INKISH.NEWS -

When HP introduced the T-Series Advantage 2200 Inkjet printer, HP wasn't late calling the machine a game changer. When I looked into more information about the upcoming Ricoh Z75, also called a game changer, it got me thinking about what to expect when using words like that!

Suppose you look up the expression in the Oxford dictionary. In that case, the explanation is exactly as I expected, 'an event, idea, or procedure that affects a significant shift in the current way of doing or thinking about something.'

Before discussing whether these machines are game-changers, let's speculate a bit about why companies use these terms in their communication. Words have weight. The wording of a product is used to establish an interest in what to expect. The way I know the OEMs, the communication is well-thought-out. If the Advantage 2200 was called a revolution, as much as it's innovative, I doubt many would see it as a revolution. When Landa introduced Landa Nanography, they were seen as game-changers, even disruptors, and how we use words is intended to align expectations.

So what can you expect from a game-changer?

Faster, better, higher quality, enabling a better business, maybe even more sustainable - things addressing the needs a PSP has when he is in the market for investing.

But is that a game-changer? For most of the machines we see these years, it's more of an iteration than something that changes your life entirely. The 'game-changer' may be more in how these machines can transform your business - moving from offset to digital or toner to inkjet.

But if a game-changer is more about what it does for your company, then your press is, of course, an enabler, but the real game-changing thing is how you take a risk, invest, and execute - in my mind :-)

If HP, Ricoh, and others using the phrase believe their machines are game-changers from a technical perspective, then I am still speculating from what perspective these are game-changers?

The quality of the Advantage is essentially on par with the T-250. For the Z75, the quality is on a level you would expect. When Landa talks about stunning quality, any printer using seven colors looks stunning. Quality is subjective, and price/speed needs to be accounted for before judging quality. The Landa machine prints seven-color at the same speed as four-color, but that is not the case with the Indigo, for example.

So quality is probably not what you can say is a game-changer. So what about speed? No - sorry, guys, whatever speed you deliver, it's not a game-changer. It's always nice to have higher speed, as the output of a machine equals dollars.

Why is this at all important? Well, not so important as this is only marketing, but then again. When I used to work as Marketing Manager for Roland (keyboard, synthesizers), I was sometimes a bit 'frustrated' as the next generations of keyboards were more iterations than revolutions. As you don't buy new pianos yearly, this isn't as important as when you work as a professional. If you invest in an HP Advantage 2200, you buy into a platform that will last for years, which may be a game-changer from where you come. Maybe less of a game-changer compared to what HP and others would be able to do if they pushed the envelope.

Can you imagine any vendor not believing so much in their latest iterations that they wouldn't use phrases like game-changers?

Nov 01, 2022

Author: Morten B. Reitoft