If haste makes waste, the team motto at Silverbrook Research must be, "Let’s get wasted!!" Offering "a price/performance ratio that is off the charts" according to Lyra Research, the new Memjet printing technology (video) is many times faster than anything else on the market (60 pages per minute of 1600-dpi, full-color printing). Somewhere a forest groans; somewhere ink salesmen smile.
These Aussies have apparently been (quietly) going berserk filing patents over the last few years, as described in this profile of the company & founder Kia Silverbrook. The Memjet site has a bit more info on the technology. [Via Jim Pravetz]
Oh my, that’s incredible. Apart from the baffling speed: if the prices mentioned are somewhat accurate, HP and co. are going to have a hard time *not* licensing the technology and adjusting their prices. Now we just need wait and see how much ink it actually uses.
Well… I hope this is true. Apparently most agree it is not a hoax. I personally am in favor of this type of business philosophy as compared to HP and Epson ‘way’ As a society I don’t think we have to scam to make a reasonable profit. Some of Adobe’s actions also have shown good ethics and responsibility and THAT is why I WILL buy CS3 even though I have said it appears to be too capitalistic. On the other hand I buy Epson 9000s and convert them to print to quality on any paper and ink. I have taught myself to rebuild the whole machine rather than be taken advantage of.
Hey Alex,
Can you say more about which of Adobe’s actions you’ve noted to have shown good ethics and responsibility, leading you to support the company?
Thanks,
Dave
Ok, I will touch on the most obvious. Adobe Acrobat is free, the updates are free, and at the college level Distiller was offered free to all who wanted it- with adobe’s blessing. pdf is used by all and it is free all the time. My favorite is the Color management module, just released which is long long overdue to be the standard for color worldwide- you know how many “standards” are floating out there now! It is free.Open source XMP? Free. The upgrade scale from 7 to CS2? (see kelby’s blog) I don’t know about you but that is more free than I give out in my business. Who else allows criticism of the company at this level (John’s blog) and even welcomes it without editing? Hey, that’s pretty good for me, you know.
[Thanks! It’s really nice to know that A) we’re getting some things right, and B) people notice and care. –J.]
Hi Folks,
My name is Andre Rebelo and I work at Lyra Research, the digital imaging market research and news company that first covered the Memjet technology story. We are thrilled by the coverage this story has had and the vigorous discussions that have ensued on great forums like Adobe’s blog. I wanted to clarify info on the ink usage with data from our webcast on the topic:
The printer uses 5 50-ml ink tanks (e.g., CMYKK). The target price for these tanks is $20 ea. These are tanks, not cartridges (the technology relies on a permanent, page-wide print head in the printer.) Many inkjet cartridges currently on the market hold about 8-10 ml and cost 25-50% more than the 50 ml tanks above, generally speaking.
In terms of ink usage, you’re printing what you’re printing, regardless of the printer. In other words, usage will be similar in terms of ink volume used, but the advantage here is speed and significantly lower cost for that ink.
Not as a shameless plug, but as a suggestion for an indepth resource on the topic, I encourage you to view our Webcast on the topic to get a good primer on the technology, design specs, performance, numbers, etc. It’s at http://www.lyra.com and yes, it’s free. If you want a PDF copy of the Webcasts slides, or if you have any questions about the story, feel free to call or email me: US+1-617-454-2658, arebelo@lyra.com.
Thanks again for the discussion on this fascinating story.
[Thanks much for the details, Andre. –J.]
Alex, thanks for following up…we’ll try to keep doing right by you…it’s the kind of folks we are and that our values remind us to be.
Dave Story
VP Product Development
Adobe Systems
Thanks hehe 😀