Digital BW, The Print

Hey Martin, Some info you might find enlightening, It's kinda long-
sorry.
In your repsonse to:     
> Evan,
> 
> I think that it is not obvious just who MIS or ConeTech or some of 
the other companies are. The operative word is that they are small 
companies. Very small. On top of that, the quad ink side of these 
operations is only a portion of their business.

 {Exactly, the quad ink volumes are tiny even for aftermarket inkjet 
suppliers. You can tell how significant the ink sales are by how 
responsive the supplier is. I would quess whoever is supplying MIS's 
inks ( I don't think they make thier own) is very small indeed since 
they have been very responsive to MIS's needs. 
> 
> My understanding is that MIS is a 2 to 4 person operation with all 
of the technical side being handled by the founder Bob Zeiss. I am 
not part of the organization but I don't imagine there is not a lot 
of profit in this business and certainly none to spend on software 
development without pumping up the price of the ink drastically. As I 
recall MIS came out with the first set of quads for the 3000 back 
in '98 or '99 (Someone jump in here if you have more or better info, 
I have only been around this since late 2000.) The assumption 
was, "Here is some ink, see what you can do with it." People like 
Tyler Boley and Dan Culbertson took a stab at it learning how to do 
their own CYMK separation curves. MIS's objective was just to market 
the ink.

{   Actually Lyson was on the ground floor here but they took so long 
developing (apparently thier formulating chemist became rather 
preoccupied with tonal range capabilities and never stopped playing 
with them) and they were using dyes that Sundance gave up on them and 
went to another company. The request was a quad black inkset for the 
Epson 3000 with 130 years of INDOOR lightfastness. "Indoor 
lightfastness" the chemist asked, "yes" they replied asked. So a 
chemist developed the current Piezography inks for the Epson 3000 
that wouldn't fade under indoor light conditions for at least 130 
years. The chemist decided to raise the bar and make the inkset last 
way beyond that and used carbon which will last forever (the 
Piezography site mentions the halflife of carbon as 5000 years but 
that's only carbon 14, carbon 13 and carbon 12 will be here even 
after the universe is long dead and dark). But the carbon inks 
were "too warm" so a dye was added to tone the tone to a more neutral 
tone -big mistake but live and learn. These inks went to market mid 
1999 I think.  Later MIS actually was going to buy the same inks from 
the same company but do to exclusivity and cooperation issues they 
decided that Sundance alone would be able to purchase these inks 
which was fair since they were integral in their development cycle. 
At that point I imagine MIS went to another ink supplier and 
requested a "knock-off" of the Piezography inks. Thus MIS's original 
compatible set was born-with the same uv fade problem as the Piezo 
inks. }  
> 
> ConeTech came later and building on their Iris printing experience 
tackled both the ink and the software. They are often criticized for 
the cost of their products but I think this is really unfair given 
the development costs, the small size of the market, cost of customer 
support, and the quality of the product. I think the easiest and most 
trouble free way to get into quads is to buy the Piezo software in 
its cheapest form ($335) and run it with the MIS FS inks in a CIS. 
This will get making great prints with no clogs very quickly. It will 
set you back about $600 - $700 (not including a printer) but in the 
scope of things I think it is a pretty good deal.
 
  {I definetly agree with you here, the development the plug in, 
curves, and inkset was very expensive but it works and it works 
really well so all parties agree that it was worth it. But the 
problem is the path the inks follow is this. The inks a made and sold 
to Sundance who in turn ships them to a cartridge filler who fills 
cartridges and bottles for a fee. Then the inks/carts go to Cone who 
finally sells them to end users. That's four degrees of separation 
from start to finish and accounts for the high price of the 
Piezography ink, Cone's not greedy, it's the product flow. This has 
also made it a nightmare for the ink chemist (not inkologist by the 
way) to address the issues with that set. The "greenies" and issues 
with the CIS system to name a few. By the time problems came to the 
person who could fix them they had gone though five people: the 
customer with the problem-pro photographer usually, Cone's people-
also digi/photography people, then Sundance-software/imaging 
specialist, and finally to the chemist. By then the problem is so 
filtered and distorted a solution was impossible.  This is why the 
clog and greenies issues that some people run into haven't been fixed 
yet. Very frustrating for all parties involved.}

 
> To my mind it may make good sense to have separate companies 
working on the inks and the software. They require such different 
technical backgrounds, trying to cover both may not be a good 
business decision.
  
  {Right, even the huge OEM's contract most or all their ink from 
other companies. It's called toll blending or toll munufacturing. The 
OEM supplies the formula and the ink company makes it-quietly.}
 
 
> The other issue is that Epson has announced a B&W solution that 
will come with the next generation of printers. I am not confident 
they will meet my standards but they will satisfy a lot of people. 
Why would such small companies as MIS and ConeTech invest in software 
development in the face of such deep pockets as Epson?
 
 {Be patient, some cool things may happen in the not too distant 
future.}

Jeff