Buyers enhance fleets with new color printers
Susan Avery -- Purchasing, 10/21/2004 2:00:00 AM
As spending on new desktop PCs picks up, corporate purchasing managers are reexamining their companies' printing requirements.
"We're right in the middle of a very big PC replacement cycle," says Rob Waite, marketing operations director, Americas, Printing & Imaging Group, Hewlett-Packard. "Almost inevitably we're seeing demand for printers picking up at the same time."
Document assessments provided by printer suppliers are helping to drive increased buyer demand, particularly for color printers, printer-based multifunction products (MFP) and sub-$500 black and white, or monochrome, printers.
Printer manufacturers such as Hewlett-Packard, Lexmark, IBM and distributors such as IKON Office Solutions offer corporate buyers these document assessment services. As part of its offering, HP, for instance, provides customers with a range of services from a simple, Web-based evaluation to a more complex look at a company's entire business workflow, while IKON's Document Strategy Assessment offers up two options: a document lifecycle assessment, which takes a holistic look at the full business process, and an output assessment which provides companies with a snapshot of the printers they currently have on hand. "Believe it or not, there are still some companies that don't know what they're spending to print documents," says Cathy Lewis, senior vice president of marketing, IKON Office Solutions, Malvern, Pa.
These assessments—which often involve procurement, representatives of information technology (IT) and user groups—provide companies with suggestions on how best to take advantage of current printer technology to improve internal efficiency and reduce costs. "Customers are telling us that they want to put together a balanced deployment of printers to address the way their business is growing," says HP's Waite.
Meanwhile, printer buyers are having no problems sourcing printers; supply is plentiful and leadtimes are, in the words of one manufacturer, "boringly normal." Also regarding supply, as the market for printers and copiers continues to converge, it's now possible for procurement to fill all their companies' printing and imaging requirements through one manufacturer supplier. HP calls its approach to this market, Total Print Management.
Pricing is competitive as manufacturer suppliers continue to add new printers with increased functionality to their product lines without raising prices. The initial impact of Dell entering the printer market this spring nudged manufacturers to adjust prices a bit.
"We are introducing new and better products at the same price points," says Doug Oathout, vice president, office printers, IBM Printing Systems Division. "Four or five years ago, a buyer would spend $3,000 on a monochrome laser printer that prints at 34 pages per minute (ppm)," says Jeff Roberts, manager, products and solutions, monochrome and color range and multifunction products, Lexmark. "Now, we recently announced a $699 color printer that provides 30 ppm black and white and eight ppm color."
"Factoring in prices of consumables, it costs less to buy and use a new color printer than it does to continue running an old Laser Jet," adds HP's Waite, suggesting that HP will make a pricing move later this year that could rival the impact of its launch of the $499 color Laser Jet printer.
New products from Lexmark, IBM
"Over the past 10 years or so, we've made a concerted effort to really understand how our customers perform their business processes," says Roberts of Lexmark. "We try to integrate our technology into their processes to further their business." Recently, he says he's seeing increased demand for color printers, printer-based MFPs and sub-$500 monochrome printers.
In the sub-$500 arena, Roberts says buyers are looking for "sheer power/performance for the least amount of money." On June 1, Lexmark introduced a line of monochrome laser printers for the personal or workgroup environment that includes the E232t, E330 and E332n. The E232t provides speed to 22 ppm, time-to-first-page of 8.5 seconds and a 550-sheet tray; it is priced at $299. The E330 has a speed capability to 27 ppm, a 200 MHz processor and optional memory and a price tag of $399. A version that comes with an internal network adapter, the E332n, sells for $499.
Driving demand for color printing "is speed, an ability to integrate additional users on a network and output quality," says Roberts. Lexmark's C510 appears to fit this bill. The C510 laser printer is powered by a 500 MHz processor and 64MB of memory. It prints up to 30 ppm in monochrome and 8 ppm in color. Plus, "it's actually smaller than some of our other workgroup laser monochrome printers. We are able to pack more functionality into a tight, little space."
With MFPs, it's functionality, the ability to leverage each of the technologies (copy, print, scan) to further the business process as well as reduce costs for such supplies as toner. "It's not just the price of the box anymore," he says. "Customers have got to show return on investment." Others turn to MFPs because they take up less space in offices that are getting smaller. Lexmark's new X6323e is a printer-based multifunction product with a customizable integrated touch screen.
"Customers are trying to figure out the amount of output produced by employees," says IBM's Oathout. "It's the life cycle of the printer rather than print speed (ppm) that's helping with buying decisions." Oathout, who is witnessing large roll-outs of new printers, says he's having conversations on these topics with representatives of both the procurement and information technology (IT) functions.
Addressing customer's cost concerns, IBM introduced the InfoPrint Color 1334 and the InfoPrint 1412 in June. For small businesses or workgroups—especially those with limited office space—the InfoPrint Color 1334 provides print speed to 30 ppm for monochrome and to 8 ppm for color. At $399, the InfoPrint 1412, which comes with networking capabilities, is IBM's newest low-priced entry into the personal printer market.
In April, it introduced the Infoprint 1352, a mid- to high-volume, monochrome laser printer with a print speed to 40 ppm. The new printer provides medium and large-size workgroups with such options as duplex and scan/copy/fax capabilities.
IBM provides two on-demand sales options for its customers. The first, Output Management Services (OMS) is a soup-to-nuts offering that includes an initial document assessment through product optimization and deployment. A second service provides the option of owning or leasing printers and MFPs; the customer pays IBM a per page fee for use of the machines.
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