Digital BW, The Print

Jeff,

Thanks for all the history and additional info on the birth of the quad industry. Much appreciated.

Martin Wesley
http://www.borderless-photos.de/guests.html



  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: iwasnvrhere 
  To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2002 11:04 AM
  Subject: [Digital BW] Re: For Martin About Marketing


     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




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