Xerox introduces two new MFUs

Xerox unveiled two new multifunctional printers WorkCentre 3210 and 3220 combining printing, copying, scanning and faxing. The new printers feature a 360 MHz processor, 128 MB of memory and USB port. They can scan directly to or print from a USB memory drive.

WorkCentre 3210 and 3220 can print at speeds of up to 24 ppm and 30 ppm, respectively. The WorkCentre 3220 comes with Adobe PostScript 3 and other features such as fax forward to e-mail and automatic two-sided printing to reduce paper consumption.

As Rick Dastin, President of Xerox Global Product Delivery Group, stated: “Small businesses typically operate on small budgets, especially when it comes to technology investments. These new MFPs have a great mix of features that deliver high performance and 'big-budget' technology to SMBs working on a shoestring.”

Source: www.xerox.com

Key words: Xerox, printers, new, MFUs

Kyocera Mita added new printers to its ECOSYS printer line

This week Kyocera Mita announced the launch of three new ECOSYS monochrome laser printers. The new printers FS-4020DN, FS-3920DN and FS-2020DN – feature the usual printing system adopted by Kyocera: the ECOSYS drum stays separately from the toner container and it doesn’t need to be replaced every time the toner unit is replaced.

The FS-4020DN prints at the speed of 47 ppm. The printer offers a maximum paper capacity of 2,500 sheets, a maximum duty cycle of 250,000 pages per month and it also supports two-side printing.


The FS-3920DN has a slightly reduced duty cycle (200,000 pages per month) and slower print speeds (up to 42 ppm).


The FS-2020DN prints at the speed of up to 37 ppm. Its maximum paper capacity is 1,100 sheets and the duty cycle is 150,000 sheets per month.


All three printers support several Kyocera network and device management tools as well as well as the Kyocera Command Center, a built-in web interface. They also feature 128MB of standard memory and a USB Host Interface.

The FS-4020DN, FS-3920DN and FS-2020DN are available through Kyocera dealers for the recommended retail price of $1583, $1424, and $1044, respectively.

Key words: Kyocera, printers, monochrome, laser

Lexmark announced new laser MFUs

The U.S. printer manufacturer, Lexmark, announced the release of 9 monochrome MFUs in three new model lineups. All the new devices include printing, scanning and copying functions with optional faxing. Their price ranges from USD399 to USD999.


Lexmark X264DN

At the price low end, Lexmark offers the new X260 series, such as the X264DN, at the price of USD399. This MFU with the speed of 30 ppm and a 550-sheet tray, flatbed scanner and auto feeder targets individuals and small work groups.


Lexmark X363DN

At the middle end of the price range, the X360 series is represented by the USD499 X363DN multifunctional device. The new printer is 35 ppm speedy. It scans can be sent directly to any computer in the network with the Lexmark Network Scan center software.


Lexmark X463D

At the high end of the new models, we find the X460 series, such as the USD999 X463DE. This model targets small work groups and middle-size offices. It prints up to 40 ppm single sided or 18 ppm in duplex. The firs page out time is just around 6.5 seconds. The printer also has a 7-inch touch screen interface that can be configured for easier access to functions. Network scanning is also supported, but fax support is only available as an add-on feature.

Source: Lexmark.com

Key words:Lexmark, new products, MFUs, new models, monochrome printing.

Sensient Technologies reported record earnings

Sensient Technologies Corporation dealing with high-purity dyes for inkjet and industrial applications reported record earnings for 2008. Consolidated 2008 revenue hiked 5.7 percent to $1.3 billion; the figure was $1.2 billion for 2007. For the fourth quarter of 2008, Sensient’s diluted earnings per share climbed 10.3 percent, to 43 cents, compared to 39 cents for the 2007 fourth quarter.

Source: Recharger Magazine

Key words:Sensient, inks, 2008

HP is going to double the recycled plastic in its cartridges

Printweek.com has announced that HP will double the amount of recycled plastic used in its inkjet print cartridges this year. The company made 200 million original HP inkjet print cartridges from recycled plastic in 2007. Now the company put in function a new recycling process. The multi-phase recycling process reduces the cartridges to raw materials, such as plastics and metals. HP then combines plastic from the inkjet cartridges with recycled bottle resin and a suite of compounding additives.

The total plastic in a cartridge is 70-100% recycled content, while stringent testing ensures consistency and reliability of the product.

Michael Hoffmann, senior vice president for the supplies, imaging and printing group at HP, said the technology reduced the company's impact on the environment.

"HP's considerable investments in building a recycling infrastructure made this achievement possible, and this is just the beginning of what we hope to accomplish," Hoffmann said.

HP's Planet Partners program offers free and easy cartridge returns in more than 45 countries, regions and territories, with a commitment that all returned cartridges would be recycled.

After this piece of news was published there were a couple of commentaries left. They do provide some insight why HP's recycling program may turn out to be less "green" than it claims to be.

Jeff Harper : You can't help but wonder how many millions of perfectly good, re-usable cartridges have been sacrificed at the altar of HP's "environmental mission". Recycling is the 2nd WORST thing you can do, re-use is the 2nd BEST thing. HP (and the other OEM's) go to amazing lengths to recover perfectly good empty cartridges and destroy them by crushing/processing/pulping etc.

Charyle Calvert: The latest "green movement" is calling for more eco-friendly ways to reduce global warming. Recycling often involves methods that can contribute to global warming. Reusing, remanufacturing and repairing products and supplies are the first line of defense. Once a product can no longer be repaired, remanufactured or reused, then the recycling method is the end of the road for that item. Anything put together with screws should be repairable. The limitation to repair is created by the OEM's who do not provide for accessibility to repair parts! This should be absolutely illegal in a society attempting to reduce e-waste.

Source

Key words: HP, recycling program

Calculate your printer ink costs

After investigating the high cost of original inks for inkjet printer, the American Consumer Institute (ACI) introduced a calculator aimed at helping customers select a printer that is most cost-effective over a course of three or more years.

The ACI has already criticized printer manufacturers for not disclosing ink costs on packaging. “It’s not a lot to ask to put a value on the box to let customers know how efficient it is,” says Steve Pociask, president of the institute. “And once people buy these printers, they are trapped because the cartridges are not interoperable.”

The link to the calculator is here.

In fact, the institute found that over the useful life of a printer, the actual cost of the hardware may be as little as one-tenth of the cost of the ink, according Mr. Pociask. Accordingly, the ink price per page is the most important information for consumers to consider when buying a printer.

The new calculator enables customers to pick an inkjet that delivers the lowest ink costs based on their printing practices. If you enter three variables: the number of black-and-white pages you print a week, the number of color pages and the number of 4-by-6-inch photos, the calculator will return results that include printer models, cost of the hardware, and estimated cost of the ink. It provides estimated ink costs for three, five and seven years of use.

The calculator makes its decisions based on 17 printers in its database. While this number is a bit limited, the ACI says the calculator relies only on tests from Quality Logic, an independent testing lab that employs industry-accepted ISO standards.

If you’re shopping for an inkjet, the new calculator provides a good estimate of what you can expect to pay.

For example, if you plan to print 50 b/w pages, 5 color pages and 1 photo per day in average during 3, 5 or 7 years, here are the probable costs involved:


Source: New York Times

Key words: inks, printer, color, cost, ownership

New laser printers from Samsung

Samsung launched a new laser printer: Samsung ML-2855ND, which offers output speed of 30 pages per minute, helped by a 400MHz processor and 64MB expandable to 192MB of memory. The recommended market price of the printer is $358. The new printer is a compact device having built-in duplex printing and a TonerSave feature to cut its total cost of operation. It also has a USB 2.0 interface and 250-sheet cassette and 50-sheet multipurpose paper tray. It is designed to produce 50,000 pages per month.

Source: www.samsung.com

Key words: Samsung, technology, laser, printer

HP joins Formula 1

Last week HP announced a two year partnership with the ING Renault F1 team. The announcement was made at the launch of Renault’s new car, the R29, at Renault’s office in Paris.

Innovation, technology and performance are key criteria that both companies share and are critical to the success in the worlds of Formula 1 and technology. HP supplies highly reliable, performance-engineered products and solutions to support the racing stable on its course to victory.

To effectively conduct the necessary calculations and stimulations in the development of Renault’s single-seaters, HP supplied the test facility in the UK with HP ProLiant BL456c servers to integrate the workflow and support.

For the conception and analysis office, HP has provided HP xw6600 workstations with the latest technology and 3D notion. The HP 8530w mobile workstations allow for the recovery and analysis of data when the cars are at the racetrack.

“This partnership is proof of HP’s technology and innovation leadership in a highly performance-driven environment,” said Eric Cador, senior vice president, HP PSG EMEA. “The quality and reliability of our products and solutions supplied to the ING Renault F1 Team will help to further improve their competitive performance on the track.”

Source: www.hp.com

Key words: HP, Formula 1, news, companies

Lexmark changes its inkjet division's name

Lexmark International executives told employees on Jan. 28 that the company is changing the official name of its inkjet printer division to better reflect its strategy and product offerings.

The Consumer Products Division, as it has been called, has been renamed the Imaging Solutions Division.

Paul Rooke, Lexmark's Executive Vice President, who heads the division, noted that since 2007, Lexmark "has been transitioning our CPD business from a low-end, low-usage consumer-focused business to a business with higher-value, higher-usage inkjet devices designed to meet the needs of small office/home office and small to midsized business customers."

Lexmark's inkjet division has struggled since the latter half of 2005 as customers bought the printers, which are often sold for little or no profit, but then didn't buy enough of the highly profitable ink to meet profit expectations.

Since 2006, Lexmark has walked away from 20 percent, and then 30 percent more, of its inkjet printer sales in an attempt to get away from those people who don't print enough.

It has focused product introductions on higher-usage segments, such as all-in-ones, which include scan, copy and sometimes fax functions. Plus, it's developed many wireless inkjet printers, which are often used by multiple computers, meaning more ink used per printer.

And the company is focusing its marketing dollars on countries with higher print usage.

Source: www.kentucky.com

Key words: Lexmark, name, Imaging department, printers

Cartridge costs are on the rise in North America

Almost all of the printer manufacturers increased their prices for printing supplies. According to the web portal Printer.com, there have been several increases registered at the U.S. market lately.

As of September 1, 2008, HP increased the list prices on all Mono and Color LaserJet Print Cartridges by 5%, as well as increasing by approximately 5-6% the list prices on inkjet cartridges and print heads. The company says this was done as part of HP's portfolio management.

As of November 3rd, 2008, Lexmark made an across the board 5% price increase on printer supplies, while Xerox raised the price on selected products from 3% to 6%. But also Brother, Canon, and Oki are increasing printer supplies prices. Oki has said that prices of ink and toner cartridges are going up a flat 5%, but Brother and Canon have not stated a rate of increase yet.

Although consumers will likely not feel a significant impact from this price increase, small and large businesses with tens, or even hundreds, of printers will see a significant rise in their cost of printing.

Printer manufacturers also significantly increased their prices of printer cartridges in Europe in the last few months. New questions are expected in the European Commission in reaction to cartridge price increases.

Source: www.printer.com

Key words: market, prices for supplies, cartridges

How much does HP chief Hurd get paid in 2008?

It is not ethical to count other people’ money, but mass media allows us to have a glance at this forbidden territory.

Under three years of Mark Hurd's leadership, Hewlett-Packard Co. has added more than $30 billion in sales, seen its profit more than triple, and for that "exceptional and sustained" performance Hurd was rewarded with a $34 million pay package in the latest fiscal year.

Hurd joined HP in 2005 to engineer a major turnaround after the rocky reign of former CEO Carly Fiorina, has answered by aggressively cutting costs and positioning the company as a bigger challenger to IBM Corp. through the $13.9 billion acquisition of technology services provider Electronic Data Systems.

At the end of 2005, HP had sales of $86.7 billion and profit of $2.4 billion.

When the company's current round of job cuts is complete — HP is slashing 24,600 positions, nearly 8 percent of its 320,000 workers — Hurd will have cut nearly 40,000 jobs in two big rounds of layoffs since he took the job. Under Hurd's watch, HP has also regained its title of world's biggest personal computer manufacturer from Dell Inc., though Dell has been stealing some of that ground back with a new retail strategy.

Now HP faces hard times as consumers spend much less. Despite it, Hurd was rewarded in 2008 for steering the company to "exceptional and sustained" financial performance in his first three full years on the job.

Hurd pulled down $23.9 million in performance-based cash bonuses in 2008, according to the filing, which was almost twice as much as the $13.3 million in cash bonuses he snagged in 2007.

Hurd, 52, was also rewarded with $7.9 million worth of stock-based compensation during the period, nearly $3 million less than in 2007.

Hurd's compensation package also included more than $738,000 worth of additional compensation for things like: home security ($256,000), personal use of HP's corporate jet ($135,734) and a $71,000 mortgage subsidy Hurd is guaranteed for relocation expenses under his employment agreement.

Hurd's salary of $1.45 million increased only slightly over 2007.

Source: Google.News

Key words: Mark Hurd, HP, salary

Epson continues to enforce its cartridge patents in the USA

After Epson reached its goal of stopping ink cartridges infringing on the company’s patents from entering the U.S. back in October 2007, the company is now determined to enforce its patents all over the country.

Epson informed it would vigorously proceed with enforcement of its patents now that the validity and enforceability of its patents have again been ratified. A second ITC trial was conducted on Jan.14-16, 2009 in Washington D.C. to determine any financial penalties that may be assessed against Ninestar, Mipo America, Ltd. and Cana-Pacific Ribbons Inc. and their affiliates for alleged violations of the General Exclusion Order. The ITC has not yet determined any violations, but has the authority to assess substantial penalties up to $100,000 per day of violations or twice the commercial value of infringing imports.

In addition to the ITC actions, Epson filed U.S. District Court lawsuits in Portland, Ore., for patent infringement damages against the same 24 companies named in the ITC action and numerous additional distributors and retailers alleged to have continued infringements after the ITC Final Determination.

By these Epson shows it is really determined to use its advantage (court decisions) to the full on the territory of the U.S.

Source: www.epson.co.jp

Key words: Epson, court, cartridges, remanufacturing

HP is celebrating its 40th jubilee of work in the ex-USSR

The U.S. based HP will celebrate its 40th year of working in the USSR and Russia in 2009.

In 1969 the company started shipping its equipment to Soviet scientific centers. In 1980 HP equipment was used for doping control during the Olympic Games in Moscow.

Here is a short overview of what HP brought to the printing industry.

First laser printer: 1984


First mass inkjet printer: 1988


Here are the devices that the company manufactures today:


Source: www.hp40.ru

Key words: HP, printing, shipments of equipment to USSR

Dell put Ireland to shock: sales of PCs fall causing job cuts

The news put Ireland to shock: Dell announced the company would relocate its computer production from Ireland to Poland. The location of new computer-assembling facility will be the Polish city of Lodz.

The closing of the Dell plant in Ireland is more than just a regular close-up. By operating the plant in the country Dell was one of the largest exporters. Dell’s plant was the trendsetter for further economic growth of Ireland in the 90-ies. It contributed highly to transformation into a new “tiger”. Now that the news is out, over 1900 jobs will be erased and the high-technology image of Ireland will suffer immensely.

Dell is following the world’s decline in demand for PCs. Another computer manufacturer, the Chinese Lenovo, which had surprised the world a couple of years ago by buying the computer division of IBM, announced it would cut 2500 jobs, 11% of its work effectives.

No matter how shocking the news could seem, it did not come as pure surprise to industry experts. Lenovo as well as Dell face strong declines for their products at the global scale. Sales of PCs were greatly affected by the financial crisis. So, their pumped inventories prompt at diminishing production, which can be reached either by job cuts or relocation and passing to services of outsourcing.

According to forecasts of research agencies, IDC in this case, the global demand for PCs will fall by 1.3% in 2009. The decrease will be very significant in North America – 13.7% and Western Europe – 5.8%. The global demand for servers will shrink by 1.6%.

Another factor that made PC manufacturers revise their production plans is the increasing interest to laptops and notebooks. Gartner informs that the Taiwan Acer outstaged HP in sales of small computers in Europe.

Semiconductors suffer as well

Following its main customers, manufacturers of semiconductors do every effort to save in the environment of a worsening economy. Intel recognized its sales plans would not be reached in 2009. Its turnover promises to fall by 23% as compared in 2008.

The Japanese TDK recurred to job cuts – 8000 people were laid off and its four plants were shut down. In 2008 the market of semiconductors shrank by 4% and will shrink by 16% in 2009, says Gartner.

Key words: Lenovo, Dell, job cuts, crisis, semiconductors

Brother presented two new printers compatible with Mac computers

Being one of the exhibitors at the MacWorld Expo, which took place between Jan. 05-09, 2009, Brother presented two new inkjet MFUs compatible with Mac computers. The highlights include the new MFC-990CW, a US$230 color-inkjet multifunction with print, scan and fax capabilities, a cordless handset, and a 4.2-inch touch screen LCD for navigating menus.





Brother MFC-990CW

Another Brother's 11-by-17-inch inkjet MFU was also in the public focus. The MFC-6490CW is packed with features, like a second paper tray, wifi, Ethernet and USB 2.0 connectivity, tabloid sized scanning bed, tabloid sized automatic document feeder, camera card reader that supports most popular formats, and high-yield ink cartridges. Its cost is $300.





Brother MFC-6490CW

Source: PC World

Lexmark losing ground in overseas market

Accoding to Gartner, Inc. Lexmark lost ground in the first half of the year in markets in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Trade publication Channel Web reports that Samsung replaced Lexmark as fifth in market share in the regions.

HP remained the dominant leader with a market share of 44.6 percent, followed by Canon, 16.4 percent; Epson, 12.9 percent; Brother, 6.3 percent; and Samsung, 6 percent.

Source: Gartner, Inc.

Key words: Lexmark, Gartner, cartridges, printers, copiers, maintenance, toner, parts, inks, MFUs

Samsung announces its leading positions in world sales of laser printers

Representatives of Samsung Electronics in South Asia announced their company jumped to the leading position in the global rankings of color MFU sales. The research company IDC adds up to this statement saying Samsung color laser MFUs took up to 30% of all sales in this segment during the second quarter of 2008. According to IDC’s calculations over 29% of sales of color laser MFUs in Europe are Samsung printing devices.

Besides color laser multifunctionals Samsung keeps being the second after HP in the segment of one-function color laser printers. Samsung printers take up to 20% of the world market of color printers. Sales of color printers jumped suddenly in Germany, UK and CIS countries in 2007-2008, which is due, as Samsung states, to the advertising campaign during Euro’08 in Austria and Switzerland.

Source: www.domain-b.com

Key words: Samsung, IDC, cartridges, printers, copiers, maintenance, toner, parts, inks

RechargEast JUNE'08 issue is available for download

RechargEast Magazine, JUNE'08 issue, is available for free download.



The free full-page .pdf version is available for download directly from this link:

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The previous issues can be also downloaded here.

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Key words:
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RechargEast May'08 issue is available for download

RechargEast Magazine, May'08 issue, is available for free download.


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The previous issues can be also downloaded here.
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RechargEast Magazine, MARCH'08

The March'08 issue of RechargEast Magazine is available in .pdf for download for free:



Click here to download the March'08 issue directly.

In the March Issue:
>> Kanter from Czech Republic
>> How effective is your distribution network?
>> Small remanufacturers make the industry grow...