Xerox Launches Revolutionary Color Printer
Many companies restrict the use of color printers because of high costs — up to eight cents a page, compared to a penny a page for black and white. Xerox hopes to loosen up the color pursestrings with a new $20,000 printer that is says will sharply cut those costs.
Context & Ripple Effects
Xerox had already been working to move beyond its copier identity, including a rebrand meant to loosen the copier association. Its $20,000 color system makes that repositioning economic as well as symbolic: it targets the per-page cost gap that leads companies to limit color use. Xerox enters a market where Kodak had also pitched lower-cost printer ink, making ongoing printing expense a central point of differentiation.
First-order effects
- Organizations weighing the new Xerox system gain an option designed to reduce the color-printing expense that has prompted internal usage restrictions.
- Xerox ties a $20,000 hardware sale to a lower-running-cost proposition, rather than selling color output chiefly on print capability.
Second-order effects
- Kodak's cheaper-ink pitch faces a competing cost-of-use message from Xerox, increasing pressure on printer vendors to explain savings over a device's use rather than only its purchase price.
- Corporate print buyers have more reason to compare color systems against their internal per-page budgets, not simply against black-and-white alternatives.
Third-order effects
- If lower operating costs become the deciding criterion, office-print vendors will compete more on the economics of supplies and usage than on their legacy hardware categories.
- Xerox's effort to separate its brand from copiers suggests that cost-focused color systems can also serve as a route into broader document-equipment purchasing decisions.
The trend: Office printing is shifting toward total cost of use as the key product proposition, giving vendors an incentive to pair hardware sales with lower per-page economics.