A CLOSER LOOK @ KODAK’s NEW INK CTG TECH

The Easyshare external looks are
in this season’s colors of white and off-white, so they look equally
stylish next to a PC or a Mac. No blacks or darker colors. One reason
why Kodak’s ink is cheaper is because they’ve moved the most expensive
part of the cartridge – the replaceable print head – into the
printer.Instead, the print head is a MEMS device embedded in the
device. In other devices, you end up buying a new print head every time
you buy a $30+ ink cartridge.

Kodak executives talked up the
fact the printer hardware is “more expensive” than other options on the
market and say that they don’t expect everyone to go buy their stuff.
Their sweet spot seems to be a print-happy Soccer Mom that likes to
crank out photos of every event for the family scrap book and to mail
off to the relatives. I think people are going to make the decision
that they need to get a Kodak printer based on how much money it might
save them over their existing print costs, be it at-home on a
competitor’s champagne ink-drinker or compared to what they might pay
at a department store for digital prints.

All hardware on
display was pre-production, with production models scheduled to appear
in Best Buy in March and May. The low and mid-end models ($149 and
$199) will appear in March with the high-end with fax and document
feeder appearing in May. Best Buy has a 90 day exclusive on the
printers.

Consumers who select Kodak can expect to see one type
of ink cartridge for a long time. Executives feel comfortable with the
five color pigment selection for photos, plus a dedicated blank ink
cartridge for documents and don’t want to get into the
cycle//inventory/shelf problem of rolling out a new ink cartridge every
time they roll out a new printer. No answer on if you can simply bin
the empty plastic cartridges into the recyclables pile, but one would
hope so.Improvements will be made in hardware, adding more features
– one could guess wireless and networking support – and improving the
MEMS print head and other print mechanisms. Philip Faraci, President of
Kodak’s Consumer Digital Imaging Group, said the company already has
second and third generation products on the drawing board and is
following a “multi-year plan.” The company hopes to secure 10 percent
market share of (what I assume is the consumer market) by 2010 Consumables
packaging is one area where Kodak has put in serious thought. The
company has put together grab bags containing a stack of 4×6 inch photo
paper, a color cartridge, and a black cartridge for under $20. You can
get 180 prints on “standard” for $17.99 or go upscale to thicker paper,
but only 135 prints for $19.99. The $17.99 package delivers prints at
10 cents U.S. a copy while the $19.99 package breaks down to 15 cents
U.S. a copy.

Interestingly, the printer has a built-in scanner
to determine the type of photo paper inserted in it, and adjusts
accordingly. The Kodak photo paper is subtly coded on the back to
indicate the difference between standard and thick/premium paper – the
code is simply the space between the logo lines. If the printer doesn’t
see Kodak logo lines (i.e. you put in non-Kodak paper, it goes into
“generic” mode and slows down printing a bit. Conspiracy theorists will
say Kodak does this to encourage you to use their paper; the engineers
say they need to slow down because they’re not sure if the unknown-type
paper will suck up ink as fast as Kodak-product. I’d give them the
benefit of the doubt on this.

It should be noted that both
Faraci and Kodak President//CEO Antonio Perez were both with HP for
decades (and left prior to any pretexting issues), so they aren’t
getting into the inkjet biz lightly. Faraci worked on the first HP
inkjet printer circa 1980. The project was greenlighted in June 2003
and has been successfully kept under wraps until the product launch –
Steven Jobs may be taking lessons from Kodak on how to keep secrets.