A typical office scenario:
If one has to take a quick look around your office environment, you will realize that the number of printers around us has increased manifold.
In a typical office situation we use the printer all the time - an employee applies for leave and prints the form to give to his administration department for records, the finance team creates vendor invoices on the printer, similarly when a new employee joins, the HR director hands over his or her appointment letter duly printed. These and many more such examples are a testimony of our dependence on printers as they continue to be an indispensable part of our day-to-day routine.
Going beyond office environments, printers are now even entering into our homes. When cash is collected from an ATM, the receipt is automatically delivered through a slot from an internal impact printer. The same happens when purchasing petrol from the local petrol pump. Even when purchasing movie tickets a receipt is impact printed by the cash register. At home, printers are being used to make Tee-shirt appliqués!
We live in a printer world!
The strong integration of printers in our lives is supported by data from independent third party agencies:
1. As per IDC, the total printer market in India for the year 2003 was estimated to be 1.2 million unit shipments as compared to 0.94 million units during 2002, an annual growth of a little less than 30 percent. Total printers sales in 2003 stood at 1.18 million
2. During the last quarter of the calendar year 2003, the unit shipment break up between the different printer formats was as follows: Inkjets: 1,46,426 units, dot-matrix printers (Dot Matrix Printers MPs): 89,051 units and laser printers at 41,447 units
3. The laser printer market is expected to grow to about 2.5 lakh units in 2005 (IDC). In the Oct-Dec 2004 quarter, laser printers witnessed a growth of 90 per cent and inkjet printers grew at 30% (MAIT)
Future growth projections for this segment are pegged at 14 percent CAGR for inkjet and laser printers and a negative 3 percent CAGR for Dot Matrix printers till 2007 (IDC)
How it all started - Printer Chronology
Dot Matrix Inkjet Laser 1980s 1990s 2000s In the 1980's dot-matrix printers dominated the printer market. Inkjet and dot-matrix printers coexisted in this period and it was not until the 1990s that the drastic reduction in prices and the cost benefits provided by inkjet technology enabled it to become a preferred technology over the dot matrix printers.
Keeping up with the evolution of technology, 2000s saw the inkjet technology facing tough competition from Laser technology and gradually laser printers started gaining popularity not only among the first time buyers but predominantly with the SMBs, SOHO and the corporate segments due to the greater efficiencies and lower TCO.
As we move ahead in the 20th century, the two dominating technologies in the document management space continue to be Laser and Inkjet technologies. The choice between the two technologies and the printer you choose depends on your individual user requirements and factors such as Price, Color and Speed.
Working of Laser and Inkjet printers:
Laser printer
A laser printer is a machine that uses a laser light and the principles of static electricity to create an image on paper. Powdered ink, called toner, forms the image on paper. Laser printers rely on the technology used at first in photocopying machines. This process is known as electrophotography** and was invented in 1938 and developed by Xerox in the later 1980s.
The original laser printer called EARS was developed by Xerox at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center beginning in 1969 and completed in November, 1971
Inkjet Printer
Inkjet printing is a non-impact printing process in which text and images are formed by the precise placement of really small (picoliter-sized) droplets of ink fired at high speeds from the nozzles of computer-controlled printheads. The nozzles are contained in a print head, which moves back and forth across the page. As it finishes each passage, the paper is moved forward so that the printhead can continue across the next few lines. Most inkjet printers use four colors: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black. By combining these colors in various combinations, printers can recreate almost any shade the user wants.
Finally…
Laser is emerging as the most sought after and main stream printing device. The future for laser printers looks bright. Within four years of the first appearance of colour lasers in 1994, prices have approximately halved. With the market continuing to be stimulated both by falling prices and improved technology, it looks inevitable that the laser or colour laser will soon become as commonplace and as indispensable as the photocopier!
Laser vs. Inkjet printers :By - Natesh Mani Executive Director, New Office Group, Xerox India Limited
