You've hear it over and over, it's all about capturing pages, especially in the SMB market place. So, why do MFP manufacturers like Canon, Xerox, Ricoh and Konica Minolta continue to manufacture stand alone laser printers that have a high per page cost with thier AIO cartdiges (All In One) and are not good for the environment?
Since I have sold Ricoh for so long, I'll start with a Ricoh MFP161, this unit can be purchased as just a copier, or fax/copier or a copier/printer/scanner/fax. This system also prints at 16 page per minute and can up to three paper source trays. Whats great about the MP161? The low cost of toner! The toner cost is .004 per page at retail. An Image Drum for the Ricoh MP161 is around $160 and has a yield of 45,000 pages which has a per page cost of .00355. Total per page cost at retail is around .00755. Oh, and by the way the toner cartridge is rated at 6% coverage.
Ricoh also sells the BP20 laser printer, which prints at 22 pages per minute, and can also have upto three paper sources. The Ricoh BP20 uses a AIO (All In One) cartridge that houses the toner and the drum. Retail cost for the cartridge is $124 and the yield is 5,000 pages based on 5% coverage. The retail cost per page is .0248 per page.
These numbers represent a savings of .01725 per page.
I realize that these per page costs do not include the fuser units, however I am going to give them a bye, because I think each one will negate the other. If the BP20 needs a fuser most customers will throw it (this really helps us GO GREEN) out because of the price and buy another printer, representing an increased cost to almost as much as the cost of the fuser replacement on the MP161.
Here's my spin for all of the MFP manufacturers, lets assume they all have the technology to implement a World Wide "GO GREEN" strategy. Take the existing MPF engine of the MP161 and sell it with out the scanning attachment (top part of the unit). Increase the print speed to 20 pages per minute or better. Hey, I'll be the first one to admit I have no clue what it costs to manufacture the MP161 engine or the BP20 laser printer. However if all of the manufacturers took the time to educate the buyers on Total Document Volume, Total Life Cycle Cost and the detrement to the enviroment from laser printers and AIO cartridges being discarded, they may have something.
I don't mean to rip one manufacturer with this, they all have the same philosphy in place when it comes to stand alone printers. I choose Ricoh products, becuase Ricoh is what I know best and believe they have excellent products. Canon, Xerox, Konica Minolta, Kyocera, anyone that is using AIO cartridges in stand alone laser printers is not helping us "Go GREEN", yes they all have recycling for the AIO cartidges, however at this time I do not believe any of them have a recycling for the laser printers nor their MFP's.
Will MFP's ever outsell standalone printers in this market?
2 comments:
Art:
Your question is very valid. Actually on all but the smallest units the Kyocera line of printers all use separate drums (usually 300k life) and large toner yields. It's the basic reason we took their printers on in the first place. Average operating savings over cartridge based printers of equivalent speed is about 40%. The environmental impact is major as the toner cartridges are recyclable, wheras the the drums and combined toner/drum units largely are not.
Biggest problem is the myopia of most printer buyers who only care about upfront price and the fact that HP is the most familiar name in the market. We are a ricoh dealer as well but we don't sell their B&W printers because they just don't cut it when compared to alternatives...besides I hear most of them are built by Samsung anyway.. (Not sure of that but it's what I have been told.)
Keep up the good work..
Hi there,
Just incase it is of any interest to you, a while back i came across a british labels company who sold me a batch of laser labels for a really low price. If you are at all interested then it may be worth taking a look at their website, as the labels printed out great in my printer.
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