SAN DIEGO, CA - Like you, I get a bit ticked whenever I have to part
with north of $30 for a new inkjet printer cartridge at the local Best
Buy store.
They just seem to cost more than they should.
Furthermore, you get the uneasy feeling you've been conned because
the initial printer cost was so low. Clearly, the company who sold this
to you is making an obscene profit on all this because hey, just how
complicated can it be to put some ink in a cartridge?
Well, the answer is: Very. Complicated, that is.
One of the messages companies such as Hewlett-Packard try desperately
to convey to us whiny, cost-conscious consumers is exactly how and why
printer cartridges cost what they do. It's not an easy sell, mainly
because it is difficult to explain all the technicalities and intricacies
of patents, print heads, silicon wafers, cartridges, ink, colour and
paper.
Last week, I had a chance to tour one of HP's printer lab facilities
located just north of here in Rancho Bernardo, CA. While I've been on
several HP media trips over the years, this one was refreshing as it
featured presentations and PowerPoints by company product development
managers as opposed to marketing types. This means you get answers in
blunt sentences from engineers and scientists who are able to cut to
the heart of an issue by using the fewest words possible. For example:
"We like International Paper because they make good paper,"
says Nils Miller, Ink/Media Senior Scientist.
See what I mean?
That comment related to HP and International Papers new "ColorLok"
technology; a process that means paper dries three times faster and
produces up to 40% darker blacks for sharper images.
Printers, ink, cartridges and paper represent the some of the major
components of the Imaging and Printing Group at HP. IPG, headed up by
the personable Vyomesh (VJ) Joshi, makes the lions share of the profits
of HP's approximately (US) $85 billion annual global revenues. The success
of IPG didn't simply happen just because people started to print more.
It took a while to develop this market.
Often, a successful printer begins years earlier when HP takes out
certain patents in order to make the product proprietary. Then, it can
take 3 to 4 years and 50,000 engineering and scientist hours to develop
and manufacture just one line of ink such as HP's Vivera or its newly
released Colorsphere line. About 1,000 ink variations are tried before
HP settles on a specific formula.
The ink, by the way, is the only moving part of a thermal inkjet cartridge.
Just after you click the Print button on your screen, the ink quickly
heats to 300 degrees C and creates an expanding vapor bubble that ejects
a tiny ink droplet. As the bubble collapses the ink chamber is refilled.
The ink droplet travels toward the paper at about 50 KM per hour. The
HP inject cartridge houses an integrated circuit that routes signals
to up to 408 ink nozzles; each one finer than a human hair. If the nozzle
is exposed to air for a few seconds the nozzle becomes plugged from
crusted ink.
A tiny wiper blade cleans the nozzle plate and in some cases, the print
cartridge ejects a small amount of ink on the wiper and "wet-wipes"
the cartridge and dislodges ink crusts. This might explain why those
low cost, no name refillable ink cartridges don't work that well and
always seem to cause more problems than they solve. By the way, did
you know ink cartridges will dry out faster here in dry Alberta as opposed
to muggy old Toronto? Of course you did.
In the last year, HP has seen its once huge market share shrink, due
mostly to competition. Still they are strong in most sectors and maintain
a 41% share of the colour laser market, according to IDC.
Now, they are eyeing other areas, including large format printing and
reprints of classical "masterpiece" fine art paintings. Fans
of this type of art generally love the reproductions; even if it is
in the form of a simple print or card.
Business will fill this demand by printing the reproductions and since
quality is so critical here, HP has a decided advantage. Better yet,
these buyers aren't quite as price sensitive as normal in a market that
HP feels is over $1 billion annually.
The strategy here is simple: Anything that uses ink represents a big
market opportunity for the company. This includes printing on different
types of material such as cloth used in quilting and scrap booking.
Home-based hobbies like this are also big targets for the gang at IPG.
"Home photo printing experiences a 19 to22 percent growth rate
per year," says Bill Smith, VP of HP's Imaging and Printing Group
(IPG).
Like many big, Silicon Valley companies, Hewlett-Packard had its ups
and downs and has recently undergone a series of cost cutting moves
under the guidance of new CEO Mark Hurd. While the Q4 2005 financial
picture will be released on November 17, you get the feeling the company
is getting back on track and poised to be pull away from the rest of
the printer industry by leveraging its huge investment in printer related
R&D.
In every area it operates in, Hewlett-Packard has always stressed quality
in a big, big way. Its printer cartridges and paper may not always be
the least costly but they seem to feel if you provide the absolute best
quality printed photos and printed documents, everything else takes
care of itself. Personally, I relate HP printer cartridges to a good
bottle of wine. And where I come from, you get what you pay for. |
Gregory
B. Michetti, of Alberta-based system integration firm "Michetti
Information Solutions," writes regular tech columns for several
Canadian publications including Sun Media (