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."

Comments

Will People Still Seek Cheaper Alternatives?

[gbulmash]

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?

Re:Will People Still Seek Cheaper Alternatives?

[Marc D.M.]

My only issue with this is that the DIY refills are usually messy and of a lower quality than the original.

I'm looking forward to this as it could pave the way for cheaper photo-printing options.

Re:Will People Still Seek Cheaper Alternatives?

[LurkerXXX]

If the price difference between Kodak and the remanufacturers isn't that big, who is going to risk f'ing up their printer prints with garbage remanufactured crap when for a very small bit more they could get guaranteed good OEM ink? I know I wouldn't. It's the huge disparity in pricing right now that drives people to take the risk.

Re:Will People Still Seek Cheaper Alternatives?

[Kadin2048]

If the price difference between Kodak and the remanufacturers isn't that big, who is going to risk f'ing up their printer prints with garbage remanufactured crap when for a very small bit more they could get guaranteed good OEM ink? I know I wouldn't. It's the huge disparity in pricing right now that drives people to take the risk.

Exactly. Particularly when the printer is $150, and not some $20 piece of garbage that's just a holder for the $40 or $50 cartridge. Nobody cares really about messing up their printer, when you can just get a new one practically for free -- but when the printer is a significant investment, and the replacement cartridges are cheap, who's going to do that? It's penny-wise and pound-foolish at that point to cut corners.

Their sales will skyrocket

[ZoOnI]

I will be buying a Kodak if the cost of both toner and printers is low as well as a minimum reliability.

Re:Their sales will skyrocket

[Eskarel]

Yes, but that toner cartridge will usually print out several thousand sheets as opposed to the between 200 and 400 you get from an ink jet, assuming you use it often enough not to get drying or clogging. $100 for 2000 sheets is a hell of a lot better than $30 for 200. Especially when it doesn't dry out or have to get tossed because you haven't printed for two weeks.

Expensive!

[wwpublishing]

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.

Re:Expensive!

[PhysicsPhil]

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.

The $15 cartridge is for colour. It's $10 for b/w, but it's still more than you'll pay at a copy shop. The copy shop will be using toner-based laser printers, which have a cheaper per-page cost to run. If you're planning to print a lot, get a home laser rather than an inkjet.

Re:Expensive!

[Grishnakh]

Yep, it's a rip-off. Comparing apples to apples, the B/W cartridge is $10. For three times that, I can buy a new toner cartridge for my HP laser printer which will print at least 5,000 pages. I'm sure these Kodak cartridges won't last for 1666 pages.

Plus, toner cartridges don't have to worry about drying out with too little use, like inkjet cartridges do.

The simple fact is that inkjet printing is just a bad idea, no matter what the costs are. It can't compete in any way with laser printing technology, except by using marketing to take advantage of peoples' stupidity and shortsightedness.

Going to buy 2 right away

[Jason Straight]

Just my way of telling the other printer makers that ink isn't worth $30,000/gal

Vote with your wallet people.....

[budword]

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

Re:Vote with your wallet people.....

[PinkPanther]

Kodak here I come. I'm tired of large corparations taking advantage of the flock because we ACT like sheep

...I'm tired of acting like sheep. C'MON EVERYONE, let's go buy XXX instead!!!

;-)

What a concept...

[epp_b]

Well, it turns out that building your products in a way that adds value for your customers is better than intentionally creating a way to continually rip them off (ie: building as much of the printer's "brains" as possible into each ink cartridge)! What a surprise!

Ink prices

[purduephotog]

Dye Ink costs about 1 to 15$ per gallon to manufacture. Milled ink (methanol milled nano-particulate pigment ink) is about 3x the cost.

I used to work for Kodak.

They can dump better ink at lower prices all over the market. HP does NOT want to get into an ink pricing war- everyone would lose.

Re:Ink prices

[Lumpy]

Wah!

It needs to be bad for everyone. Although I dont understand why anyone even wants Inkjet anymore for anything but a CD label printer.

Xerox full color lasers are almost $200.00 with a full set of toner carts. I have ran at home for a year now printing at least 5-10 pages a day between and still have not ran the toner below 1/2 yet.

The bets part, I can shut off the printer and let it sit there for years and turn it on and print right away. Every inkjet would be completely dead as the heads would be clogged and dryed out.

Yes nest year I will have to pay $300.00 for the high capacity toner cartridges, but then I'll have 4 years of "ink" at that point and will probably throw away the printer before it needs a refill.

Not bad for a network laser that has a photo quality mode that looks fantastic works with linux as it's a real postscript printer.

Does anyone even make a postscript ethernet inkjet?

Re:Kodak? Printers?

[Jerry Rivers]

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.

Re:Photo printer copier scanner not a printer

[NETHED]

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.