TCPglobal - news, views and issues on total cost of printing

Issue #0820/1 – While undertaking research for an article on Lexmark’s recent launch of its new range of Home/Student inkjet devices, we were shocked at how difficult it is to find them in stores (article now to follow next week). So we decided that an impromptu survey was called for. In this article we analyse the share of ‘shelf space’ owned by each of Brother, Canon, Epson, Hewlett-Packard and Lexmark, together with the market conditions, strategies and implications. We see just how many Lexmark inkjet products are available in-store right now. It’s not a pretty sight – for Lexmark!

Issue #0820/2 - In a very interesting strategic move, Lexmark in the US is offering two free ink cartridges (carriage free) for every five cartridges that registered users buy at the Lexmark online store and return to Lexmark when empty.

Issue #0819/2 – In addition to the Mobile Express Driver, Xerox has announced another new printer driver, Xerox Global Print Driver, which is claimed to make network administrator’s jobs easier than any other network print driver deployment mechanism by supporting any network PostScript, PCL5 or PCL6 compatible printer, regardless of brand.

Issue #0819/1 – Xerox has announced a new printer driver, Xerox Mobile Express Driver, which, according to Xerox’s product brochure, allows you to “print to any device in any location without tedious driver downloads and installations”. Unfortunately, it is not true for ‘any’ device, so we check out the driver in more detail and compare it with Hewlett-Packard’s existing Universal Print Driver.

Issue #0818/1 - Since last week’s TCPglobal article - "Mass merchandisers mislead customers over cartridge pricing", it has been announced that the UK now has a new law to protect consumers from the type of misleading claims highlighted in the article. This new suite of regulations is designed to place the UK in compliance with the EU Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (2005/29/EC) under which consumers receive the same degree of protection regardless of which EU member state they purchase goods in but could specifically affect printer manufacturers who use comparative advertising as part of their marketing strategy.