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

Issue #1007/1 – Reports are emerging of an academic study, involving both Microsoft and the Institute of Directors in the UK, suggesting that remote working will/should expand dramatically and that companies should reduce their office space in favour of either home working or renting space for employees in shared bureau facilities – or both. This would have major implications on the way IT is delivered and also on the profile of the printer and MFP market. This article considers some of the conditions, benefits and downsides relating to the demise of the office as we know it, together with consequences for printer and MFP manufacturers.

Issue #1004/1 – Guess what? A full eight weeks after placing the order for Dell supplies from the Dell website ("Reasons to buy printers from Dell – are there any?"), the order was finally delivered! This is only eight weeks of printer downtime – what is wrong with that? Can you imaging not being able to print an invoice for your customers for eight weeks? Or print a proposal, quotation, business intelligence report, or any number of other business-critical documents for eight weeks? Having just completed a series of articles on the costs associated with unreliability, let’s consider the potential impact of not being able to print for nearly two months.

Issue #0937/2 – As we’re just in the throes of launching into a series of articles on reliability, printer downtime, hassle and customer satisfaction, current experience on buying from Dell is appropriate! While some Dell printers can be less costly to own and operate than other brands, others are not and the whole customer experience angle may not be all that we might desire as Dell takes almost a month to deliver supplies!!

Issue 0932/2 - As promised, this is the first of two articles comparing Total Cost of Printing between the new inkjet All-in-Ones from Hewlett-Packard, Epson and Lexmark with others on the market. Here we focus on the business inkjet sector and a further article will consider home-oriented devices. Devices considered are: Brother MFC-6490CW; Canon PIXMA MX860; Epson Stylus Office BX610FW; Hewlett-Packard Officejet Pro 8500 Wireless; Hewlett-Packard Photosmart Premium Fax; Lexmark Platinum Pro905

Issue #0931/2 – More details have emerged since the publication of last week’s article ("New Lexmark inkjet range looks very promising for homes and businesses") regarding Lexmark’s claim that “penny-per-page printing” is available on some of its new series of inkjet All-in-One devices. It turns out that the cost of black printing is even lower than a penny-per-page but it does rely on the user deliberately selecting a special ink cartridge.