Konica Minolta and Fujifilm ponder JV to cut costs of printer businesses

Japanese imaging manufacturers Konica Minolta and Fujifilm have revealed talks aimed at creating a joint venture to handle printer manufacturing and R&D for both brands. The two orgs published identical statements on Monday that declare their intention to "optimize procurement, toner development, and production efficiencies" …

[cornetman]

> The rapidly evolving market landscape for MFPs and printers

No idea what they're talking about. "AI" is rapidly evolving. MFPs and the market have hardly changed in the last 5 or 10 years. They all have pretty much the same innards.

Most of the cheap ones are bought by students' parents when they start Uni. The mid-range lasers are mostly used by small businesses to print their invoices etc, or the more discerning home printer. There has been a slow decline in the printing space for years because people are printing less.

[Sampler]

I thought that was tongue in cheek, it's been twenty years since I was a HP Certified Printer engineer and they're still exactly the same inside, we just got the "latest and greatest" from a client we're doing some work with and it doesn't do anything we weren't doing twenty years ago in exactly the same manner.

I mean mechanically, "cloud printing" from your phone app I count as natural progression..

Guess it does "Bob Marley" less often than back then, but, that's probably biased given I'd be only looking at a printer if it had a problem...

[Dan 55]

Well that's quite good in that modern-day printers are pretty much the same. Modern-day record and tape mechanisms (not printers but still mechanical) have all gone to crap so it could be worse.

[Gene Cash]

"rapidly evolving market landscape" is code for "Brother is eating our lunch"

Konica & Fuji printers (at least on this side of the pond) cost an absolute mint, and you can't get supplies.

Brother printers are $250 for a color laser with duplex, ethernet, Wi-Fi, and USB (my HL-L3270CDW for instance) They "just work" in Linux, and the cartridges are cheap, available everywhere, and last for ages.

[robinsonb5]

Actually the market for MFPs did change dramatically in 2020/21 - demand for larger workgroup machines went off a cliff, and demand for smaller A4 machines skyrocketed as people rushed to equip their hastily-constructed home offices.

[PRR]

Oh, it's evolving. Take-away prices are too low, features are ladled with tweezers(*) to up-sell the careful buyer and cheat the unwary. Ink priced like radium. Customer reviews are often frightening-- I know some customers are dumb but some are clearly sharper than the marketers. Even if I go up from $400 to $1400 I just get a bigger pile of junk (more letterhead trays).

(*)Many models will do wireless OR ethernet but not both. All the hardware is there, this is a 1-bit switch in the programming. And I had to buy and install it to find this out. Thanks, H-P!! :-(

[Gene Cash]

That's not printers in general, that's HP. You need to look at real printers.

[Mishak]

Hmm...

Konica was looking like a possibility when my Samsung prints its last page (now owned by HP, so I won't be getting another).

Will have to keep an eye on where this goes.

[NeilPost]

Re: Hmm...

As an almost also ran … I’d be roping Brother into this too against the heavies of HP, Canon and Epson.

[Tron]

If you like your printer, buy another of the same model.

You can carry over the toner cartridge when it expires. I did this with my Brother laser during the pandemic when things were running short, but the original is still cranking stuff out. In general, colour inkjets are still used for family stuff - photos, genealogy, schoolwork etc. Lasers are used for work, writing, proofing. Hasn't changed much in decades. Any companies saving a few quid in rent with WFH may have to buy more small lasers for staff instead of fewer office ones. As for saving all your stuff digitally. You are just making it easier for the ransomware gangs to nick it all in one go.