Digital BW, The Print

There is some part of the market that will be satisfied with these
canned solutions, some of which were not available directly from the
multinational as a package deal in the past. However, Epson has been,
and still is, a follower interested primarily in the largest segment
of the market.
Inks, papers, drivers, etc., Epson continues to try to play catch up,
either by rebranding or implementing ideas already out of date in the
bleeding edge world.
Witness- they finally decided more than 2 blacks are needed (they only
decided more than one was needed about 2 years ago) and we see people
evolving to 6 and 7 mono partitioned ink solutions now, not even
looking back over their shoulder at where Epson may be at. That's just
one example.
The new printers will probably make a lot of people happy, so some
market will move away I guess, and Ultrachromes in general have
probably hampered the 3rd party color ink world quite a bit.
Even with one of these new printers, I'm sure QTR and IJC will move
them into an area of quality the Epson driver can't match, given
knowledgeable setup.
The small innovators will always be ahead of the dinosaurs. But we are
married to Epson as well, so more power to them if they innovate.
Their efforts to create impressions in the marketplace and claim
dominance over legitimate longevity concerns is of greater concern in
my opinion. I wish they were putting as much effort into R&D as they
are spin.
They need the 3rd party guys for ideas more than they will admit,
can't mow them all down.
Tyler


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Jim Jasutis"
<jimj1946@y...> wrote:
> I was reading a forum on the R2400. Someone was speculating that with 
> the new imporved B&W available on that printer, that third party inks 
> would soon become obsolete. My knee jerk reaction was that this is a 
> real possibility. Then I thought further. Even if Epson optomizes the 
> system to make really great prints on their paper, I don't see them 
> ever fine tuning it to all the different fine art papers out there, 
> and since there will more than likely always be a demand for the 
> ability to use a variety of papers, we will prbably need the third 
> party inks to go with them.