Faxers, Copiers and Combos

Several forces are driving the consolidation. One is the "mopy" trend, or multiple original prints. In short, instead of printing out an original of a document and then copying it and distributing multiple duplicates, more and more of us are printing more and more originals. As copiers lose business to printers, copier manufacturers are fighting back with copy-print devices. (At this point, all the copy-print machines are produced by copier manufacturers, not by printer manufacturers.)

Multifunctionals are usually connectable, to a PC or in many cases to a network. Those that aren't may have connection as an add-on option. And they tend to be digital, meaning they digitize an image first and then make copies from the one scan.

Among copy-print machines' benefits:

• They take up less space.
• You need only one set of supplies (paper, toner, etc.).
• You have to learn how to use only one finisher, one paper feeder and so on.
• You need to have only one maintenance schedule.
• If you need a new printer and a new copier anyway, you can save money by buying just one machine.
• Combination machines tend to produce more pages per minute than printers do.
• They tend to be cheaper to operate than printers and have better finishing capabilities (collating, stapling and so on).

  On the other hand:

• If one thing breaks, such as the paper feeder, it can disrupt productivity more than it would if you had different machines for different functions.
• Many users send jobs to the same machine, increasing risk of bottlenecks.
• Secondary functions, such as faxing, tend to be less advanced than they are on dedicated machines.

Copying

If you're shopping for a copier, keep in mind several facts about the state of the market:

• Brand names may be irrelevant. Many machines are relabeled and sold under different names (for example the Ricoh FT7670 is the same machine as the Gestetner 2770 and the Savin 9700).
• Monthly copy volumes, which manufacturers use to promote their products, are meaningless, according to industry-watcher Better Buys for Business (BBB). With competition driving "inflation" in the claims, the numbers have lost all meaning.
• Copies-per-minute figures are also bogus, because they're based on ideal conditions (usually a single 81/2-by-11 original placed on the glass). In BBB tests, some copiers produced as little as 45 percent of their advertised copy-per-minute rate.

Duplicators are moving into the mainstream. Designed for high-volume use (more than 20 copies per original), they also use digital technology and are simpler machines. As a result, they are cheaper to buy and run, fast (120 copies per minute isn't unusual), more energy efficient, and they need less maintenance. Though they have a reputation for poor copy quality, technology has evolved and duplicator manufacturers are now producing 600 dpi (dots per inch) machines. Leaders in this field are Riso and Ricoh.

Fax Machines

Fax technology moves slowly because manufacturers must agree on standards so machines can talk to each other. There haven't been any real breakthroughs since 33,600 bps and JBIG compression (and even these haven't made many inroads into the field yet). But things are inching along in the sense that memory is getting bigger, print capabilities are improving (many are 600 dpi now), and print speeds are faster.

Next up will be Internet faxing, a catchall phrase for any one of a number of systems or technologies that avoid long-distance phone lines for much of the journey. As fax is still much more ubiquitous than e-mail, and you can send more things via fax, look for this technology to evolve quickly. (Though if phone companies restructure how they charge Internet service providers, some of the incentive could evaporate.) Also on the horizon: color fax, which could be introduced as early as this year.

If you're in the market for a new fax machine, keep in mind:

• Many are multifunctional, but they were designed to be faxes first. As a result, their printer function tends to be pretty low level, with few pages per minute.
• Many machines allow you to fax to and from a PC, without ever printing out a hard copy (but they tend not to serve Macs). But many can't be hooked up to a network.

Contacts

For product-by-product evaluations of fax machines, copiers and multifunctionals, contact Better Buys for Business at (800) 247-2185 or www.betterbuys.com.

Canon
(800) 652-2666

Kodak
(800) 255-3434

Konica
(800) 456-6422

Oce
(800) 877-6232

Panasonic
(800) 742-8086

Ricoh
(800) 63-RICOH

Riso
(800) 876-7476

Savin
(800) 677-1158

Sharp
(800) 237-4277

Xerox
(800) 832-6979