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Kodak Challenges HP's Printer Sales Model
Radon360 writes "Kodak has decided to attempt to buck the trend set by HP by offering low cost printers and reasonably priced ink cartridges. Three of their new printers start at $149, with ink cartridges costing $9.99 for a black cartridge and $14.99 for a five color cartridge. To counter, HP has announced a release of lower-priced cartridges, though with less ink and they are still more expensive than Kodak's. It will be a matter of time to see whether Kodak can upset the practice of ink cartridge extortion."
I guess if Kodak doesn't underprice the printers, they won't be as hurt by cartridge remanufacturers and cartridge cloners as the outfits that sell printers at a loss, looking to make it up in ink. Still, even at their low prices... everyone loves a bargain. If someone can profitably undercut Kodak on cartridges or DIY refill kits, will they find that they've just changed the tempo of the game rather than changing the game itself?
Start a happiness pandemic
I will be buying a Kodak if the cost of both toner and printers is low as well as a minimum reliability.
"Never say Never."
Is it me or does a $15 cartridge sounds expensive. I mean, like you go to a copying a store, and copies are like .03 each. $15 = like 450 pages. One of their ink cartridges can't even print that.
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Hurray for Kodak! It appears to be attempting to turn things around and be competitive again after years of lacklustre performance and seemingly rudderless operation. The acquisition of Creo put them in a good position in the prepress workflow biz, and now with this announcement maybe we'll have a reason to buy Kodak again at the consumer level. I look forward to trying one of their printers.
The pursuit of absolute tolerance leads to the most rigorous and ludicrous intolerance. - REX MURPHY
I have real doubts they will be able to compete with that model. People's natural tendency is to seek the cheap (or easy) route now, giving far less weight to the long term.
I know I have a hard time bringing myself to, for instance, buy things in larger containers....I know it's cheaper in the long term, but I don't like putting out a bunch of cash now.
I also knowingly do other equally irrational things along the same lines....for instance, if I am standing at one corner of a football field, and have to get to the opposite corner without walking on the field, I will always walk along the long side first. It gets me closer to my destination quicker, even though the overall distance is the same. Irrational, but I can't help it.
Kodak here I come. I'm tired of large corparations taking advantage of the flock because we ACT like sheep. Put HP printers out of business until they get the message. I believe I read (maybe here) that HP printer cartriges had a chip on them that would report to the computer that they were out of ink, when in fact they were not, to get you to buy another over priced cartrige. Hurt them where it counts, or they will never change. I've been buying canon printers, and canon ink (rather than slightly cheaper 3rd party ink) to try to reward them for not gouging me on the ink. I'll look into kodak next time I need a printer. Now if they have native linux drivers, Kodak would be a done deal. They won't change until we hurt them where it counts. Next time you buy a none HP printer, email them to tell them why you won't buy their stuff anymore. http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/feedbac k.do;jsessionid=GxCTB6m1p2fJcoG63U7U0P1YV8VQVD3QNP 177At6udUrxCMjeG6K!711870732
Breaking from a paradigms is always hard, but breaking from a paradigm like this one will be near impossible. People don't naturally calculate out what is the best for the amount of time they believe they will own the printer, they don't ever realize that they're tied into buying HPs ink for the rest of thier lives. Kodak will have to have one hell of a marketing team to pull this off.
If i had one dollar for every brain you dont have, i would have $1.
I'm pretty sure he was talking about the ink cartridges, not the printer.
HP releases ink cartridge page yield using ISO standard pages at http://www.hp.com/pageyield
If only the RIAA would take a note from this exercise. Both industries have similar problems. I hope that the consumer is the real winner....
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Kodak has been in the printer business for a long, long time. Though mostly at the enterprise level as far as I know. I remember seeing Kodak-branded laser printers in the 90s.
Why shouldn't they get into new business? Are they supposed to just close up shop because film is dead? And they are nowhere near a "last gasp." Kodak's a big company with many assets. Though they have slumped badly in the last seven years they still rake in $13.5B in sales.
The pursuit of absolute tolerance leads to the most rigorous and ludicrous intolerance. - REX MURPHY
I really haven't had such significant problems with ink drying like that, and I have left my inkjet printer unused for months at a time. The only special treatment I do is to wrap the printer in a large bag for storage in a closet. Years is silly because if you print that rarely, then you don't need a printer.
For general use, laser is fine, and that's what I use most of the time. Still, for quality photos, I'm not going to pretend that an inexpensive laser is going to do that as well as my inkjet can for picture quality.
BTW, just to add something off the wall, at the one desk I use for printing various things, I have four types of printers associated to just one computer. I can actually justify a fifth printer.
Thanks for driving the costs up for everyone. A warranty is just that, its not a end-of-life replacement program. I would chide you further, but I know I'll get modded to oblivion anyway.
--sig fault--
Back in ancient times, we could buy a modem cable for $40 from the local store, OR we could buy the exact same raw 25 conductor ribbon cable and crimp-on connectors (from the same store) for about $15. Total investment of time to save $25: about 5 minutes. The same concept applied to disk drive cables. The quality of the home-made workaround was no worse than the overpriced alternative.
I also remember when you could build your own computer from Taiwanese DIY parts and save about $1000 vs. the same thing (made from the same parts) sold in local stores under various so-called "brand names". You can still build your own computer from individual boards today, but you can't save $1000 doing it.
People do some silly things to save money, because most of the tactics WORK.
I recently bought a laser-based all-in-one unit, even though I would have preferred ink jet. The toner cost is reasonable (because the refill process is simple and effective). I have no intention of buying cheapie refills, because I don't have to. I would have preferred a color ink jet, but I refuse to deal with the outrageous cost of ink.
that will stop cartridge cloners, it won't stop builders of inkjet PRINTERS.
patents can make building PRINTERS much harder (witness the fact that there are only a few makers atm) but as the GP said patents have a finite lifetime.
the cartridge chip thing only affects builders of third party carts for existing printers.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Parent said "And I guarantee you that after three years they won't print as they should---just a fact."
If this is so, then the only problem is that not everyone is bringing these printers back as defective. There is no techical reason not to make devices that survive the warranty period in 95% cases, not 5%.