Digital BW, The Print

At the end of the day there has to be demand for third party ink. If 
there is not sufficient demand the vendors won't carry them. You don't 
see it on "high street" and we don't see it CompUSA, Circuit City, etc. 
in the US.  Why? The demand is not there. Why would Epson or Canon risk 
anti-trust violations by pressuring such vendors not to carry third 
party inks, when they won't carry them anyway since they won't sell 
enough to make it worth their while? Answer is they won't. That's Econ 
101. It has little to do with Epson or Canon, it has to do with the 
consumer. I don't know about the EU, but in the US if you have been 
following the Microsoft soap opera, the settlement with the federal 
government has put the bar pretty high as to what has to be proved for 
non-competitive practices.  The states that chose not to go with the 
initial settlement may get a few more concessions, but at the end of the 
day Microsoft is going to be pursuing its initial business plan.

I think this ink business would be a hard sell as far as 
anti-competitive practices, at least in the US.

Truman

Simon Whitehead wrote:

>
>
> Competition has to be real and visible.  It isn't enough (so it would 
> seem)
> to have an elite group of users valuing the special virtues of the pigment
> inks and so on.  For real competition we have to get the stuff into 
> the high
> street (oops, downtown/mainstreet). Ideally I should be able to walk 
> into PC
> World (or whatever you call it) and have choice. Real choice.  Only then
> will the prices come down.
>
> It is a strange thing but even though Lyson is a UK company we still 
> seem to
> be paying pound for dollar and we don't have the shipping or duty to pay.
> So I guess Lyson just think we are daft enough to pay up...
>
> Now, the thing that really impresses me is that I have had so many kind
> responses and no horrid ones (yet?)
>
> I do like this site, especially when the exchanges remain civilized 
> (in the
> uk we use a lot of z's!).
>
> Time for bed
> TTFN
> Simon