The Laser Printer Game

Most people are aware of the game that printer manufacturers play - that they basically give away their printers in the hope of snagging a consumables (ink/ toner, etc.) customer "annuity" for years to come.

The following is a response to a customer whose 1-year-old Dell color laser printer (which was super-cheap) is getting more expensive to supply and maintain.

Customer: (Dell order update attached, stating the fuser part that they need to get their printer back running, is no longer available and the order will be cancelled.) Hey Pete, just an FYI on the printer parts issue. See email below - I guess we’re stuck with a useless printer. I’ll contact “spare parts” but looks like we may need to start looking for a new printer – and not a Dell.

Me: (I found another source for the part, and provided a sub-$200 quote for the fuser assembly.)

Customer: Thanks for contacting them about the part. The printer itself was less than the cost of that part. It’s an okay printer, not all that great, beside the toner is expensive, the drum was expensive, and now this part…I think we may need to look at a new printer. I think we can get a new one for less if not the same as the cost of that part. HP’s are reliable and ink/toner is usually reasonably priced. Do you have any suggestions?

Me: Color laser is still very expensive, pretty much no matter how you slice it – between 10 and 15 cents per page for consumables, versus 2 to 4 cents per page for B/W. We have a moderately-priced color Ricoh in our office and the four color toner drums for it cost around $500.

In fact, you’ll almost always find that printer mfr’s will sell their printers at-cost or even at a loss, then give you a small-capacity (~2,000 pages) “starter toner.” A few months into your use (or sooner, if you print a lot), you’ll find you need to pony up for the ~$500 set of toner carts . . . and that’s when the mfr’s get their profit out of you. They make little (or lose) on the printer, but then they have an annuity stream for a long time on the consumables.

Sometimes the math seems to work out such that you can just buy a new color laser printer rather than buying their toners again. But the mfr’s know that, so that’s why they only give you a small-capacity set of “starter toner.” Take this into account when deciding on what to do here. If you can spend $200 on a new fuser now and get to use the $500 worth of toner that’s sitting in that printer, it could last you another year or so. Or, you could plunk down a few hundred bucks for a new cheap-o color laser, burn through the starter toner in a few months, and spend another $500 for a full supply of toner.

Anyway, I agree that HP is good stuff, though they do clearly play some of the same games with initial pricing, and actually their ongoing toner costs are not that great. For instance, you can buy an HP CP2025X for about $500 plus shipping, which is a pretty decent deal. But it’s only got two 250-sheet trays, not a big 500-sheeter (not sure why they did that), and the toner is still 4 (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black) x $120ea . . . about $500 for consumables! And those are only good for 3,500 pages. So, $500 divided by 3,500 impressions = $.14 per page.

Or, we’ve had very good luck with Ricoh. The C311N, for instance, goes for about $700 and the toner cartridges are about $150ea, but they yield 6,000 pages per set. So, $600 divided by 6,000 = $.10 per page.

Or, if you have a copier company, you may be able to get a better deal on a printer like this through them. They might be able to make a better promise than Dell with respect to the repair and maintenance parts as well. I know, lots to absorb . . . let me know what you think.

The customer ordered the replacement part, we installed it and they are working again. They've been hooked by the cheap Dell printer - for now.

Office 2010 Comes Into Focus

Office 2010 has officially launched, at least for businesses. Microsoft says consumers will be waiting about another month. Important features of Office 2010 include:

• There's a free online version. Or at least there will be. It has nothing to do with whether you own and pay for a full version of Office 2010 - it'll be free to anyone. Very similar to Google Apps and Zoho, Office Web Apps will allow users to use Excel, PowerPoint, Word and OneNote online, in a web browser. The apps are scaled-down for use online, perhaps a little too scaled-down for some early reviewers. Hopefully some of these issues will be addressed prior to launch. I do very much like Office Web Apps' integration with its free online storage service Skydrive, which I've blogged about previously.
• Ribbons - the tabbed function buttons introduced with Office 2007 - have been enhanced. For apps that already had ribbons in 2007 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), they are now more customizable in that you can create your own new ribbons and populate them with your own set of functions. And apps where ribbons were not deployed in 2007 (Publisher, and especially Outlook) have been given the full enhanced ribbon functionality.
• Editing objects embedded in documents has been enhanced greatly. If you embed a photo, you can modify the coloration, background and other properties of the photo (a great time-saver for those who have done the modify-the-image-and-re-save-it-then-reattach-in-the-document hokey pokey). There's also the ability to modify embedded videos.
• "Backstage View." I'm not sure who was asking for this or what was wrong with the old way, but Office 2010 basically re-packages the "File" menu into a whole-screen dialog called Backstage View, which controls printing and the standard File menu properties and functions. More info and screen shots of each app's Backstage View here.

All in all, Office 2010 is a nice little evolution enhancing Office 2007 and making it easier to use. While it's not compelling enough to recommend that anyone should put down hard-earned money to go from 2007 to 2010, it is one more step in the right direction for the suite.

90% of Windows 7 flaws fixed by removing admin rights

Here's a quick, interesting article from Ars Technica (based on a study by BeyondTrust)regarding Windows 7 vulnerabilities and administrative rights in Windows.

It's always a delicate balancing act for us, between giving users enough rights to get their jobs done (and not having to continually ask us to install things for them), and giving every user local admin rights on their computer, allowing them to infect themselves with all manner of viruses, malware and other "unapproved applications" (unsafe screen savers, p2p file sharing apps, etc.).

I'm not surprised that admin rights are a root cause of many security vulnerabilities, but I never would have guessed 90%.

Office 2007 buyers get free upgrade to Office 2010

Starting last Friday (3/5/10), anyone who buys Office 2007 will get a free upgrade to Office 2010 when it’s released. Details: http://office2010.microsoft.com/en-us/tech-guarantee/


It looks like they are changing around the contents of the suites a little bit, so they’re giving some fairly generous Office 2007-to-2010 version upgrades in the process. They’re basically giving Office Basic 2007 buyers a free upgrade to Office Home and Business 2010 (adds OneNote and PowerPoint), and they’re giving Office Small Biz 2007 buyers a free upgrade to Office Pro 2010 (adds MS Access).


Here is the table describing which 2010 version canbe upgraded from which 2010 license:


OFFICE 2007 PRODUCT ----- OFFICE 2010 UPGRADE PRODUCT
Office Ultimate 2007 ----- Office Professional 2010
Office Professional 2007 ----- Office Professional 2010
Office Small Business 2007 ----- Office Professional 2010
Office Standard 2007 ----- Office Home and Business 2010
Office Home and Student 2007 ----- Office Home and Student 2010
Office Basic 2007 ----- Office Home and Business 2010


And, if anyone's curious to see how Office 2010 looks, you can become part of the Beta program for it, for free. Remember this program is in Beta (testing!), so please don't download this program for use in a production environment.