Digital BW, The Print

How is it possible that in the UK that car manufactures have an absolute monopoly for two or three years for spare parts of a newly introduced car  model, when all of the parts are not made in the UK?


---- Original Message ----- 
  From: Tony Wells 
  To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Saturday, November 10, 2007 11:57 AM
  Subject: Re: [Digital BW] Re:MIS Newsletter


  Just to pick up on one point here Mr Roark, though not contentiously. Here 
  in the UK the car manufacturers have either a 2 or 3 year absolute monolpoly 
  of spare parts for any new car model they introduce, before the third party 
  suppliers can kick in. This is mostly servicing parts such as oil filters 
  and also silencers (mufflers?) from what I can gather, by the way. They key 
  thing being irrrespective of any monoploy issues that any of the group 
  members may have over this, surely a similar situation could apply to 
  printer cartridges, whereby such as Epson could be the sole supplier for a 
  set period of time when they introduce a new model before the market is up 
  for grabs, so as to be able to recoup their development costs? Or don't 
  printers last that long? Just an idea to throw into the pot ....

  Tony Wells.

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: "Paul Roark" <paul.roark@...>
  To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
  Sent: Saturday, November 10, 2007 4:26 PM
  Subject: RE: [Digital BW] Re:MIS Newsletter

  SNIP

  Tony Wells wrote, in part:

  >... Low useage amateurs would be worse off while professional
  >printers would be better off,

  In the original IBM case where their tying of punch card sales to the
  business machines was declared an illegal "tying" agreement, the economic
  justification for the IBM conduct was said to be that the punch cards were a
  method of "metering" usage. The way the high volume users paid more than
  the low volume users, which seemed like a fair way to more closely equate
  price with the value of the machine to the user.

  If the scenario of the more sophisticated people more easily getting around
  the ban happens, it may end up that the higher volume users in the real
  world figure out how to avoid the meter, while the less sophisticated pay
  the premium.

  I have assumed Epson, in fact, is not selling the more sophisticated
  machines at a loss. The Epson rep who visited me the week before they filed
  the ITC matter seemed mostly concerned with the low end. The 220 was the
  printer we discussed the most in this regard. He stated Epson lost money on
  those sales, and to compound the damage, the 220 was so good it was seen as
  cannibalizing the sales of the profitable, more expensive printers.

  While B&W ink sales are hardly the main focus of Epson's concern, I'd be
  rather happy to see a solution that allowed Epson to compete head to head
  with the others that are doing this same thing at the 260 level (letter or
  A4 size) if the 13" or 1800-2400 and up level was wide open.

  Epson has made some fine printers for our purposes. I hope they continue to
  do so. It would sure be nice if both sides saw each other as partners as
  opposed to adversaries.

  As a Hasselblad rep once said to me: photographers tend to be creative and
  cheap. I can't see Epson succeeding in keeping at least the B&W enthusiasts
  in their proprietary, expensive box. It's just not going to happen.

  Paul
  www.PaulRoark.com



   

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