HP unveils Edgeline printers, isn't selling them

HP is starting to see the first fruits of its $1.4 billion investment in next-gen print technologies with the debut of its new Edgeline enterprise-class color printers. The new printers squirt special fast-drying inks out of dual stationary print heads that run the entire width of the page, a system that offers the color quality of traditional inkjets at laser-like speeds. But as with all good things, there's a catch -- the printers aren't being offered for sale. The Edgeline system is apparently so ink-efficient that HP can't sell the units at competitive prices and make up the difference on consumables sales like it does with its inkjet and laser products. Instead, HP will rent the printers to high-volume customers, with a typical contract running for four years at 20,000 pages per month. That's it for hard details, though: HP hasn't disclosed how much the printer rentals will actually cost, only that average customers will see a 30% drop in printing costs by deploying the new machines. (We've seen estimates of about $25K.) That estimate probably doesn't account for discount third-party ink, however, a cottage industry for which HP has never had much love. We'll see how this lame rental model affects HP's ink business -- it's still certainly better than having the cartridges programmed to expire.

[Via ArsTechnica]

[Joseph @ Apr 23rd 2007 6:54PM]

considering we do about 30,000/qtr and our prints are water-resistant, i dont see myself switching anytime soon. Love my CLC4000

[Garrett @ Apr 23rd 2007 7:21PM]

So do you print off a new placemat before lunch everyday? lol...

[Iridium @ Apr 23rd 2007 7:22PM]

What a surprise HP makes a printer that is too efficient and won't sell it because they can't rape thier customers. I quit buying HP products after the last cartridge size drop. I actually wrote a letter to them stating that I had been a loyal HP customer and used thier printers for 15 years but the practice of ever decreasing the ammount of ink in a cartridge while raising the price has forced me to look elsewhere for my printing needs.

I remember the great HP45 cartridge with 40ml of ink for $20 that would last for a whole ream of paper or more. Replaced with a 19ml cartridge for $30 that ran out after 100 pages. I asked them if the two cents work of ink per cartridge was really worth losing the hundreds of dollars I would be giving them if I continued to use thier products. I also mentioned how they decided not to create a 64 bit driver for my $500 professional scanner that is now worthless with my current work computer. I thanked them for driving me to the competition and how they would be glad to have me.

To my surprise I recieved a response. It said that they were sorry that I felt that I was not getting my money's worth but that HP strives to make inprovements that help to conserve inks to lower cost per page and that with smaller ink droplets you need less ink to cover a page. That there are great HP products available to replace old product with far more features that make them far more usefull. Such as Vivera inks that are brighter and last far longer than previous HP formulations.

I'll never forget my letter of BS from that snake oil company. HP printers used to be bulletproof and last for a decade of hard use. Today your lucky to get a year before the printer snaps its drive belt. Its sad when a company releases a product that is too good to bring to market for fear that the gravy train might dry up ever so slightly by the slow bleed of a couple pennies.

[Ebzy @ Apr 23rd 2007 9:01PM]

@iridium

Will you be my English teacher? I was almost in tears at the end of that.

Shame about your grief though

[John Laur @ Apr 23rd 2007 7:37PM]

>I also mentioned how they decided not to create a 64 bit driver for my $500 professional scanner that is now worthless with my current work computer.

I hate to break it to you but a $500 scanner is really pretty much commodity even though these days a $50 will buy you quite a remarkable piece of equipment. By all accounts though HP doesn't even make a professional scanner anymore.

As far as continuing to use old hardware though you might consider that you can still make use of it inside a virtual machine. VMware Player is free and supports USB, SCSI, serial and parallel device passthrough which is generally sufficient for all but the most esoteric external peripherals.

[jordan @ Apr 23rd 2007 7:49PM]

I'm curious, John, would virtualization pass an unknown device from the host OS into it's child, virtualized, OS? I'm not saying it can't be done, I've just never tried it before; it's not a bad idea at all, actually. :)

[John Laur @ Apr 23rd 2007 7:58PM]

Well it's not "virtualization" that's the magic here; VMware installs some special filter drivers on the host OS that allows this sort of thing. For the SCSI/Serial/Parallel you have to configure the ports to pass through to the VM, then you can manually connect/disconnect them. For USB it's a bit trickier. You can specify individual devices to attach to the VM or you can specify that any devices you plug in while the VM has input focus be attached to the VM.

Anyway it works pretty well. I use it personally for running a calibration tool on an old SCSI scanner -- the ISIS driver works fine under XP but the calibration tool won't run on anything newer than NT4. I have also used it to make windows-only USB printers work under Linux -- run a windows VM that drives the USB printer and runs a program that reads standard postscript then outputs it to the printer -- software RIP for winprinters!

I believe Xen has some preliminary support for allowing virtual machines access to PCI devices as well, but I might be wrong about that.

[MauiDan @ Apr 23rd 2007 7:47PM]

Hmm... at 25k (I'm assuming annually) for 20,000 prints a month that works out to 10.4 cents per print. My IKON contract for my Canon color copier is almost identical to that cost.

Also, I would assume any such contract would include all ink and service, rendering concerns about third party ink irrelevant.

[jordan @ Apr 23rd 2007 7:52PM]

Our contract has us at right around 11 cents per page, I believe. On the other hand, our 25k is spent on multiple printers throughout our facility, and I'm curious as to how much foot traffic is spent for these 20,000 pages per month. And, if you say it's just a small handful of people, you need to figure out a way for them not to need so much paper. :/

[MauiDan @ Apr 23rd 2007 8:49PM]

Foot traffic? I am the only one who uses the machine for mass mailings and the like. And yes, I do need a lot of paper :-)

[Jamie @ Apr 24th 2007 4:43PM]

25k would be for the total cost of the equipment. Color costs will be around 4 cents per page, but it depends upon whether you want business quality color or professional quality color. I have seen both and the business quality is very acceptable for most work.

[Miguel @ Apr 24th 2007 3:21AM]

I work at a church, which naturally employs a relatively small business staff--sixteen people in the office--but which requires massive print amounts: hundreds of bulletins for weekly worship services, hundreds of newsletters to mail out monthly to members...

We print to one dedicated printer-copier workstation, with the exception of a contracted color printer that we use to make high-quality masters prior to running a large copy job. If we could get 20,000 pages per month in laser-speed and detail with ink-quality color range, it would be ideal, even with one machine.

[Austin Roepke @ Apr 23rd 2007 8:06PM]

Actually, the first fruits of next-gen technology from HP has been deployed in Aigelent chemical analyzers for a while...

[Austin Roepke @ Apr 23rd 2007 8:08PM]

Agilent, I mean. I always misspell it when I type too fast, lol.

[Anthony.L @ Apr 23rd 2007 8:51PM]

I have a good friend that works for HP and the figure he gave me was something like 70% of their revenue or gross profit was from printer consumables (i.e. ink). Doesn't surprise me they want to protect that.

[Rusty @ Apr 23rd 2007 10:06PM]

Yes, it IS ink, and yes it is FAST drying, but it is STILL ink.
Unlike the DRY process toner in a copier, which is fixed to the
paper with HEAT and PRESSURE, this is INK, squirted onto the paper.
The toner is melted and pressed into the paper fibers. Ink just
lays on top of the paper and is absorbed a little into the paper.
With the hard finish on today's photocopier paper, I just don't
see how this would be "smudge proof". A little moisture and it
would smear.
I'm like the rest...HP won't sell it consumer wise. UNLESS they
make the ink cartridges in 10ml size ;)

[Fidelio @ Apr 26th 2007 6:45PM]

I think you cannot compare how a normal inkjet printer works with this new-technology. I don't think a company like HP will invest $1.4 billion dollars in developing a super-sized desktop inkjet printer, so let's see how this works and then we'll discuss if it's good or not.

[Peter @ Apr 24th 2007 2:41AM]

Rusty, they spray a primer on the sheet of paper before the ink goes on. Hence making it smuge proof.

[Rusty @ Apr 24th 2007 8:33PM]

yes, a "primer" is sprayed on BEFORE the ink goes on, but, what prevents the ink on TOP of the primer from smudging? Also, I hope they took into consideration "fading" that inks will do over time.
When Bertl, http://www.bertl.com or buyers lab finally gets them and is able to put them in their labs, we'll find out how they really work.

[Peter @ Apr 25th 2007 12:06AM]

Kind of like primer on a car, helps the ink bond, I printed about 30 sheets with this printer, as soon as the printed sheets came out i thew water on the paper and nothing happened to the ink. Pretty cool stuff, it also printed 70 some odd pages per min.

[Gary @ May 4th 2007 4:31PM]

The inks used are pigment based, not dye based. Dye based inks are absorbed into the paper and "feel" more dry when they output. However, dye based inks, in general, fade faster to to oxygen, ozone and light. Pigment based inks tend to "sit" on the surface of the paper but are far more resistant to environmental fading factors. The "primer" affixes the pigment ink to the media and provides additional environmental and surface impact factor protection (oxygen, ozone, water, etc...)

[PaperJammer @ Jun 28th 2007 10:25AM]

I'm tired of hearing about these new imaging components. These machines are too expensive and too high maintenance. In fact, printers are the bane of my existence. That’s why I destroy them! If you need to vent too, visit destroyaprinter.com.