PANTONE:REPLACEMENT INK 4 CANON PRINTERS

[Anonymous]

Pantone expands replacement ink to Canon printers

NEW YORK, – Pantone Inc., a developer of corporate color design systems, on Thursday said it had expanded its sales of replacement ink for printers to consumer models made by Japan’s Canon Inc. <7751.T>

The move follows the introduction last year by Pantone of replacement supplies for professional printers made by Seiko Epson Corp’s <6724.T> Epson brand.

The market for supplies, including ink, toner and paper, is a key profit engine for printer makers. Analyst have pegged the market size at over $20 billion.

Pantone, of Carlstadt, New Jersey, whose technology helps printing, publishing, and textile industry customers manage the color of their products, said its inks for Canon photo printers such as the i960 and i9100 models will be available early this year.

Printer makers typically encourage consumer to buy their branded replacement products, and suggest that use of off-brand supplies — which are typically priced lower — will cause poor print quality. A Pantone spokeswoman on Thursday said pricing for the Canon inks has not been set.

“Our engineers use our inks and designing the products and they are constantly changing (them) for improvements, and opinion is that no one is going to make a better ink for our printers than us,” said John Lamb, a manager in Canon USA’s consumer imaging group.

Pantone also said it had expanded the roster of Epson wide-format printers for which it will make and sell supplies

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February 14, 2004 at 9:11 AM