Richard said:
It's almost a moot point. It was just last week that I read that Epson
was suing the same company. One aftermarket vendor has already pulled
the brand from its line.
Quoting the Wall Street Journal piece that you referenced: "In fiscal
2005, H-P made more than 80 percent of its $5.6 billion in operating
profit from ink and toner supplies, according to Sanford C. Bernstein &
Co."
Let this figure sink in!
Almost _all_ of this vast corporation's profit comes from ink and toner!
There's also the issue of the captive customer. Why, what's the
difference between Epson, and let's say, your friendly neighborhood
street corner drug pusher?
With the chips and lawsuits, I submit that we have been witnessing a
cartel at work, engaged in a practice that's illegal in the United
States: de-facto restraint of trade, preventing compeition. I'd have
nothing against these folks if they behaved in the spirit of open
competition.
I'd be willing to buy OEM supplies if they were priced fairly and
honestly, and sold in a fee and open marketplace that was competitive.
Maybe the OEMs could license others to make interchangeable cartridges
that all work (as has been done with audio cassette tape, video tape,
etc.). They could charge a premium price for their OEM products as is
done in other endeavors: the higher price would be justified by, maybe,
better quality control. The R&D cost should be incorporated in the price
of the printer itself: all of it!
Comments?
I simply won't buy a product that can't use compatible ink/cartridges.
The Canons I currently own will probably be used at our house for quite
some time. In fact, I may buy a couple more BCI-6 based printers to
keep them in storage should one of ours die. If enough of us take this
stand then it will have an impact.
IMO, you do have a point about preventing competition. I kind of equate
the OEM ink issue to automakers voiding a car's warranty, or simply
making it nonfunctional, if any maintenance or consumable items required
to operate the vehicle are used other than their corporate brand. This
has been prohibited by law and I hope one day the printer manufacturers
are subject to the same legal benchmark.
There are no legitimate reasons, IMO, for printer makers to require
proprietary chips in ink cartridges to operate their products. This,
along with the lawsuits, is aimed at creating a monopoly for them to
supply ink for their printers. Once again, this would be like the
automakers putting a gas tank in their cars that requires the use of
their branded gasoline nozzle at corporate owned gas stations. Then
pricing the gas at ten times its market value. As a last nail in the
consumer's coffin, the automakers would then sue all the other
independent gas stations to prevent them from using any variant of their
nozzles to fill up their vehicles.
Like I said, I WILL NOT buy an inkjet printer that leaves me with no
other option than to buy wildly over priced OEM ink and I hope others do
the same. It also wouldn't hurt to start a letter writing and/or email
campaign to the politicians to allow open competition in the ink supply
market. The OEM's have done a good job of keeping a lid on their
campaign to gouge their customers on printer consumables and they need
to be held accountable.
