Edgeline at 300 Page Per Minute

HP has purchased - Exstream, check out this blog entry for a quick primer. And word has it HP spent $915 million...I read this off of this a blog post, by Andrew Tribute at the Print CEO Blog:

"I have analyzed in depth all the HP white papers on Edgeline and from this have worked out that HP could easily make a 20 inch width color data center printer that could operate at a speed slightly in excess of 300 pages/min.

I know this is not as fast as the new range of high-speed color printers from Agfa, IBM, Kodak, Océ, Screen and Xerox, but Edgeline technology would allow HP to sell this 300 plus page/minute printer at a fraction of the price all of these new printers are selling for. Not everyone in the corporate data center market wants to run 1,000 pages/minute, and many would want to have multiple slower printers rather that relying on one super-fast device."

Perhaps the announcement of the planned acquisition of Exstream is also a pre-announcement of the HP Color Data Center Printing System. It will be interesting to see how this news develops in the coming months."

This is very interesting, no? See this post of mine and try to read "through" it - and see how HP "expands"into new market niches? See this post.

300 ppm!!? wha, wha, whaaaaaaat?

...Ramblings, without a Cause...

Anything you read in this post is rumor, innuendo..."I can neither confirm or deny, although I know the answer..." - Ronald Reagan, maybe.

Big meeting - lots of high-end HP dealers to review and share challenges and successes with HP directly. And a chance for HP to present future plans, programs and support for those VARs worthy. See "Loyalties".

- The take-away? HP responds instantly (See this) and dealers whine about cost per copy.

A dozen Edgeline systems with meter reads at 6 million, and still printing...

- The take-away? I have seen many machines with 1 million or more; at the end of life.

Current engines easily getting to 94 ppm.

- The take-away? See it when I believe it.

Some VARs see current engines running at 125,000 color/month with no problems.

- The take-way? Some VARs employee "puffery" when discussing their successes.

Hole punch unit, RIP coming. The RIP, heavily disguised with duct tape, but still rumored to look like EFI.

Ramblings and talking about 225ppm for everyday business units; color.


Strap on your Goggles

...This changes everything...

...This Changes Everything...

"How much difference would it make if the paper went in portrait instead of landscape?"

I was showing a client the CM8060 with Edgeline technology, I had them put on their safety goggles, and started a copy job. As they watched the print nozzle array move, the drum begin to spin and paper flowing through the system - my client, who is very smart asked, "How many pages does the drum hold?". "Three.", I replied.

"And the paper passes under the nozzles twice, right?"Another highly observant question. Now she has me interested, "Yes," my response, "Why do you ask?"

"I also noticed the paper is on the drum, length-wise, correct?"

Now I am getting really concerned, where is she going with this? "Yes, and what is your impression?"

"Well," she says, "if you change the orientation, you can get one additional page through the machine, increasing the speed by 33%- and if you could get the ink to be applied in one pass, won't that increase the speed as well?"

--- HOLY CRAP! ---

"er...yeah, I guess..." my very intelligent response, "what are you getting at?"

I know the internal drum speed is 142 pages per minute(hence burst speed on current CM8060 is 71ppm) - and I instantly recognize that if the unit could apply and dry in one pass, that would mean an output speed of 142ppm!

"you know, it would be nice if HP used these bottom two trays as one - maybe they could increase the internal paper source to 2,000 sheets and reduce the overall footprint on the machine...and Greg, I noticed that to service or remove a jam from the finisher, it needs to be slid out about 2- 3 feet..." she says.

"I see", I say, "and?"

"well, maybe they could put the finisher on a rotating platform so instead of sliding out a yard, it just moves half a foot or so and the rotates. This would allow me to free a jam and reduce the 12' foot print closer to 6 feet."

My response, "interesting...and, does your Konica Minolta do this now? How about the Canon you saw last week in Irvine?"

"No." she replies.

This changes everything.

If you Guarantee it, they will buy..

HP is standing behind their HP Edgeline Access VAR's and the CM8060/50 with one big stick.

"Overview

HP Products are designed and manufactured to meet both our customer's and our partner's performance expectations. If after working with HP Edgeline Support, an Edgeline Access partner is unable to bring an HP CM8060/CM8050 Color MFP's performance in line with specifications, HP will contact the partner within one business day to arranged for an HP representative to visit the customer site, schedule delivery of a replacement unit or initiate a refund of the unit price."

Ok, before you start picking the above apart (because one could) stand back and think about this, especially if you are in the copier industry - if you're a dealer, say...I dunno, let's just call you ICON - how easy is it to get a replacement unit out to your customer? Can you show your customer Canon's documented, replacement policy? How about K/M or how about Ricoh?

Sure you can get a like-for-like, meaning some old, returned, used but "functional" unit, pulled out of the service inventory.

And if you think even deeper - about a refund - who offers refunds on copiers?

There will be dealers out there who see this as a negative - who pays for pick up, how does this work with a lease, do I get a service credit from HP for all the time my tech spends trying to fix, and how come the service rates are so high - blah, blah, blah...as one of my characterized role models said, "I find your lack of faith...disturbing."

On the other side, there is a risk of dealers trying to "fit a square peg in a round hole" by using this as a closing tool - short sighted simpletons who will lead with this guarantee - they just don't get it. Indeed, the biggest risk to HP is in what the VAR channel does with this - but all things will be revealed.

The single most important aspect of this move is HP's apparent feeling that they have a super-duper, grand slam, slam dunk product; a Tiger By The Tail - a true "Copier Killer"

And they do.

And this is just the beginning - I can "Bear"-ly stand it!

Much more to come -

HP looking to be a big commercial printer....Part Duex

This twin-engine duplex printing engine press runs at a speed of 122 meters/minute (400 ft/min) and this equates to 2,600 Letter or A4 pages/minute.

HP’s new Inkjet Web Press is built around HP’s Edgeline scaleable printing architecture.

The press has a 30-inch (762 mm) web width compared with all the competitions’ 20-inch web widths. This twin-engine duplex printing engine press runs at a speed of 122 meters/minute (400 ft/min) and this equates to 2,600 Letter or A4 pages/minute. This press is expected to sell for around $2.5 million.

HP says that a color page with 30% coverage will cost $0.01 and a monochrome page $0.0015. You can check out a really good article on this unit here.