Xerox Corporation is mounting a serious challenge to HP’s dominance in the printer market with the launch today of five new multifunction products and printers, including two that use solid ink technology.
The new Xerox Phaser 8860 color printer and the 8860MFP color multifunction printer are the first printers to use a solid ink technology that feature crayon-like ink sticks which have been developed to last longer than conventional liquid ink.
Xerox emphasizes that printing costs with solid inks are much lower than liquid ink, bringing down the cost of printing color pages at par with monochrome printing.
Xerox claims the printers can print color at about 5 cents a page, a fraction of rival systems, which analysts peg at between 8 cents and 13 cents a page.
But you have to pay more for the printer itself. The solid ink printers are designed for businesses with print volumes between 1,000 and 10,000 pages per month.
Base pricing for the Phaser 8860 color printer and Phaser 8860MFP is $2,500 and $4,000, respectively. The black ink, with a yield of 14,000 pages, is $216. Each color ink stick, also yielding 14,000 pages, is at $72. Comparatively, the Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 4700dn printer is priced at $1,599, with a supplies cost of $178.99 for a black toner cartridge that yields 11,000 pages, and $253.99 for each color toner cartridge that yields 10,000 pages, according to figures from Xerox.
[Site: Xerox.com]