Hi everyone,
Thanks, Michael R, for the great preview report on the upcoming Epson '80 printer series - 4880 / 7880 / 9880 / 11880. Personally, I'd been looking forward to the next generation since an Epson USA tech told me months ago that the next gen was going to be "huge", and going to "take over everything". Now I realize he was probably hinting strictly about the 11880.
Did anyone else read Michael's postings and feel let down at finding out the 4880 / 7880 / 9880 will all continue to be 8-color printers that require ink cartridge swap-out to go from MK to PK and v-v?
I was so looking forward to stepping up from my 4800 to whatever model would replace the 9800, and I was definitely assuming the replacement would be 9-color. I guess I let my expectations get too high. I mean, all the head & nozzle improvements sound great, no doubt. But this MK / PK nozzle issue is now going into its third generation, if I'm not mistaken (e.g. 4000 / 4800 / 4880). Isn't this completely absurd?
Michael R, I've really enjoyed reading your various analyses of the market economics and business realities that photo equipment manufacturers face. Would you please consider weighing in with a deep analysis of the choices that Epson's been making here? I just feel kind of dismayed, and have so many questions running through my mind, like:
* Hasn't it been at least a couple of years since Epson started getting serious pushback about PK / MK? The 4800 started shipping in June 2005.
* Why didn't Epson start designing the 4880 et al, back in 2005, for nine inks? The 3800 clearly shows that Epson got the message, customers don't want to swap out inks.
* Isn't the form factor for the 4880 pretty identical to the prior-generation 4800 and 4000 printers? Is that what this PK / MK thing is really about -- the fact that Epson is reusing the same 8-ink form factor(s) (at least for the 4880) that they introduced in Jan 2004 for the 4000 et al, four years prior to the expected release of the '80 series??
* Epson's capital budget can't really be such that they didn't have the money to tool up new form factors for these printers (?) Surely there were no design or manufacturing interdependencies affecting the printer form factor, that the '80 series project didn't have the budget to deal with (?) This doesn't seem like a credible possibility at all.
* Obviously, Epson's R & D branch is exceptionally well-staffed and well-funded. Clearly Epson understands the return they get on the R & D dollars, and indeed the steady, important improvements in ink & head technology just keep coming year after year. So if we compare all the evolution on that front with the lack of evolution in the basic printer form factor, what does this say? I guess, presumably that it was good business not to go to 9 inks across the board in the new generation, right?
* So we're to understand that it made sense to Epson to go to 9 inks for the 3800, the entry-level pro printer, and for the 11880, the highest-end printer. Just not for the in-between pro printers! Did an Epson MBA someone crunch some kind of global optimization study across the line, and find that they could save $500K on dev and manufacture by reusing the old form factors? In that case, doesn't it seem like a decent competitive market analysis would have trumped the cost-savings study?
Any help understanding this situation greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Brad