• Business Week, Monday, September 24, 2007 11:45 AM

Xerox says a printer hitting the market today makes printing a page in color as inexpensive as black-and-white. While B&W printers and components currently rule market share, the new Xerox printer aims to put color into more paper at a similar cost.

IT research firm IDC, predicts only 21% of the printers sold in the U.S. this year will be color machines. The reason is cost. While a black-and-white page can cost less than a penny-and-a-half to print, the price tag is anywhere from 9 to 13 cents in color.

Though the technology for the new Xerox printer is appealing in many ways--including a lower cost of ink and environment-friendly packaging--the new machines carry a high price tag. That, combined with plenty of competition--from Hewlett-Packard, Canon, Konica Minolta, and Samsung--makes it hard to see the product as a knockout. IDC's Angèle Boyd expects it to solidify Xerox's 10% market share in U.S. color printers--it's No. 2 behind HP's dominant 40% share--but not greatly increase it.

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