Digital BW, The Print

Tyler Boley wrote:
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "john dean" <deanwork2003@...> wrote:
>   
>> The flatbed printers do seem a lot less messy to work on...
>>     
>
> Why did Kodak give Edward Westin some Ektachrome just to see what he thought of it? They never mentioned it in any marketing.. Why did Edwin Land give all the greats some polaroid to try? Did you ever see Paul Caponigro in a Polaroid ad?
> gee, maybe they were interested in making something master photographers liked, maybe.
> Tyler

Easy. Kodak then wasn't run by bean counters, neither was Polaroid. Both 
were run by visionaries who understood that if a company made a quality 
product that did what the users wanted, they would buy it. It's a 
completely different mind set than what runs corporations today.

What we have today is innovation by bean counters. Instead of new and 
innovative ink systems, Epson sells new and innovative systems to keep 
third party inks and (to a lesser extent) papers out of "their" 
printers. What the customer wants be damned.

What we need is competition. But remember, competition is only good for 
the customers. Corporations hate competition with a passion. Witness 
Epson's bad corporate behavior toward ink vendors and RIP vendors who 
support them. How we get said competition into the market is hard to 
imagine. The barrier to entry to this market is steep. It's not nearly 
as easy to design and manufacture a printer as many here seem to 
believe, and it will take several prototypes and lots of testing to 
smooth off the rough edges and make something you could bring to market. 
All this takes is time, money, a decent sized workshop (that's decently 
equipped), and floor space to build in. Oh, yes, and print heads. Epson 
sure as hell is *not* going to sell us print heads. Designing a new 
print head is a whole new level of R&D, as is manufacturing a print 
head. Extreme accuracy and precision required.
--
Bruce Watson