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13
magazine
Printers
Memjet Office president Bill McGlynn
describes the company’s inkjet
technology as a game-changer
and likens its impact to that of
smartphones, large screen colour TVs
and mobile operating systems.
“I worked for HP for 25 years and
helped launch the first Laserjet in 1984.
And the model hasn’t changed all that
much since then,” he said. “It takes
someone from outside to change the
game – someone who doesn’t need to
get 13 cents per colour page.”
Memjet printing technology, used
in a variety of devices from poster
printers to high speed envelope printers,
is based on a page-wide printhead with
70,000 ink nozzles that delivers 1600
dpi print quality at very high speed. For
Business Info
readers, its most interesting
application is in EvoJet printers and
MFPs sold under the Lomond brand and
distributed in the UK by Compatech.
At a time of falling demand for
inkjet devices and shrinking margins,
what makes McGlynn so confident that
Memjet will succeed where Lexmark and
Kodak have failed? The short answer is
a super-fast print speed; colour pages at
the same price as black and white; and, in
the UK at least, a utility pricing model.
He said: “We know we can produce
four colour pages for a quarter of the
cost of other printers. But what if we
can do it at 60 pages per minute and
come up with a pricing model more
like a mobile phone contract?What if
we charge you a monthly rate and if
something goes wrong with the printer
we give you a new one, so you stop
worrying about the printer and what you
are printing and whether it is in colour
or black and white?Wouldn’t that be a
better idea?”
A new model
MPS providers talk about delivering print
as a utility, but none has gone as far as
Memjet and Compatech who together
are trialling a three-year subscription
model that makes no distinction between
colour and mono pages.
Instead of buying a printer up-
front and supplies as they are needed,
customers are being invited to pay a
flat monthly fee that gives them use
of a printer; a set number of pages
irrespective of whether they are printed
with one word in black or an A4 image
in colour; servicing, including automatic
supplies replenishment; and support.
Prices start at £49 per month for 500
pages, rising to £149 per month for 5,000
pages.
The first office printers based on Memjet technology have
just been introduced to the UK, but they only have a small
head-start on the new generation of HP business inkjets
(see overleaf) due to be launched next Spring.
Something old,
something new
Do the maths
The simplicity and convenience of this
approach is appealing, but it is full of
pitfalls. Just like the razor/razor blade
model that Memjet is seeking to replace,
it is superficially attractive, but could
mean you end up paying much more than
necessary.
This is a particular risk for businesses
with irregular demand or low volumes of
predominantly black and white output,
who are also least likely to benefit from
Evojet Office 2’s other main selling point,
its truly impressive 60 pages per minute
print speed.
An entry-level subscription (£49 per
month for 500 pages) costs about 10p
per print (including hardware), assuming
you make full use of your quota. If
you print half the allowance – still a
reasonable amount for a micro-business
– you will end up paying about 20p per
copy. That looks expensive compared
to some of the business inkjets on the
market.
At the time of writing, HP was selling
an HP Officejet Pro 8100 ePrinter for
£100 and a 2,300-page black cartridge
for £26 (i.e. just over 1p per mono page).
Single colour cartridges (C, M and Y)
with capacities of 1,500 pages cost £20
each, giving a cost per colour page of
circa 5p (C, M, Y and K). These prices are
at 5% coverage (for mono) and 20% (for
colour) and will be higher for documents
with more ink on the page, especially full
colour graphics, and lower for ones with
just a few lines.
A business with low volumes, printing
a typical mix of office output is almost
certainly better off buying an HP
business inkjet. But one producing colour
newsletters or graphics-heavy marketing
material and making full use of its quota
could find that the Evojet is better value,
even at the entry-level subscription.
Value for money
As print volumes increase, the Evojet
proposition becomes stronger, not just
because the productivity benefits of
continued...
Bill McGlynn,
President,
Memjet Office
Lomond Evojet
Office 2
“What if we
charge you
a monthly
rate and if
something
goes wrong
with the
printer we
give you a
new one...”