Beyond Black And White

The office-printer market is going strong. Network color printers are rapidly replacing standalone monochrome devices in small to midsize businesses (SMBs) and enterprise workgroup settings. That trend holds true across multifunction printer (MFP), laser and inkjet categories. In fact, single and MFP color lasers are now so attractively priced that they are beginning to displace inkjets. And with IT managers responsible for ever-more network printers, opportunities await VARs who sell printer-management solutions.

"What we're seeing is a continuation of the megatrends of the past two years," says Rob Wait, director of commercial marketing for Hewlett-Packard. "Facilities departments are turning over responsibility for networked printers and MFPs to IT departments. That gets VARs into the high-volume copying and printing game."

What's going on with the printer market's most dominant vendors? Let's take a look:

• HP is focusing on heavy color-usage groups that create marketing collateral and proposals, Wait says. The HP LaserJet 2600n, an 8-ppm, 600-x-600 dpi workhorse priced at $399, is selling especially well. MFPs, which HP calls "all-in-one" devices, have been booming for HP.

"Our share of the monochrome MFP market has grown from 1 percent to 8 percent," Wait says. In June, HP also introduced the LaserJet 2800 series of all-in-one color devices, starting at $799.

• Retail signage is a hot market for OKI Printing Solutions' new C9600 and C9800 color LED printers.

"Retail marketing departments create banners and distribute the files electronically to stores for local printing, saving time and shipping costs," explains Candice Dobra, director of printer marketing. Priced at $6,800 base, or $7,100 with duplex, the C9600 and C9800 printers handle a wide range of stock, from clear labels to 4-foot banners.

"This level of functionality previously cost $20,000 and wasn't available to the channel," Dobra says.

"In the color world, OKI has done an excellent job and is responsible for much of our success," adds Mike Greenberg, president of Denver-based reseller PrinTelogy. "Their products have been very successful for us in the color market, which is exploding. We're doing a ton of OKI supplies."

• Samsung Information Technology Division (ITD) has bracketed the laser-printer market with three offerings of its own. The $300 Ethernet-ready, wireless optional ML-2251N prints 22 monochrome ppm at up to 1,200 dpi. The $500 CLP-510N prints color at 8 ppm and monochrome at 25 ppm. The SCX-4720F MFP, also $500, prints and copies monochrome text at 22 ppm, scans a color page in just 18 seconds, stores up to 320 pages for faxing to 200 speed-dial locations, and features a USB port for computerless printing.

Money-saving features and one-button operations are Samsung's keys to lowering total cost of ownership (TCO), says Chanel O'Connor, senior product manager for Samsung ITD. Examples include a toner-save button that decreases toner consumption by up to 30 percent; one-touch automatic duplex printing; and "ID Card Copy," which saves paper by copying both sides of a document to one side of a single page.

• Lexmark's latest products--the T640, T642, T644 and W840 laser printers and the C920 color laser printer--include an ATM-style operator panel that provides management and security features.

An operator can send a print job to a remote printer with a PIN attached, restricting printing to authorized recipients. An expiration date can be attached to a PIN-assigned document so that it expires from a printer's memory in the event it is not retrieved.

"Customers have been requesting security for compliance with HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley, Check21 and other laws," says Mark Barnett, director of U.S. marketing for Lexmark International.

• Canon's Multifunctional Embedded Application Platform (MEAP) enables development of custom applications for Canon imageRUNNER systems.

"Customized solutions embedded in MFP devices are a huge trend," says Greg Ryan, senior manager of industry and alliance marketing for Canon U.S.A. "Most applications we're seeing are document-scanning and distribution-related. People use MFPs as input into a workflow to capture and index documents. Drivers include compliance and provide audit trails."

One set of custom applications enabled by MEAP is a line of document-scanning, OCR, indexing and printing applications for legal professionals developed by Ribstone Systems of Chicago.

"We found that occasional users didn't like moving to a PC to do work with Ribstone," says Eric Rodriguez, Ribstone's CIO. "With MEAP, the application is on the device's console in a familiar environment. At beta sites, the MEAP application has seen higher adoption rates and has received very positive feedback."

• Xerox introduced a novel solid-ink color MFP at the end of March. Starting at $2,999 and printing at 24 ppm in color or monochrome, the WorkCentre C2424 also scans 20 images per minute and has a first-color-page-out time of just 6 seconds. In addition, the company plans to make more products available through the channel, says David Bates, director of product marketing for Xerox Office Group.

"Our next step will be the development of printing-solution products for VARs, such as management of information, scanning, security and control of document distribution," he says.

• Small offices and workgroups comprising five to eight users are Brother International's specialty. Wireless network printers are especially popular in this market, says Jeff Sandler, director of marketing for printers.

"Folks are looking to reduce infrastructure in new offices with no CAT 5 cable," he says. "Wireless network printers will be an important part of our market in the future."

Brother's sales increased 65 percent in 2004, and the company projects a 50 percent increase in channel sales this year, according to Jason Jones, channel director of sales.

The Software Side

Software tools are also available to help VARs with printer-asset inventory and needs analysis. Understaffed IT managers welcome resellers who can help sort out their printing assets and get a handle on printing costs.

Many customers don't know exactly what printers they have, how they're used or what their real printing costs are, says Chris McPherson, a solutions consultant for printer and plotter reseller Landmark Systems of Madison Heights, Mich.

"Solving that problem is the first step in selling a solution. We've developed a package that helps us look over a customer's entire print environment and output an analysis of how to reduce their print load and cost per page," he says.

Landmark uses the Xerox Office Productivity Advisor (XOPA), a software application that compares a customer's printer inventory and usage data with industry-specific norms to pinpoint wasteful printers and printing practices.

XOPA can recommend solutions, ranging from simply moving existing printers to bringing color printing work in-house, and estimate the savings to be realized from each change. Customers can then prioritize and budget for their printing solution purchases.

VARs can also relieve harried IT managers of printer-management chores while increasing their own maintenance and consumables revenue. Xerox CenterWare network-monitoring and reporting software keeps Landmark informed of page prints and toner levels on customers' printers, enabling the firm to be proactive when it's time for more supplies or scheduled maintenance.

"The nice thing is it helps everyone," says McPherson of these new management tools. "It reduces customer expense, gives us business and helps our vendors."

Looking forward, HP plans to introduce color-matching technology in upcoming months, Wait says.

"Standard output, such as a company's logo, can look different on different printers," he says. "We will be working on providing consistent color output across an enterprise." HP also has high hopes for its new Vivera inkjet technology, which dramatically lowers the cost per printed page, he adds.

The printer industry's business model may change as customers focus more on TCO, PrinTelogy's Greenberg says.

"There's been a lot of buzz about the 'utility model' where customers don't pay for printers, but only for pages printed," he says.

David Hakala ([email protected]) is a freelance writer based in Denver.