One Printer, Many Colors Bring Pro Printing In HouseOne Printer, Many Colors Bring Pro Printing In House

The real cost of printing is not the printer, it's the ink. And everyone knows that color ink costs more. So many growing businesses have a workhorse monochrome printer for day-to-day chores and a color printer that sits quietly in the corner waiting for "special" jobs or just send out color work to a print shop. But two new color laser printers may blur that line and allow small companies to create their own low cost marketing collateral.HP has rolled out two new color laser printers, purportedly designed for small and growing companies:

HP Color LaserJet CP2025 Printer -- $399 to $599

HP Color LaserJet CM2320 MFP -- $599 to $899

One thrust of my conversation with Larry Trevarthen and Gina Finley, HP's Market Development Director, Color LaserJet, Imaging and Printing and Product Manager for SMB Color LaserJet, Imaging and Printing, respectively, was the shift operating costs for color and black and white laser printing. Said Trevarthen, "In the past, customers looked at color laser as a nichethey assume color it's more expensive and buy monochrome printers for every day and then have a color printer for special use -- they're buying two devices rather than one. We've aligned the operating costs for all the black only printers and color so that the color can be used for everything at the same costs as monochrome."

If indeed the operating costs are aligned regardless of hue, a major barrier to color printing falls away. Though it's important to point out that these are designed as "light shared" printers in smaller office environments with 1 to 8 users, not as high-volume printers. But for offices without heavy print loads, this puts color within reach and potentially eliminates the need for multiple printers.

Where HP is really touting the savings -- more than 50% based on one measurement (PDF) -- is on the ability to create marketing collateral in house. Not only does that have the potential to save businesses money on professional printing costs, but also provides yet another way for smaller, more nimble companies to beat larger competitors to the punch. According to Trevarthen, are doing exactly that already. "We find that 30 to 50% of customers are buying color to print collateral and brochures," he said. "Bringing the simple jobs in house can save approximately 50% of operating costs for marketing collateral -- that could easily pay for the cost of a printer."

HP appears to have thought through the workflow for the creating marketing collateral, from logo creation to advanced print preview to printing cost estimates to professional folding.

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