Print Unchained Chronicles the Digital Printing Industry

Reprinted from January 2001

Veteran printer industry observer Ted Webster has completed Print Unchained, a two-year effort documenting the history of digital printing. For the last 25 years or so, Webster covered printer technology and market evolution as a consultant, analyst, and industry newsletter writer. Through Printout and the Datek Printer Report, Webster and his associates briefed the industry on many landmark product introductions—HP’s ThinkJet, Canon’s LBP print engine, and the Xerox DocuTech, to name a few. In Print Unchained, Webster demonstrates his knack for understanding not only how technology affects product performance, but also how technology enhancements change the competitive landscape.

Although companies develop and introduce products, people guide the effort. Print Unchained provides many inside stories, collected from those who were driving the industry forward. For instance, Webster uncovered an interview with Erwin Tomash describing the early days of Dataproducts, leading up to the 1963 introduction of the Dataproducts 3300 impact line printer. Tomash’s narrative is illustrated with a hand-written back-of-the-restaurant-placemat business plan.

After laying an historical and technical foundation, Webster covers the history of printing a decade at a time, from the 1950s to the present. Although every decade has descriptions of breakthrough products and interesting technology adoption stories, we found the coverage of the 1980s most interesting. Computing changed in the 1980s with the broad acceptance of the personal computer. Impact technologies—dot matrix and daisywheel—printed work from early personal computers. But the technology adoption story for printers in the 1980s is about non-impact printers. Webster provides the inside story of the early steps HP took toward market leadership in desktop laser and ink jet printers. Competitors today still grit their teeth as HP follows the product development and introduction philosophy Dick Hackborn describes in Print Unchained. "At the time the first LaserJet was introduced [1984]," he said, "HP already had a five-year vintage chart for subsequent introductions and line extensions." He continued, "Even before the first one was introduced, HP was already working closely with Canon on the development of the next-generation engine which went into the LaserJet II, introduced in March 1987." Hackborn said that the LaserJet marketing team applied the "more-for-less" pricing philosophy that HP had used successfully in the hand-held calculator business. "A smart company can also introduce a product which makes a breakthrough contribution to the market by offering ‘less for much, much less,’" Hackborn explained. HP’s Jim Hall tells the story of the OEM business relationship with Canon that made HP’s success in desktop laser printers possible. Hall’s comments are illustrated with a pair of snapshots taken in Japan in May 1976 during meetings with Canon. At the time, HP was developing its Canon-based 2680 computer-shop laser printer, which was introduced in 1980.

"No one at our company will read that," an R & D executive from one of the largest computer companies told us last year. He was speaking about a survey describing the status of document technology use in Fortune 1000 companies. His gripe was that a status report describing the present and the past is of no use to managers who have to plan for the future. So, how does history help us if we must make decisions by looking forward? "To look ahead we have to know where we currently stand and how we got there," Webster writes in his concluding chapter. Print Unchained is the story of change, of course. Readers will have a new respect for the speed of change. Webster cautions, "What’s really accelerating is the speed at which the market window flies by."

Another lesson from Print Unchained is that market maturity has changed the rules of conducting business, shifting emphasis from product development to product marketing. In the 1970s and 1980s, savvy R & D teams could provide market participants a technology edge. Now, Webster observes, "Products themselves are becoming secondary to know-how, services, and solutions."

Those like Webster who appreciate the lessons of history recognize that the long view of an industry can be a sobering one, because few former giants are still giants. Webster provides a summary list of print engine manufacturers, by decade. In the 1950s, we see IBM, of course, but also Sperry Rand and NCR. The 1960s brought Honeywell and Texas Instruments to the ranks of print engine manufacturers. The list of printer manufacturers active in the US market in the 1970s identifies 93 companies, including Qume, GE, and Digital Equipment. A tenet of Print Unchained is that all print is digital, if one accepts the role of digital prepress in commercial (offset) printing. Thus, manufacturers planning for the future in a maturing industry have to monitor "the convergence among digital printers, copiers, digital presses and plotters" in order to spot areas in which their skills and know-how can be applied, to help their customers in new ways. Such a strategy will give one the best chance of being a decade-to-decade survivor.

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