February 8, 2007

Kodak Enters the Printing Market: Price is the Key Point

Right now the printing industry is dominated by a handful of players, and played in by a few others. Either way, the name of the game, primarily is low cost printers and high-cost cartridges - like razor blades.

However, yesterday, Kodak announced that they are entering the market with low cost printers for mainly consumers/home use. Of course, though, many small businesses will give these a try - especially those with home offices.

What does this mean for your business?

Well as act I, Kodak is offering very low cost print cartridges, costing $10 - $15. Ink from HP, Dell, Lexmark, Cannon, Brother and others costs much more than this - as you know.

The second part of this interesting story is that I'm sure Kodak will next launch a laser printer line. THIS is where things will get more interesting for YOU.

Consumable prices will be forced to go lower and lower and lower!

The NY Times writes Ah, but there's a catch: One of the reasons Kodak can cut the price and still claim to maintain high printing quality is that it moved the "print head," the mechanical device that actually does the spraying of the ink, from the ink-jet cartridge to the printer itself.

The conventional approach of the other printer makers is to craft the print head, at some expense, onto the cartridge. So Kodak's cartridges, even if they were slightly rejiggered to fit a Canon printer, would still need to be re-engineered to include the print head. Szulc said that this just was not going to happen.

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