In June 2009, Lyra analysts conducted a survey of 1,280 businesses in China from six different industries, including manufacturing, government, services, education, transportation/distribution, and banks/insurance/securities. The findings were described in Lyra’s 2009 China Business Market Demand Study, and this article provides some of the study’s data points.
Printer brand preference HP is the most popular printer brand in China. More than one-half of companies in all six industry categories reported that they own HP printers. Canon and Epson are the second- and third-most popular printer brands, with close to one-half of the companies surveyed claiming to own those brands. Lenovo, Samsung, and Sharp form the second tier of popular brands. More than 20 percent of respondents reported owning these three brands. Other brands that were selected by more than 10 percent of the companies surveyed include Dell 17%, Panasonic 17% Toshiba 13% Brother 11% Ricoh 11% and Xerox/Fuji Xerox 11%.
The government sector appears to have the strongest preference for the HP brand. Fuji Xerox is among the top six brands in the transportation industry and the top seven brands in the banking and government sectors, though it has a lower standing in other industries and in the total sample. In general, however, brand popularity within each industry follows the same order found in the entire sample.
The federal court has dismissed a proposed class action accusing Dell Inc. of fraudulently marketing an ink-jet printer feature to convince customers to replace ink cartridges that don’t need to be replaced yet. Dajani v. Dell Inc., 2009 WL 1833983 (N.D.Cal. June 25, 2009).
Dajani alleged that Dell fraudulently marketed its Ink Management System, a technology feature on all Dell ink jet printers. The feature will display ink levels on a status window during a print job. The complaint alleged that the Ink Management System was highly imprecise and inaccurate, and that it was designed to deceive customers into replacing what they believed to be nearly empty printer cartridges, when they actually still contained a substantial amount of usable ink. Dajani sought to represent a class of all Californians who own or have owned Dell ink jet printers.Judge Susan Illston rejected the lawsuit, without leave to amend the complaint. Previously, the court had dismissed California-law based claims, as the terms and conditions of his sales agreement provided for Texas law to be allied to all claims. The amended complaint alleged a claim under Texas law for breach of implied warranty of merchantability and a claim of unjust
enrichment.
The court ruled last week that the claim for the breach of implied warranty of merchantability could not survive, because the printer was not unmerchantable as the term is defined under Texas law. The product must be unfit for the ordinary purposes for which it is used because of a lack of something necessary for adequacy. Dell argued that the ordinary use of the product was printing, not measuring printer ink, and that any alleged imprecision in the Ink Management System had no impact on that basic function. The court agreed, finding that at most, plaintiff had alleged that the use of the Ink Management System is cumbersome because of allegedly premature replacement prompts. The device still worked. And plaintiff hurt his claim by alleging that upon receiving “low ink” warnings, he simply removed and discarded his printer ink cartridge and replaced it with a new one. Such was “plainly at odds” with the product’s instruction manual, which states that a low ink warning appears when printer ink cartridges are low, not yet empty, and that a separate “reserve tank” window appears when they are empty.
The judge also dismissed the unjust enrichment claim because under Texas law, when a valid, express contract covers the subject matter of the parties’ dispute, there can be no recovery under a theory of unjust enrichment. Fortune Prod. Co. v. Conoco, Inc., 52 S.W.3d 671, 684 (Tex.2000) (“Parties should be bound by their express agreements. When a valid agreement already addresses the matter, recovery under an equitable theory is generally inconsistent with the express agreement.”).Because plaintiff cannot cure the defects mentioned above through the pleading of additional facts which do not contradict those already made, plaintiff’s complaint was dismissed without leave to amend.
Lexmark International, Inc. (NYSE: LXK) sells printing and imaging products and solutions in more than 150 countries and reported $3.9 billion in revenue in 2009. By designing with the environment in mind, Lexmark engineers products and packaging to reduce impacts in production and chooses materials with the widest range of opportunities for recovery and reuse.
Close the Loop is a resource recovery company, founded in late 2000 in Australia. The primary purpose of the company is to give OEM manufacturers of printing equipment a way to collect consumables and recycle them in a responsible fashion. Close the Loop uses patented processes to recover the plastic, printer ink, and toner in inkjet and toner cartridges to bring the materials back into the manufacturing process or use them as raw materials for new products.
Cutting back on the amount of money that you need to spend for the basics is an important factor when you are trying to make a profit from your business. This being said, there are still some essential expenditures which you will need to keep up with if you plan on operating at a normal level. Printing will be one of these areas. Without a working printer with ink cartridge replacements, you will not be able to produce the documents you need for your records, orders or even advertising and marketing purposes. There are a few different ways in which you can save on your printing costs, however, and looking into generic printer ink cartridges will be one of them.
Turning to recycled printer ink cartridges could be one option, as they will allow you to either get your old printer ink cartridges refilled, or you could purchase new printer ink cartridges which were fashioned out of old, recycled materials. You could also look into kits which help you to fill your old printer ink cartridges up yourself, although this can be messy and if you do it wrong, you could end up with a useless printer ink cartridge. The best option is to look at generic printer ink cartridges, as these will be printer ink cartridges which you can still plug into your printer, but they will be made by independent manufacturers who will not charge you the high costs which are normally associated with the name brand printer ink cartridges. It’s a quick and easy way to save more money and increase your profits.
Turning to a generic printer ink cartridge will allow you to have a cheaper option available when you want to keep your printer active and running for as long as possible. The only catch is that these generic products are often not manufactured directly to the highest quality that the name brand products will be, which is why you will want to make sure that the product is always functioning as well as it can be when you have it in your machine.
Here are three things you can do to maximize the life as well as the potential of your generic printer ink cartridge throughout the time that it is installed in your printer.
Make sure you print at least one document weekly. The ink in your printer ink cartridges could dry up unless it is getting regular use. Regularly printing something could help to stop that.
You will also need to check the printer ink cartridge often to make sure that it has not sprung a leak, which some generic printer ink cartridges could run the risk of, assuming they are not made to the highest quality standards.
You should also adjust your printing quality to the appropriate levels to get the quality of document which you are after, as the printer ink inside generic printer ink cartridges is often not as strong as name brand printer ink.
These three steps will help you extract the maximum benefits from your printer cartridge even if it is a generic printer ink cartridge.