New OKI printers to beat 'sticker shock'

"We're seeing some pretty dubious consumables strategies in the market right now," said John Ross, general manager of OKI Printing Solutions Middle East. "Particularly at the low end with the inkjet type of product, people are being asked to pay more for ink than they paid for the actual printer. It's like being asked to pay more for a refill of petrol than you paid for the car. And as far as we can see, it's starting to leave a sour taste in people's mouths."

Even at the enterprise level of the market, the actual cost of consumables can be extremely high, according to Ross: "Basically, printers that look like bargains on the shelf can turn out to be money munches on the desktop. We feel that this strategy can frequently be simply counter-productive. It reinforces the perception that colour printing is expensive, when that's not necessarily the case any more."

OKI's strategy aims to cut the total cost of ownership of colour printers by focusing on technologies that require less moving parts, less replacement parts and that offer better 'value for money' consumables such as toner drums that simply have more toner in them and therefore that last longer.

The result will be felt directly by users in the cost per copy achievable with the new generation of OKI printers, which already offer significant advantages against competitive products when compared on the basis of their ongoing running costs.

The new machines from OKI will slash running costs (cost per copy) by up to 18% against comparable machines from manufacturers such as Epson and Hewlett Packard, as well as offering, depending on the models selected, lower purchase prices and faster performance.

"The assumption is, of course, that by making consumables more affordable that we're going to be loading the price of the printers themselves, but that's not what we're doing. We're simply using smarter technology to offer better quality, better value and better affordability. And we're cutting sticker shock out of people's lives," said Ross.