Byline: Jean-Claude Elias
Sep. 29--After about a quarter of a century, the paperless office is almost here; and the main reason is not what one may think it is.
A truly PO was a dream that major computer manufacturers had in the early 1980s. Data General, IBM, Wang and DEC introduced the concept of Office Automation that aimed to streamline office tasks thanks to computers and, chiefly, to reduce paper, ultimately eliminating printing on hard copy completely. For a set of reasons, Office Automation did not take off as expected, perhaps because this required good, fast, friendly and global networking, an infrastructure that was yet to come many years later, part of which and not the least, is Internet. Also, scanning every paper was not feasible for it was too time consuming. Documents have to be started in electronic format and remain that way.
Today, the combination of Microsoft Office Suite, e-mail and Internet makes Office Automation a reality. Business and private users of technology are still generating printed documents, but the volume has been drastically reduced, especially in the last couple of years. The reduction does not stem from users' respect for the environment -- at least not for the majority of them -- but from simple economic facts. Yes, money, again. Although printers' manufacturers like Epson, Hewlett-Packard and the like have kept improving the performance of their models in terms of quality, convenience and speed, consumers have discovered that printers' TCO (total cost of ownership) has become prohibitive. TCO is an indicator that takes into consideration the initial purchase price, the running cost (ink mainly), the maintenance and the reselling value. Colour ink jet printers are particularly targeted here. World sales figures indicate a drop of about 6 per cent since the beginning of this year, whereas the trend had been continuously on the up for many years. Take photo printers, for instance. If you shoot pictures in digital format, watch them on the LCD display of computers and portable multimedia players, and e-mail them to your family and friends abroad, why should you print them ever? Quality photo paper is very expensive; so is ink. Laser printers can be seen in a different way, apparently, for the ink cartridges they use can print thousands of copies; but in the end, their TCO is also very high. Manufacturers are adopting a smart marketing approach. They are proposing printers at extremely attractive prices at purchase time, only to make inks and accessories very expensive. Compared to the cost of computers, LCD screens and other IT products, printers are seen as very expensive to own, so consumers tend to think twice before printing, especially that there are now many ways to exchange documents and communicate in a purely electronic, digital format. The very popular Adobe Acrobat programme is also contributing to reduce printed paper. Acrobat is a virtual software printer that lets computer users create an electronic image from any document they work on: word processing, spreadsheet, photos, etc. The image can then be exchanged among all machines inside an organisation or over larger networks. An Acrobat file doesn't take much space on hard disk or as e-mail attachment and is secure, for its contents cannot be easily altered by the recipient A completely PO isn't for tomorrow, but if the volume of printed paper is reduced by 60 to 70 per cent in the next five years, manufacturers of printers will have to rethink their strategy.
Copyright (c) 2006, Jordan Times, Amman
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business
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