If NC=1/2xPC, NP=?xPP
Órla O’Sullivan · ABA banking journal · 1997
Most banks have a hunch that their computer printing costs are huge Now, they have a way to prove it. Better yet, vendors say more rational printing could reap savings in the millions of dollars for banks. Last year we got a lot help from the `thin client' movement, says Glen Hudson, vice-president of the network printer division at computer printer maker Lexmark International Inc., explaining what has prompted banks to reappraise their printers. As discussed in the May issue, thin clients, otherwise known as network computers (NCs), synthesize the best of centralized, mainframe computing, and its successor, distributed, personal computing. Now that the of administering PC network is becoming known, companies are considering the alternative of NC networks to restore control and accountability to network managers, and, in so doing, to cut costs. There's a parallel discussion going on about printers. There's talk of of ownership -- meaning the of operating equipment over its lifetime -- rather than just the initial outlay for the machine. It's a discussion that's highly relevant for banks, since they about three times as much paper as the average company and, according to The Ashburnham Group, a Toronto-based consultancy, computer printing costs the average company between 6% and 13% of what it makes, when everything from wasted time to mislaid documents gets taken into the reckoning. The idea that printing costs should be gauged not by paper and toner outlay, but by all the processes surrounding the printing function -- or the burdened cost of printing -- was introduced by Ashburnham in 1991, and it has been gathering momentum since. Printer-copier convergence Part of the impetus comes from a price war that has arisen between vendors of printers and vendors of photocopiers as new devices erode the traditional distinction between the two. The advent of the digital a hybrid printer-copier, upset the traditional consensus that printing is more expensive than copying, explains analyst Lou Slawetski. This printer of sorts could compete with the cost-per-page of copier output, spurring both the printer and copier vendors into comparisons. Both sides, for the first time, are really trying to get a handle on what it costs companies to use their equipment, says Slawetski, who is president of Industry Analysts, a Rochester, N.Y.-based imaging consulting firm. It all came to the fore when Hewlett Packard launched its `mopier' -- they refused to call it a copier, says Slawetski. (It's a point of contention among vendors whether copiers are replacing printers or printers are replacing copiers.) HP's multiple-output-printed-pages device, otherwise known as a digital was released last November. Its per page produced is about 1.6 cents. That's right in line with the of photocopying a page -- one to two cents, according to the estimate of George Clark, vice-president of sales and marketing at Pitney Bowes Corp. That compares with, probably, five cents for a page printed on a conventional computer printer. Inverse to Hewlett Packard, Pitney Bowes, traditionally a copier manufacturer, recently made a move into the business, with the launch of its digital copier. A digital copier is like a printer in that it takes data in, rather than just reflecting an image. The original page can be stored as computer code, allowing for reproductions to be made at a future date (just like a printer does from a computer program). Meanwhile, printers are adopting all sorts of copier-type features, such as collating, stapling, printing front and back. Digital copiers improve on traditional printers by circumventing PC/printer compatibility problems. The copier doesn't need an application to print from; the image is scanned into memory and reproduced as if it were coming from a computer program. …