The market analyst states that the new inkjet machines “could eat laser[‘s] business lunch”. 
Channel Web reported on the analyst’s views on the business inkjet and wider inkjet markets, with Director of Hardware and Supplies Advisory Services Larry Jamieson stating that “radical change” is still affecting the wider printer market, with the business inkjets predicted to “start to do very well in businesses even though the consumer inkjet market is in decline”.
Jamieson noted that the global printer market is set to continue to be affected by “radical changes in IT”, with overall printer shipments expected to fall to 88 million by 2017, down from 111 million in 2012. Despite this decline, Jamieson stated that “developments in business inkjets, especially page-wide-array devices for small workgroups, are faster and offer lower per-page costs than comparably priced lasers”, and as such may “break laser’s 30-year domination of the office printing market”.
Despite consumer inkjets “declining rapidly”, and even with the shift to colour laser “expected to regain momentum over time as vendors improve the features and reduce per-page costs”, Jamieson stated that “increasing mobility and adoption of mobile devices” by businesses and consumers is “changing the way people access data”, as well as MPS and digital workflows.
In turn, Jamieson stated that “as a result […] different types of devices and different feature sets are in demand”, and there will reportedly be “more emphasis on scanners to transfer data” into digital workflows.
However, he noted that the “economy remains an issue” due to companies still “look[ing] to cut costs to improve short-term profitability”, with less focus on research or attention paid to long-term growth, making the employment picture appear “slow to develop”.
You can read more on business inkjet in issue 247 of The Recycler, and in future issues of the magazine released later this year.