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Friday, May 8, 2009

Fear The Cube or Don't Fear The Cube: In The End, It Won't Matter

5/2009

Xerox ColorCube -

I prefer not to get into the hardware vs hardware debate, after all, all copiers are the same.

But this "wrinkle" in the continuum is worth mentioning.

The Xerox ColorCube is not a contender, it is a game changer - and I haven't even seen a unit yet.

It doesn't matter.

Xerox could release a monkey in a crate with a box of crayons, and somebody, somewhere would buy it.

But this is not the case - there's no monkey in the Cube.

Let us not forget the end user really won't care what the technology is - like always, they will want to print or copy in color or B/W as easily and as simply as possible, at a reasonable cost.

The only folks calling this a "big" issue are those inside the industry.

Simple.

The strong point that Xerox puts forth here with ColorCube is variety of product - just look at the finishing capabilities.

Even though today there are only 3 units with multiple flavors, one need not stress when considering the Xerox product line, next year or the next decade.

This is just another change, iteration, evolution all expected and predictable as we head down the path towards total color output - just like the days of B/W TV were numbered, so to are B/W prints.

For that matter, so too, are the days of print in general.


See:

The Death of Xerography


Clients, Edgeline vs Xerography...


Xerox is NOT Afraid of Edgeline...


Is Anyone Really AFRAID of Edgeline?




Click to email me.








9 comments:

  1. I with ya'. Except for the end of print. It just ain't true. Remember I was a printing broker for 30 years.

    You know you can trust me. lol.

    But seriously I think you've got this wrong. Print embedded in the web is going to turn out to be the big winner.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Greg buddy, I have been following your blog for a little while and it is great.
    I guess your lack of info is what is preventing you from a full review.

    Xerox is afraid of this machine themselves!!

    It creates 90% less waste than laser A3.
    has a 3 tiered ,meter plan with colour at the cost of black and white.

    Measures page coverage by pixels.

    I just got training last week on it.

    I have to say that I am impressed.

    At the end of the day, it saved customers loads of cash.

    Not one company can claim the same environmental benefits.

    Game changing for sure.

    I think edgeline was on the right track but fell short printing in tabloid and struggles with heavy weight paper BUT HP and now Xerox are on the right track.

    Unreal technology.

    This is my first post here and want to say thanks for non biased posting on the industry and great sales tips and insight from a tenured guy.

    Come work with us in Canada!

    hope to post soon.

    Doug

    ReplyDelete
  3. You should talk a bit about what makes it a game changer.

    Variable-tiered pricing (and presumably the low-cost ink that allows Xerox to price it as such).

    In addition, (unlike the edgeline), it prints A3 at the same speed as A4, no reduction in productivity.

    Mike

    ReplyDelete
  4. Doug -

    First off, thanks for reading and commenting.

    The 3-tier pricing is very interesting and a great thing - how is Xerox going to get the meters read ? Rhetorical question, we all know it will get done.

    Another thing, I wonder just how many are really, strongly looking at Xerox in terms of industry leading; both technology and service.

    If we leave HP off the table for now - how in the world can Ricoh, Canon, Konica, Sharp or Toshiba going to go after the Cube?

    As HP concentrates on the IT world, which is fine, could it be that as once IBM sold more PC's than anyone, HP is following their lead?

    Will the day ever come when HP DOESN'T SELL PRINTERS anymore?

    ummmmm???

    Thanks again - keep coming back.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Mike -

    I was unaware of the A3/A4 output times - wow.

    As for the tiered pricing, HP has had it and we have been using it for over 2 years now - or has it been longer...?

    Any-who, it's a good looking system - on paper.( a little pun there...)

    Keep coming back and thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Mike, good post.
    Greg, Nice Pun!

    Hp's printer business is incredible.
    One company here sold 400k in hp printers to an enterprise sized company last year in Canada. (that same IT company partnered with Xerox and sells its full line of products now).

    STILL the laser/phaser line is not getting traction on Hp land in my opinion.

    I am not sure what the vendors other than HP will do to respond.

    Ricoh has an old gel ink model that I really haven't heard of anyone buying.

    Good question about the pixels though, I am stumped (FUD?)!
    I do know that there are pixel limits for each mode.

    The one thing I though was neat was the "usefull colour mode" which has under 10% page colour page coverage
    and bills as black and white.

    We have to do usage pie charts on assessment calls now.

    I lost a deal to HP edgeline this year, it was the underdog and won!

    The proposal was pretty slick.
    It is the only edgeline in my territory and one of 3 in our whole agencies land!

    I think Xerox has a great IT value proposition but that Tivoli thing Ricoh has is wild.

    IT companies do a good job selling HP around here I must admit.

    I am sure they love their supply profits.

    It seems HP is the only Vendor who can answer to the Qube.

    The qube connects to all doc management solutions and has options scan flow store software as well.

    The gui is the best I have seen since edgeline, very easy to understand and a xerox tested a monkey on it, in a related story the monkey liked the crayon like qubes the machine consumed, the monkey ate some and it is safe.

    ReplyDelete
  7. One thing I found out about is that the amount of things to be "changed" is quite low for the cube. You replace the "cleaner" every 200k prints, and the "bar" of ink whenever it gets low.

    Other than that there is nothing to replace, no canisters, waste bottles, fuser oil, CRU's, or other such nonsense.

    I suspect that will be attractive to customers that like simplification.

    Mike

    ReplyDelete
  8. WOW-

    Very similar to Edgeline - little to replace, just ink and spittoon.

    And I assume there is little heat in the Cube, too?

    No,7 step, Xerographic process.

    This is like if "Kleenex" stopped selling tissue.

    ReplyDelete
  9. So is this "new" technology just the advancement of their purchase of the tektronix printers? Is it a permanent image or does it scrape rub and melt back off the page into the crayons that it started from? What about color consistency and accuracy over a long run or from run to run? Substrate handling? Front to back registration? I’m sorry it is the “iron geek” in me.
    I like the idea of a tiered metering system. It is a great story to tell a new customer. I love technology and find watching Xerox fascinating, not sure how well they have been doing in their implementation of all of their 55,000 patents. As any competitor I wish them the best but is this a new mouse trap or just a better mouse trap?
    As with any new technology their go to market strategy will be more important than the actual technology itself. Think about the pet rock? Was that rock any better than the one at the end of your driveway? No, it was just great marketing, and Xerox has been very good over the years branding ideas, products and team X. I am interested to see how many mice they catch with this new trap…
    Pirate Mike…
    http://digitalprintingevolution.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete

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