Digital BW, The Print

----- Original Message -----
From: "Truman Prevatt" <tprevatt@...>
To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, March 01, 2003 4:34 PM
Subject: Re: [Digital BW] Epson v Canon


> I guess I wonder if the market in fine art b/w market is big enough to
> make Canon want to duke it our with Epson.  Canon ( I am sure like most
> companies ) is run by accountants these days and Canon being a public
> company is responsible to its shareholders to not make bad financial
> decisions. It could take a fairly large up front investment and from a
> financial viewpoint I wonder if the return is there? It, however, would
> sure be nice to have options.
>
Truman,

Unfortunately you hit the nail on the head. The "fine art" B&W inkjet market
is a very small niche. Only a few thousand copies of the R9/Piezo plug-in
have been sold. Considering other inks and workflows I would take a wild and
generous guess that the market is no more than 25,000 to 50,000 at the
moment. On the level that Epson and Canon operate this is not a blip on the
radar.

Also we need to keep in mind that printers are designed to sell at a -1 to
+3% profit with the real profit expectations being in the sale of ink
cartridges. Seems unlikely that Canon would be overjoyed at ConeTech
bringing non-Canon inks to their printers.

The really big money market for inkjet printers is the business desktop and
there I believe HP is #1 with Canon a distant 2nd and Epson 3rd or lower.

All that said, I am very pleased to see Conetech expand the choices outside
of the Epson. I need to go check out the Canon site. Do they make an
affordable 22" wide printer?

Martin

(snip earlier)