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Recommendations for High Volume Color Laser Printers?
dughutch asks: "My church currently uses a small business color laser printer (Minolta 2200), but alas, it can not handle the load of our growing congregation. We are looking at buying a higher volume color laser printer and I wanted to ask the Slashdot readers for any and all information on possible solutions relating to this question, including, but not limited to: cost, volume, repairs, and outsourcing?"
High volume Color Laser printers don't exist. They are instead called Networked Color Copiers. But forget cheap, you're looking at $16K entry, that will get you around 20ppm.
And show good stewardship of your congregation's money. If you have so much money that you *need* to spend it on something, open a soup kitchen.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
And why purchase if you have such high volumes? Look around for a leasing company. We use a local company, and have a Canon Imagerunner 8500 (85 ppm) and have put over 1.5 million copies through it in the 7 months we have had it. Its not color, but the concept is the same. Look for a local leasing company and see if you can get a non-profit discount, our cost per copy is about $.02 per printed page, and that includes toner and all breakdowns and on-site service. :)
No I didnt spell check this post...
This is all true, and we definitely second-guessed our decision since the ink is so expensive. In the end, though, it was a good decision since we did print our quota (the printer automatically sends the reports via email), and we took advantage of the service agreement (which really makes the plan worth it).
The service agreement to go along with the printer (if buying stand-alone) costs about $650 from Xerox, and only lasts one year. The plan that comes with this lasts 3 years and is on-site, which is not bad at all. We only had it serviced twice, but it definitely saved some time and money.
I also implemented a printer logging system so that we could keep track of all printing for each user (not that hard since everyone printed from their rooms). This way we could keep the color printing under control and thus keep our costs down. In the end we charged everyone about $10 per quarter in printing, which covered our costs and then some.
On the other hand, if you are in a larger office environment or you are not sure what your quota would be I could see buying the printer up-front as a better option, if not only for the cheaper ink costs. It is still a good program, though, and a pretty good printer.
A computer is a valuable tool, so use it and stop whining.
I had a similar issue with my church. I agree with the reply to your post, that the printer can open up a greater potential than that money spent outright - for example, I think 25cents (roughly) of every dollar - I could be wrong on this - given to world vision is spent on admin charges, etc. However, all that money that is kept goes into advertising and other efforts that in turn produce more money than they would have had from keeping the 25cents.
However, there is some truth in what you say. In my church they wanted to implement windows desktops when Linux would have been more than perfect (in some cases it isn't, in this case it was). What that meant was spending money on winXP licenses for each PC, along with an upgrade for all but one pc because none of them would run XP - and there's no downgrade rights. They still wanted to use windows even though I showed them Linux was good (and they agreed). Why? I think because they wanted to go with what they knew, to feel safe. They said because if a secretary worked in the office they wanted her to have training in the primary applications used so she could put it on her resume. I actually left the role of admin over this - I couldn't condone spending of money on pointless endeavours when it could be saved and given to a more worthwhile cause.
On another topic, throwing around derogatory comments like "desert cult" do nothing to pursuade us, only to get brownie points for yourself with like minded slashdotters. Not all churches are the same, not all atheists are the same, no one is the same. Some live by the principles they expound, others don't. You can't look at those who transgress the principles of Christianity and say "See? I told you Christians were liers". In fact, one core belief is that Christians believe that they are basically not good people - and that's why we need God. And the atheist says "what's not good about me? I'm good enough that I don't need God". Amusing arrogance at the least. I'd be curious to see just exactly what it is an atheist could possibly believe they are "good enough" at so that they don't need God. After all, without God there is no right or wrong - there is only "something that helps me pass on my seed" and "something that stops me passing on my seed". The fact that atheists come by a set of moral laws independently of religion is a testimony to God's existence and a mockery of what the atheist believes. If natural selection sets any precedence, then almost every atheist I view is not living the way they should. They should all be living in ways that helps them get more children - what path they choose is irrelevant (being nice, deceptive, violent, etc). What is important is producing as many children as possible.