Monday, October 17, 2011

Ricoh A4 MFP or Canon A4 MFP "That is the Question"

It doesn't happen that often....that you'll have two major manufacturing going to market with the same type of devices within a month or two of each other.  Canon is set to launch their  Black A4 MFP on or around 11/7/2011 and Ricoh is set to launch their Black A4 MFP in November also. 

The Canon 1700 series will have six different models ranging in speed from 32 pages per minute to 52 pages per minute.  These six models will be the 1750/1750if, 1740/1740if, and the 1730/if.  The if version comes with  standard PCL 5e/6 and PostScript 3 drivers, the ability to create searchable PDFs, along with a fax module. Color Send, is included with the imageRUNNER 1700 but you'll have to pay more for the better featured Universal Send.

The BIG deal with the Canon, it seems Canon 1700 will be the first to follow the A3 model cost per page in an A4 device.  For those of you that are not familiar with this, the A3 model cost per page model is when you do not have an AIO (All in cartridge) that houses the toner, the drum, the cleaning blade and the waste toner hopper.  The Canon 1700 will have a separate toner and drum cartridge that should support a low TCO (Total Cost of Ownership).  I haven't seen the cost per page yet, however I'm hoping this is the case.

The market is ripe for the picking if the cost per page is in line with Canon A3 MFP devices.  I don't think the imageRUNNER 1750 (52 ppm) will have the same cost per page as it's bigger brother Canon A4 MFP's that are 50 pages per minute.  I thinking it may be close, and if it is I see Canon with the ability to capture and take away clicks from the likes of Ricoh, Toshiba, HP, Sharp Konica Minolta, Kyocera and Xerox.

Some initial drawbacks for the Canon imageRUNNER if would be Postscript emulation, a non color GUI (Graphical User Interface) and only one paper tray and one by-pass tray is standard. 

Make no bones about it this system will be a force to be reckoned with, especially if TCO comes into play.

Right, this is a blog and I can't get too lengthy, so off we go with Ricoh....



Ricoh on the other hand has opted for an AIO A4 model cost per page.  What's that mean?  Most likely a much higher cost per page than the Canon.  One analyst on the Print4Pay Hotel forums quoted "I guess the plus is if you have a cartridge-based system vs separate drum & toner is you can sell it through IT VARs and into emerging markets - without worrying about service."

Well, yes but I'm not an IT VAR and I'm not selling in an emerging market.  I'm somewhat disappointed that Ricoh went the route of the AIO system, and when this whole A4 MFP thingy shakes out, I'm thinking Ricoh may be disappointed also.

But, there's a few good things about the Ricoh SP 5200S/SP 5210SF and SP 5210SR. They will have better media capability with the ability to handle paper weights of 52-220gsm. The Ricoh SP 5200S/SP 5210SF and SP 5210SR will be available in a 45 and 50 page per minute configuration.  Both models will have a full color GUI and both models come with PS3. A fax module is optional for these devices at least in Europe at this time.

When it comes to sizzle, style and looks, I'm going to give the upper hand to the Ricoh device.  But, I'm a firm believer that every office needs to create search able .pdf's when they scan, it makes sense right??  Why scan it if you can't search it?  So for this reason and the cost per page model I like the Canon image RUNNER 1700 series. 

It should be very interesting to see how these units place in the general office and the MPS world.  Thoughts, comments, would love to hear them.

-=Good Selling=-




4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why no mention of Sharp? The MX-B402 is a separate component system with a cost per page just slightly higher then Sharp's traditional A3's.

Unknown said...

Anon:

Thanx for the response, the reason for not mentioning the Sharp is because the Sharp MX-B402 was introduced last year at this time. I focused on Canon and Ricoh because they are Major players in the MFP business, together they probably hold 50% or more of the market.

Thanx again!

Anonymous said...

I remember the days when Sharp was #1 in digital MFP's--that was back in '01 or '02 I think. Boy, did they ever screw that up, I think they are near the bottom of the pack now.

Unknown said...

Every manufactuer has good days and bad days, seems for Sharp and Toshiba it's been many bad years. I'm not saying they are bad systems but there's almost no hype, no marketing, no press releases, you hear vitually nothing about their MFPS. It's probably due to the fact the they are so diversigied and the MFP/Printer business is just a cog in the GIANT wheel of Sharp & Toshiba.