New strategy threatens to cut out the third party
Epson is trialling a new type of inkjet printer that comes pre-loaded with toner, according to Microscope.

Once the ink runs out, which should be after 8,500 colour pages, the vendor will collect and replace the unit. The original printer will then be sent back to be recycled, much like milk bottles.

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NEW YORK - Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said Wednesday it lowered its creditworthiness and senior unsecured debt ratings on Lexington, Ky.-based printer maker Lexmark International Inc. to one notch above junk, as revenue and profit continue to be hurt by the recession.

The company in January reported fourth-quarter earnings and revenue in line with Wall Street expectations, and said it plans to cut costs by more than $100 million this year. But revenue and profit is expected to decline sharply in the first quarter as businesses continue to slash spending on equipment such as laser and inkjet printers.

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If you have a printer attached to your home computer, you know something about replacing ink cartridges. You also know cartridges are expensive. Do the math and you'll find that the ink works out to be thousands of dollars per gallon.

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- printer - color - solid inkPrinterComparison.com, OHThe Phaser 8560 features print speeds up to 30 ppm in color/black, solid ink color technology, first-page-out time of as fast as 5 seconds, image resolution up to 2400 FinePoint, standard paper capacity of 625 sheets and network capability.

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IT’S NOT THE heat a laser printer generates but the variability of its operating temperature that mainly determines its emissions of nanoparticles.

The nature of these particles and their formation have been revealed in a study published in Environmental Science & Technology by a research team from the Queensland University of Technology in Australia and Germany’s Fraunhofer Wilhelm-Klauditz-Institute.

Comparing the operating temperatures of printers which emit high and low loads of particles showed that intense bursts of particles were associated with temperature fluctuations, suggesting that the speed and sophistication of a printer’s temperature control system was a major factor.

Lidia Morawska, professor of physics in QUT’s School of Physical & Chemical Sciences, led the study after the group’s earlier research found that around 30% of laser printers in offices and homes emit high loads of 34-50nm particles which can travel deep into the lungs.

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Analyst Gartner revealed sales of printers, copiers and multifunctional products (MFPs) in the UK fell 26.4 per cent in volume in the fourth quarter of 2008 and 18 per cent year-on-year.

Tosh Prabhakar, senior printing market analyst at Gartner, said UK sales contracted far more than in the rest of EMEA, which overall shrank 8.4 per cent by volume.
Until at least 2010, organisations will focus on right-sizing the number of devices, rather than buying new printers.

“However, managed print solutions (MPS) are huge,” said Prabhakar. “We do not track them in terms of revenue ­ it is quite difficult ­ and many providers do not give that information, but MPSs are now some of the strongest offerings.

“Green is also big because it can reduce costs,” he added.

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Polaroid has been stepping up its game of late, introducing products that are rekindling the magic of its pioneering instant-print technology _ including the Polaroid PoGo Instant Digital Camera, which goes on sale in March for $199.

But Polaroid is not done, and perhaps sometime later this year, we'll see other "instant print" products with larger paper (the PoGo prints 2-by-3-inch images, not the old 4-by-5-inch style of yesteryear) or perhaps a mobile phone that can print pictures.

John Pollock, vice president of digital imaging at Polaroid, said the company is looking next at the commercial market. The two PoGo products _ last year's stand-alone printer and now the camera _ are targeted mostly at consumers.

"There's a lot of commercial products we will be looking at," he said during a recent interview. "A lot of people have been schlepping around printers."

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Hewlett-Packard Co.'s quarterly profit dropped 13 percent, and sales ticked up just 1 percent, as even the technology company's cash-cow printer ink business was hobbled by the recession.

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As most retailers were feeling the strain of the recession in 2008, Cartridge World, the world's fastest growing ink and toner refilling retailer, experienced record-setting growth.

As the leader in the $80 billion printer cartridge industry, Cartridge World experienced a 13 percent increase in same-store sales in the United States over 2007. Cartridge World's sales have skyrocketed relative to the economic slowdown as more consumers and business owners are opting for ways to save money on ink costs by refilling cartridges, instead of always buying new.

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HP printer owners are being urged to update firmware in a bid to ensure hackers can't get access to documents previously printed from the device.

HP said that users of certain LaserJet, Color LaserJet and Digital Sender models are affected, and urged them to immediately download and install firmware upgrades.

The devices include 10 different LaserJet models - ranging from the 2410 to the 9050 - two Color LaserJet models and the 9200C Digital Sender, a sheet-fed document scanner.

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