot of media flexibility with high quality, and that is I'm sure something that HP is working on.
We chose solid ink as a technology in that part of the market because of the advantages of quality and media flexibility. We're pretty excited about the prospects for solid ink going forward, and that is a proprietary technology for Xerox. So I would say we have not seen much from Edgeline.
We never take for granted the fact that competitors get better; but right now I think we have been able to compete very favorably against Edgeline in the marketplace.
Why is everyone so excited about inkjet technology?
ReplyDeletegood question, I shall answer in the form of a post..
ReplyDeleteInkjet as it relates to inexpensive office equipment is not very exciting at all.
ReplyDeleteIn fact it is not even a better mousetrap. The one thing that is interesting about edgeline is that is has many meters. You can charge people for “what they use.” And that has appeal in a sales talk. Typically when someone else is making you pay by the click. Kind of like the same talks we used to have with people about no base. “Excuse me mr. customer you mean to tell me that they (evil competitor) are going to charge you X $$$ even if you don’t use it?” Other than that the entire thing has had me confused for quite some time. I don’t really ever see Inkjet as competitor except as a concept at Drupa.
High speed wide format inkjet could become quite a force in high end digital printing as these devices become more readily available and as the quality increases. Especially in the trans-promo space, high speed sheet fed and roll fed machines will proliferate and become much more wide spread. I was at a PIA conference in Dallas called “Frankly Speaking” where we had 3 of the greatest “Franks” in printing all in one location. Frank Romano went on for at least 20 minutes about the possibilities of Inkjet technology and how it could relate to the future of digital printing. I highly doubt that edgeline is part of that future.
To quote American Printer Magazine, "Write this in ink: It will be the Inkjet Drupa. Look for at least eight high-speed, high-quality roll-fed inkjet printers, initially for transpromo but also to challenge another level of offset litho." – Speaking about Drupa 2008
Pirate Mike
Http://piratemikedallas.blogspot.com
Http://digitalprintingevolution.blogspot.com