Wednesday, 26 September 2007

HP, Xerox Spar Over Printer Technology

The global computer printer business is a low-key affair with companies doing their jobs without much fuss. However things took a bad turn when HP and Xerox exchanged accusations against each other alleging their printing technology was flawed. HP said Xerox’s printer technology was flawed and inefficient while Xerox said HP’s colour printer was expensive and wasteful.

The feud started when Xerox launched a new printer range and compared it to HP’s printer. It said the new printer range brought the cost of colour printout to the same level as black-white printouts.

Xerox said its patented patented solid-ink technology was better than a comparable printer from HP. HP responded and how. It said, "There is a huge growth opportunity in the colour market, so it's no surprise our competitors are aggressively pursuing this space to try to capture market share. Over the years, we have seen many competitors attempt what Xerox is trying to do – give up margins in order to gain market share – but to date no one has been successful with this strategy. It is somewhat surprising Xerox would choose to use solid ink technology as their play for the colour market considering the inherent issues with solid ink for general office printing needs, its limited success in the market to date, and its environmental challenges."

HP, quoting from its experience with solid ink technology said the Xerox solid ink – which includes black and color ink "sticks" instead of more traditional toner cartridges – simply took a lot of energy and heat to melt and "as such, the process uses approximately triple the power consumption similar products require."

Not to be outdone, Xerox replied telling, "Xerox has been continually evolving and enhancing solid ink. "Today, the solid ink sticks not only produce vibrant colours on virtually any media type – including recycled paper stock – with no bleeding, they create substantially less waste than ever before."

It also said, "While a typical colour laser printer generates about 157 pounds of waste (packaging and cartridges) after 100,000 prints, the Phaser 8860 printer, (which has no cartridge) produces only 5 pounds of waste after 100,000 prints. Many agree that such results outweigh the nominal increase in energy that's required to run the device (12.6 kilowatt hours/week, vs. 4.9kilowatt hours/week for the HP 4700)," Xerox said.

After being successful, Xerox is trying hard to make itself a force in the computer printer business, however with HP’s pre-emptive position as a market leader, it’s difficult for a new player rake in the moolah.