Wahey! Printer cartridge prices to come down following EU ruling
20 December 2002, 10:44 AM
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From The Register:
Prices of printer cartridges look set to drop thanks to a new EU law that will ban printer firms from forcing consumers to buy their own-brand refills.
The European Parliament voted unanimously on Wednesday in favour of a new EU "electroscrap" recycling law, which includes a ruling directing manufacturers of printers to no longer incorporate chips into their own-brand ink refill cartridges. These chips prevent cartridges produced by other manufacturers from being used in many printers.
...
Anyone work for HP? Be afraid, be very afraid, because...
The EU law could hit HP the hardest, because the US company depends heavily on revenues from ink cartridge sales and is the largest cartridge producer in Europe. HP's consumables business, including inkjet cartridges and laser jet toner, account for more than half of the printer group's revenues, which were more than USD20 billion in fiscal 2002.
Half the company's revenue comes from having people over a barrel? Wow! This isn't a small company!
Prices of printer cartridges look set to drop thanks to a new EU law that will ban printer firms from forcing consumers to buy their own-brand refills.
The European Parliament voted unanimously on Wednesday in favour of a new EU "electroscrap" recycling law, which includes a ruling directing manufacturers of printers to no longer incorporate chips into their own-brand ink refill cartridges. These chips prevent cartridges produced by other manufacturers from being used in many printers.
...
Anyone work for HP? Be afraid, be very afraid, because...
The EU law could hit HP the hardest, because the US company depends heavily on revenues from ink cartridge sales and is the largest cartridge producer in Europe. HP's consumables business, including inkjet cartridges and laser jet toner, account for more than half of the printer group's revenues, which were more than USD20 billion in fiscal 2002.
Half the company's revenue comes from having people over a barrel? Wow! This isn't a small company!
20 December 2002, 11:03 AM
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The replacement inks can be technically just as good as the originals, if not better.
The manufacturers have been absolutely taking the **** - when you can buy a colour inkjet for 40 quid new and then pay 50 quid for a replacement set of cartridges, it hints that they're subsidising the machine waaaaay too much in order to have a customer for life.
There are EU rules against this sort of behaviour - microsoft almost got into trouble with the X-box IIRC.
The manufacturers have been absolutely taking the **** - when you can buy a colour inkjet for 40 quid new and then pay 50 quid for a replacement set of cartridges, it hints that they're subsidising the machine waaaaay too much in order to have a customer for life.
There are EU rules against this sort of behaviour - microsoft almost got into trouble with the X-box IIRC.
20 December 2002, 08:46 PM
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I'm not totally convinced that I'm in favour of this. All that will happen is that new printers will become much more expensive to compensate. Low-volume users like myself will be hit hardest.
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