Oki Data Intensifies Its Assault on the Color Printer Market
lyra RESEARCH
During
the three-plus years since Oki introduced its C5100 and C5300
single-pass color laser printers , the color printer market has
experienced dramatic improvements in performance and print quality and
incredible declines in average sales prices. Oki has been a major force
in this revolution. In its opening salvo, the firm positioned its
single-pass color LED printers against slower multipass color laser
printers, and now the firm is sending in reinforcements in the form of
new single-pass color printers that deliver faster performance and
better print quality for a lower price than their predecessors.
“Our
goal is to be a consistent top three color printer vendor in the U.S.,”
asserts Candice Dobra, Oki’s director of printer marketing, and she
claims that third-party market data from January shows Oki in the
number-three position with a 7.5 percent share, just four-tenths of a
point behind Xerox. Dobra adds that Oki’s priority is “to deliver value
to our customers, to deliver a high quality product, [and] to present a
wide range of products.” She maintains that the new C5500n, C5800Ldn,
and C6100 series are “three extremely strong, high-value, sub-$1,000
color products” that epitomize the firm’s commitment to maintaining a
leadership position in the color printer market.
Oki’s new color
printers feature monochrome print speeds of 24 to 32 ppm and color
print speeds of 20 to 26 ppm, and they mark the debut of the firm’s “HD
Color technology” that combines a multilevel LED print head with new
microfine toner. Leveraging Oki’s 5000-series engine, all the new
printers support a maximum paper-input capacity of 930 sheets, a
maximum media weight of 203 gsm, and banner-size printing.
According
to Jim Fuchs, product planning manager for Oki color printers, the firm
selected the acronym HD, which stands for “high definition,” to
describe the new products’ color technology because it takes the
C5500n, C5800Ldn, and C6100 series “to the next level of print
quality.” He says that the combination of detail, depth of color, and
document finish provide a very strong level of end-user satisfaction