Digital BW, The Print

On Nov 7, 2010, at 10:06 AM, Blaine wrote:

> If the fine art printing market is large enough perhaps a manufacturer could see an opportunity through licensing code (so QTR could support the new Epsons), selling "reusable" carts with different chips (at a much higher price), or some other approach that would allow them to get the return on their investment they normally get from ink while providing options to the fine art printer.
> 
> The down side is that this would significantly increase the cost of software solutions (like QTR) or significantly increase the cost of chips (or however else it's done). And the manufacturer would need to have adequate confidence that misuse of their flexibility would be limited.
> 
> Or they could just increase, dramatically, the cost of their professional printers.
> 
> The question is how many people would pay for this -- is the market big enough to make it worth the effort by the manufacturer? Right now the manufacturers seem to be saying "no."


I have proposed, over the years, the supplying of an OEM grayscale inkset for wide format machines to multiple printer manufacturers. Apparently it is not sufficiently profitable for them, I suspect due to the small scale of such a market. The other factor is the necessary development work to support it; they are unlikely to provide an OEM inkset without an OEM driver mode to support it.

C. David Tobie
Global Product Technology Manager
Digital Imaging & Home Theater
CDTobie@...


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