It’s Amazing – Printer Prices Keep Dropping In Spite of The Economy

We’ve all been aware of how pricing for digital-imaging equipment (printers and MFPs) has dropped over the years, especially those of us who remember that the first B/W Hewlett-Packard 8-ppm LaserJet cost $3,495 in 1984 while the 8-ppm B/W Apple LaserWriter PostScript printer (right) cost $6,995 in 1985.

Why revisit this phenomena now?

Consider this:  Wirth Consulting completed a Head2Head Comparison Report in January 2009 on B2B Duplex/Network MFPs for under $500.  Here’s the list:

• New Products – Nine months later, only two models remain from January 2009 for a total of 21 new products in this category.
• More Imaging Technology Choices – In January 2009, you could choose from among B/W laser or color ink-jet MFPs.  You can now purchase a color laser MFP for under $500 — the Konica Minolta magicolor 1690MF (right).
• Lower Cost Per Page – Lexmark is advertising B/W printing costs at “a penny a page” for its just-introduced new ink-jet models.  We can’t confirm Lexmark’s cost per page, but the models evaluated in January of 2009 had a cost per page of 5.2 cents!
• Office and/or Shared Use – Wirth Consulting believes that networking and automatic duplexing are so critical for office and shared use that we only evaluate devices that can be equipped as such.  As you can see, far more devices for under $500 can be equipped with automatic duplex printing and networking.
• Product R&D/Development/Marketing/Distribution – Being in this industry for so long, it’s hard to conceive of the amount of resources invested by these companies in bringing all of these new products to market.  Keep in mind that this is only one category of B2B products—can you imagine the product development that each manufacturer has invested in across all product categories?
• According to some market-research, the “bright spot” in the digital-imaging market will be MFPs, especially color MFPs, as more customers may be seeking devices with not just print functionality, but copy, scan and/or fax functionality as well.