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Toope is very optimistic about the future of the printer market. “In terms of total marketplace we expect current trends to continue with growth in the market but characterised by continued price pressure.

“It is an important message for resellers who must align themselves with vendors that offer opportunity in market. And must take account of the pressure on pricing and how to make profit, with an average 22 percent erosion of price each year.

“It is important to think of display, point of sale and product range with channel-specific models targeted for instance to SMBs.

“Resellers must know their customers and we will be personalising specific products for printer customers and tailoring specific solutions for them.”

Hewlett-Packard Australia recently launched a new raft of business printers and printing management systems including two new multi-function products.

Luke Duggan, H-P South Pacific commercial and enterprise manager for its imaging and printing group, said there was a significant shift in the market.

“What we are seeing is a shift from single printer to mulit-function, a trend for consumers and end-users wanting different things from different people,” Duggan said.

“In terms of technology there have been huge changes, in particular, at the high-level multi-function printer.

“Our latest ink-based printer, previously handling jobs run on laser, can dramatically reduce prices in terms of headline product. It offers a lot of features including technology saving power features, it is faster and uses 60 percent less power,” he said.

Other changes to technology included more innovative software, which can be used for administrative tracking.

“We have tools such as Webjet, which allow for admin and colour access control also enables much more control over who is printing what and tracks the different requirements from different groups.

He said the focus of future technology would be on increased environmental efficiency and the cost of the printing environment. Other technical changes and keys will include web printing.

Asked where the future lay in either inkjet or laser, he said resellers should cover both.

“Resellers should not be backing one tech or other but rather the markets they are addressing. For instance for an SMB, H-P has laser and inkjet,” Duggan said.

Stephen Bell, marketing manager, Lexmark, said while printers are seen by many as simply as devices spitting out paper, it is what is on the paper that is important.

“More and more information is being produced every day and while the percentage printed is lower it has a higher reading weight,” he said. “The growth of printing is still significant across all categories.

“There is still growth driven by proliferation of information and the question for the future is how do we continue to show value and savings and maybe those two things are the same.

“We have to align printers and MFPs in a strategic business for security and compliance paper is essential and contributing to a future where how we articulate more and value add value can deliver savings.

Bell said that between 50 and 80 per cent of the effect on the environment imposed by businesses is through inefficient use of paper.

“While we look to print less, we realise paper is still critically important. People can better interpret the information. While one in six pages is thrown in the bin before they’ve laid eyes on it, it shows up inefficient practices and our partners’ business is often done without factoring this figure into their decision-making processes,” he said.

Bell said the key for the industry is to move forward into managed services. He said the system provides a relationship between the reseller and the customer over four or five years.

“Number one, managed services elevates the relationship with customers,” he said. “This is a smarter solution rather than just providing the hardware price as you are advising customers.”

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