Market Positioning; Color-Capable; Color-Centric - Ricoh Aficio 3228C Manual

Ricoh Aficio 3228C
Product Dynamics

Market Positioning

The Ricoh Aficio 3228C is capable of
being both a color-capable and a color-
centric MFP solution. While these two
product descriptions may, to the end user,
sound like marketing semantics there is a
commonly accepted differentiator between
the two.
Color-capable is commonly regarded as a
device that is capable of continuing the
day-to-day monochrome workload while
also facilitating the occasional need for
color. Most regard the volume split for a
device of this type to be predominantly
monochrome with color making up
between 10 to 30 percent of the overall
page count.
The majority of users of color capable
devices are general office users producing
jobs using Office applications with the
same types of document production needs
as monochrome users.
To help the migration from monochrome to
color capable, the price differential
between dedicated monochrome and color
capable is kept as low as possible. The
same is true of the running cost in
monochrome mode. The reason being that
manufacturers and dealers are happy to
forfeit slightly higher capital cost sales
profit in exchange for the much higher
after-sales consumables business that the
color output offers.
Color-centric, on the other hand is where
the device is being purchased to handle a
high color workload, with more than 30
percent color within the typical workflow.
While the majority of color-centric devices
will also probably find their way into the
general office, there will also be a much
greater need to facilitate the needs of the
color professional; marketing, design etc
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who may be using more sophisticated
applications like Photoshop and Quark to
produce high quality color output.
These color professionals have needs for
more color management and workflow
capabilities than the general office worker
who wants to hit print and forget about it.
To accommodate these needs, some
manufacturers offer a more powerful
controller option (usually Fiery-driven) with
sophisticated software utilities.
The price differential between
monochrome and color-centric is
considerably higher (30 to 40 percent) than
that of the color-capable alternative. The
same applies with monochrome running
costs which tend to be higher than those
found on monochrome and color-capable
devices.
This is because the customer does not
need coaxing to the world of color, having
already been sold on the concept and are
prepared to pay the premium.
A recent BERTL color survey would
suggest that, while color-centric devices
are seeing big sales increases that the
typical workflow pattern in the office is still
more in line with the color-capable
philosophy, with the majority of documents
still be produced in monochrome.
The Ricoh Aficio 3228C does not sacrifice
any of the functionality available to
monochrome Ricoh users, they simply pay
a premium for high speed high quality
office color capability. In fact, at the time of
test, the Aficio 3228C offered more in
terms of pure processing power and
workflow capabilities than the
monochrome equivalent in the Ricoh
range.
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Color at Work
®
Page 5
19-Jan-06