The printer market grows by a "slender" 0.2% Y-o-Y in Q3 2011, remaining virtually flat and shipping 6.4M units according to IDC-- while revenues experience a -11.9% Y-o-Y decline and fall to $2.8BN.

In comparison, Q3 2010 revenues total $3.1BN.

Both consumer and commercial print hardware demand are stalling across W. Europe as economies struggle with the sovereign debt crisis, the analyst says. The only segment showing "robust growth" within commercial print products is the laser MFP product segment.

Printers are the least friendly and cute pieces of equipment, right? Not according to Berg-- the London-based design studio announces The Little Printer, a little device printing content from the web on receipt-style rolls of paper.

And it looks cute while doing the job, too.

The Little Printer picks up content from various online sources (launch partners include Arup, foursquare, Google, the Guardian and Nike) via in-built wifi, after users configure what the printer "collects" via iPhone app. Continue reading...

Can hackers really access a printer and order it to overheat until it catches fire? Or, even, worse, use it as a copy machine for identity theft? Sounds far fetched, but not according to researchers at Columbia University.

The researchers claim to discover a security exploit in internet-connected HP Laserjet printers using little more than an infected firmware update. Hackers could send a file containing the hack directly to a device, since most printers look for firmware updates every time a job Continue reading...

Printer maker Memjet claims its technology breaks records as far as print speeds are concerned-- saying the Memjet reference colour office printer can print out photo-quality pages at speeds of up to one page per second.

The secret lies in what Memjet calls Waterfall Printhead technology-- printing through a single fixed 8.77" printhead covering the entire width of an A4 sheet of paper with 70400 nozzles (x17 the amount in a regular inkjet) to deposit 774 million dots of ink per second. Being stationary, Continue reading...

Printers. There's a product category you haven't given a lot of thought about lately. It's all about making money on ink cartridges, right?

Let's look at Lexmark. Though it's a printer giant sprung whole from the loins of IBM, Lexmark is relatively small player in the printer market compared to giants like HP, Canon, Epson and the new aggressor, Samsung.

Lexmark had 5 million inkjets sold (3.6% market share) in the 88 million unit inkjet printer market in 2010. It sold 1.7 million laser printers (only 3.7% market share) in the 46 million unit laser printer market.

Naturally you think the company needs to make the transition from inkjet to laser printers: in a few years, its inkjet printer sales will shrink to fewer than 100,000 inkjet printers and laser printer sales should rise to nearly 3 million.

Of course, the mix of the lucrative printer cartridge sales must follow the changing mix of printers over the forecast period. But less printing overall means less ink cartridges, too...

ThinPrint's mobile division, Cortado, creates the Cloud Printing Alliance-- an organisation set to create standards for mobile cloud printing.

Membership is open to printer and networking equipment manufacturers and hotspot providers, and already includes the likes of Brother, Dell, Funkwerk, Konica Minolta, Kyocera and OKI.

Cortado supplies the alliance's members with its Workplace technology, a free cloud printing solution. The technology allows smartphone and tablet users to print any file Continue reading...

The Genesis, Lexmark's latest AIO printer, not only looks stylish but also offers speedy scanning, inkjet printing and wifi connection.

The company says the Genesis can scan a page in 3 seconds thanks to its 10MP imaging sensor.

A 4.3" touchscreen handles the user interface and allows users access to Lexmark's SmartSolutions cloud-based application suite (including Evernote and Box.net). A Twitter and Facebook app lets users print pictures posted on their social media through the printer itself. Continue reading...

Canon ($44.99 billion in 2008 revenue) will to buy the €2.9 billion Océ (Dutch printer and copier machine producer) for €730 million in cash.

Océ remains a separate legal entity in Venlo as a Canon division. The Océ brand is to be maintained and applied in all relevant markets. Océ to lead its R&D and manufacturing. Its Management Board and key management remains in place.

But the combined companies hope their synergy will soon make them Continue reading...