forrest@blia.BLI.COM (Jon Forrest) (12/03/86)
The recent news about HP adopting Imagen's DDL makes me wonder about Imagen's intentions. Imagen sells printers based on the Canon engine and uses Impress as the "page description language". As far as I know, none of their printers use DDL. HP sells printers based on the Canon engine and uses a primitive description language. HP wants to upgrade its printer line so it makes a deal with Imagen to use DDL. This means that Imagen's printers (using Impress) will be competing with HP's printers (using DDL). Given the quantities of Canon printers HP buys, I would guess that HP could sell their printers for less than Imagen. Assuming that DDL isn't much slower than Impress, why would anyone buy an Imagen printer? Is Imagen thinking of getting out of the hardware business? Does the deal with HP prescribe any kind of pricing arrangements? These are all speculations, not based on any facts. I've used Imagen printers for quite a while and would buy more. I just wonder if they're shooting themselves in the foot. Maybe someone from Imagen could enlighten us. Jon Forrest ucbvax!mtxinu!blia!forrest
SofPasuk@imagen.UUCP (Munach Rvi'i) (12/05/86)
> The recent news about HP adopting Imagen's DDL makes me wonder > about Imagen's intentions. > > Imagen sells printers based on the Canon engine and uses Impress > as the "page description language". As far as I know, none of > their printers use DDL. > > HP sells printers based on the Canon engine and uses a primitive > description language. > > HP wants to upgrade its printer line so it makes a deal with Imagen > to use DDL. This means that Imagen's printers (using Impress) > will be competing with HP's printers (using DDL). Given the > quantities of Canon printers HP buys, I would guess that HP > could sell their printers for less than Imagen. Assuming that > DDL isn't much slower than Impress, why would anyone buy > an Imagen printer? Is Imagen thinking of getting out of the > hardware business? Does the deal with HP prescribe any kind of > pricing arrangements? These are all speculations, not based > on any facts. > > I've used Imagen printers for quite a while and would buy more. > I just wonder if they're shooting themselves in the foot. > Maybe someone from Imagen could enlighten us. > > Jon Forrest > ucbvax!mtxinu!blia!forrest IMAGEN is NOT getting out of the end-user business. It is very reasonable to assume that IMAGEN will be producing DDL printers for the end user (as well as for other oems), including full compatibility with their current product line (imPRESS, etc.). You may safely continue to buy IMAGEN printers with confidence in continued end-user support from IMAGEN and that your investment in imPRESS applications is protected.
sean@ukma.ms.uky.csnet (Sean Casey) (12/12/86)
In article <1185@blia.BLI.COM> forrest@blia.BLI.COM (Jon Forrest) writes: >HP wants to upgrade its printer line so it makes a deal with Imagen >to use DDL. This means that Imagen's printers (using Impress) >will be competing with HP's printers (using DDL). Given the I doubt it. The imPRESS language that our 8/300 runs is on floppy. They could easily distribute a floppy that lets the printer take DDL input. They could even conceivably support postscript :-). I don't know if the newer models of Imagen printers have their languages on floppies or not, but then you could always just change the roms. Sean -- =========================================================================== Sean Casey UUCP: cbosgd!ukma!sean CSNET: sean@ms.uky.csnet ARPA: ukma!sean@anl-mcs.arpa BITNET: sean@UKMA.BITNET