RSSXerox rolls out pioneering ColorQube printer with crayon-like ink
By Jacqueline Emigh | Published May 7, 2009, 2:22 PM
Formerly codenamed Jupiter, the ColorQube 9200 series printers unveiled today will bring groundbreaking cost efficiencies to color printing through a combination of solid ink technology and per-click pricing plans, Xerox officials contended, in a series of press launches.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I'm pleased to announce that, for the first time, you can release your 'true colors' in the office," declared Xerox Corp. President Ursula Burns, touting ColorQube as the "most significant change in office printing in the past 30 years."
Of the roughly two trillion pages printed out in offices last year, almost all were printed on laser printers, but only 15% were done in color, Burns noted, during a launch event broadcast over the Web from Chicago.
"I know that the world is not black-and-white," she said. "[But] companies have put a lock on color printing."
"Price is the number one barrier to color printing," concurred David Bates, director of product marketing for the Xerox Office Group, during an earlier press preview in New York City.
Beyond saving money for businesses, the technology used in the ColorQube 9201/9202/9203 printers is "cleaner" than laser technology, and also much easier for office workers to deal with, the Xerox officials said.
Jim Rise, vice president and general manager of Xerox's Solid Ink Products Business Unit pointed to the "simplicity of the cartridge-free consumables."
In contrast to laser printers, which use cartridges containing powdered toner, Xerox' latest solid ink technology uses blocks of a crayon-like substance. Printing happens when the melts the waxy "ink sticks" and sprays the non-toxic substance on to a spinning color drum inside the machine. The printers contains 3,000 print heads apiece, with 900 ink nozzles each.
During a press demo in New York, Rise and Bates showed how office workers can quickly pop the ink sticks into the $20,000-or-so printers, without taking a chance on spilling toner anywhere. Solid ink printing also requires less energy power than laser technology, with no cartridges and less packaging to dispose of, according to Bates. The ColorQube printers power down when not in use.
The new printers from Xerox use only one customer-replaceable component. The long-life "Cleaning Unit," which yields an average of 200,000 prints, can be recycled through the Xerox Green World Alliance program.
Xerox' new ColorQube printers produce 90% less waste than laser printers, estimated Angela Boyd, an IDC analyst.
"We believe this is the easiest-to-use MFD in the industry," maintained Bates. In addition to printing, the network-ready ColorQube handles copying and faxing.
In Xerox' accompanying metered pricing plans, businesses can decide how much color they want to use on particular pages, and get charged accordingly. Choices range from full color, to spot color, to black-and-white only.
A business might opt to liven up the looks of a proposal by printing out its logo in color, while leaving the rest of the page in black-and-white. The use of spot color can also come in handy for printing out graphs and charts.
"Our mission is to make 'black-and-white only' printing obsolete," according to the product marketing director. The ColorQube's printing speeds are also "flexible," ranging up to 85 pages per minute, he added.
Industry analysts briefed on the announcement were largely highly impressed with the cost-saving capabilities of the ColorQube MFDs, in addition to their eco-friendliness and the quality of their print output. Asserted InfoTrends analyst Robert Palmer, "I believe that this product has a a disruptive capability."
DeadFly, I've seen lots of comments like yours around articles about the ColorQube, however to draw a similar analogy, early petrol cars were unreliable and broke down lots, weren't very efficient and had a high cost of ownership, yet I bet you drive one yourself now after years of development. It's the same with anything in the technology sector and hence this being a big evolution of the solid ink technology also see's a large jump in reliability and massively reduce the cost of colour prints. Reliability of the beta test was very good, but I can't give out actual figures.
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|I have a Phaser 850 sitting around gathering dust because the thing broke down every other week. It'd take a lot for me to try this technology again.
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|i bought a xerox multi function printer back when wxp was coming out.
it was a large, heavy and impressive machine. i thought the the hundreds of dollars i spent was a good buy. the ink cartridges were well over 30 bucks for each color and bought extra's to keep on hand.
however, when sp2 was released xerox would not provide an update.
after a few years, i decided to open the unit and i found a mere 4.6 circuit board inside the vastly empty space.
what made the unit "heavy" was simply the thick casing. perhaps it was super think on the bottom.
needless to say, i tossed the damn thing into the dumpster along with the cartridges that were useless for any other type of printer.
reminded me of getting a big heavy christmas present one year.
i opened it and it had two bricks, wadded up paper and a little envelope with a 20 dollar gift card for a resturant i never liked.
if it were a bk or micky-d's gift or subwar card, i would have used the gift card.
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|Quick correction "The printers contains 3,000 print heads apiece, with 900 ink nozzles each." should read "The printers contains 4 print heads apiece, with 900 ink nozzles each."
As stated this is not new technology, however it is the first time it has been used on A3 (or A4 LEF) sheets and is an upward scaling of the technology both in terms of print area, resolution, speed and reliability. The new machines fit in a completely different market segment to the smaller A4/8.5x11 printers and MFPs and as such require much higher levels of reliability.
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|How is this any different to the Tektronix Phaser printers that Xerox acquired 10 years ago?
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|They need to bring the cost way down and get rid of the metered pricing.
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|Funny how Xerox took doomed Tektronix and their solid ink technology and doomed them further by charging per page.
It's good technology but increasing printing costs by paying a per-page tariff is unrealistic. I'm not sure with whom they get contracts but I would think they would be out of business by now. When I talked to their sales people about other local companies in similar environments using their products, they couldn't name any (but the technology worked perfectly, of course).
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|it will be a cold day in hell before i buy another xerox or recommend their printers to anyone else.
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|The Xerox Phaser 8500 series printers at my workplace use these wax blocks for ink and they are a few years old, so this technology is nothing new. One drawback with this technology (at least in the case with the Phaser 8500 series) is that if the printer is allowed to go into low-power mode the wax in the system hardens. Next time the printer is needed a bunch of wax and paper are used to clean the hardened wax. If you do not allow the printer to go into low-power mode, it will constantly use around 80 Watts, with a peak of around 200 Watts every few minutes to heat the wax.
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|I'm glad you pointed this out. The power the printer uses in standby mode actually melts wax -- so even if you're not printing, wax is being used. This is a little known fact. I know. I used to work for XRX.
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|Anything that could eventually make colour printing cheaper is a good thing.
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|So... I can have a $30 printer that prints with ink that costs anywhere from $30 to $80 per ounce or I can have a $20,000 printer that uses crayons, lots of electricity, and charges me extra just for pressing the print button... no thank you.
I'm sick of being ripped off by the printer companies when it comes to printing consumables. So... I'll toss my new printer when it runs out of ink. I can buy another one cheaper than I can buy just a set of cartridges. Let's see the ecologists scream when the landfills start overflowing with disposable printers. Maybe they can get someone to supply printing ink at a reasonable price.
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