As Promised...

I said in my previous post that the market was about to get more interesting.

Hewlett Packard has just announced the availability of the Designjet T1100 and Designjet Z6100 printers.  They claim that it is three times faster than existing designjets.  If you read their literature carefully it is obvious they are starting to position their color printers to be competitive with monochrome printers.  They say the printers come with "inks that include the HP Three-Black Ink set helps ensure a 0.1% line accuracy (1) and the ability to deliver sharp lines and accurate colors with true neutral grays."

Comments

[jim]

They are still slower the the Oce TCS500 range and don't come as a plotter/copier/scanner solution.

Memjet will be the interesting one

[Tracy]

Hi, John. Actually, HP is just catching up to Canon. The Canon iPF600 and iPF700 already are that fast, have the same line accuracy, and are less expensive than initial reports of the HP T printers (at least what we've been able to ferret out). In fact, the new HP looks so much like the Canon, and has so many similar (if not exact) features that I need to find out if HP OEM'ed it from Canon.

We're now focusing on Canon inkjet (starting this month) because of problems with HP reliability on new machines, inability to get parts for up to 6 weeks, and the seeming lack of live human beings at HP. Add those problems to the fact that every Tom, Dick and Harry can sell them - and that HP online often sells for the same as what a Gold VIP reseller can buy them for - and you have a situation where a vendor has really dropped the ball. You used to be able to excuse HP their faults because the equipment was almost 100% perfect. Not anymore.

[John A. Davis]

I believe this has a chance to be a real positive for reprographers, front ends will be imperative and the big question now is consumable/operating cost with emphasis on consumables including paper. If we can charge within 20% of b/w cost I think we can sell it, a lot.