Look at the competitive landscape of large format markets

Quiet and far-reaching - look at the competition pattern of the surging flows in the large-scale market

Life is like a river, and sometimes it is a waterfall, and more often it is flowing quietly. Therefore, its more strength is often when it is quietly flowing, and life is often stepped up in calm. Whoever has enough power in every minute of life can win in life. In the long history of development of the jet mapping industry, how does modern information technology quietly raise its standard? And among the many technology providers, who can accumulate and make it stand out?

The large-format printing of the wave of modern information technology has spawned and accelerated the generation and development of large-format printers. The emergence of large-format printers has had a profound impact on the development of the inkjet industry. In 1991, the world’s leading printer manufacturer, Hewlett-Packard Co., launched the world’s first designjet large format printer, introducing thermal ink jet technology into the engineering drawing field for the first time, and began to revolutionize the CAD market. Although the equipment at the time provided only a monochrome drawing effect, CAD users were able to see the brilliant tomorrow. Prior to this, drawings for engineering design were all drawn by traditional handwork. At that time, cumbersome processes were increasingly unable to adapt to the ever-increasing volume of business in the design field. Although the subsequent pen plotters alleviated some of the inconsistencies, Can not fundamentally solve the problem.
Until 1993, the advent of color inkjet printers made it possible for the CAD market to use large-format printers on a large scale. At this point, traditional hand-made drawings have also been eliminated. At the same time, another similar area of ​​GIS - Geographic Information System has emerged, from weather cloud maps to aerial photographs as well as various geological aspects of the graphics, have begun to use large format inkjet printers for output. In addition, the advertising inkjet market has begun to be widely committed to large-format print output. Even emerging digital proofing areas, such as photography and printing proofing, are increasingly introducing large print output. It is no exaggeration to say that large-format inkjet printers have greatly liberated productivity, drastically increased production efficiency, and created billions of dollars in wealth for society.
The large market demand for large-format printing in areas such as CAD, GIS, advertising inkjet, and digital proofing has made the large-format printing market a promising market. Therefore, this extremely promising market has attracted many printer manufacturers to compete. In the cross flow, in the end who can show true gold qualities?

Baichuan into the sea Hewlett-Packard pilotage Overall, HP as the world's largest printer brand, it is also leading the way in the field of large-format printing, with other manufacturers unmatched advantages. First of all, HP's wide-format printing product line is very complete, can meet the individual needs of different users from different price, different width, different precision and other aspects. Since the launch of the first large format printer in 1991, it has significantly improved the price/performance ratio of its large format printers with the designjet 400 series, followed by the HP DesignJet1000, 2000CP/2500CP series, 3000CP/3500CP series. And 500/800/5000 series. These series form a complete large-format printout series that covers computer-aided design (CAD), geographic information system (GIS) and other technical fields as well as advertising, color output and other graphic image areas (GA). Whether it's a line output, or an image output of a rendering or photo effect: Whether it's a stand-alone print or a network print: Whether it's for your own use or a printout, you can find the right product in the HP Large Format HP DesignJet Series And the corresponding industry solutions. Secondly, HP's large-scale printers use the most advanced and original technology, enabling large-format output to truly achieve speed and quality. Color Layout and JetExpress, for example, can greatly improve the printer's color effects and print speed. HP's color grading technology allows up to 21 drops of ink to be ejected onto the same ink dot. Each ink dot can have more than 200 colors, and each ink dot has a rich variety of colors. With color layered printing technology and advanced halftone dithering algorithms, HP Large Format Inkjet Printer can display thousands of colors for users to achieve true color output quality. Fast Jet Print technology (JetExpress) minimizes the number of nozzles in each color printhead by 300, up to 512, and can be up to 36kHz per ejection frequency, and the number of ink drops ejected per second As many as millions, a new breakthrough in inkjet printing speed. These technologies enable large-format output to achieve the perfect combination of speed and image. In addition, HP also provides professional and reasonable consumables configuration and world-class service. These deep “internal strengths” have made HP a major pillar of quiet competition without the need for big publicity.
In addition, EPSON, ENCAD, MIMAKI, ROLAND and other manufacturers also have their own strengths, occupying considerable amounts in one or more areas of large-format output. Let us analyze each one from the application fields of large-format printing.

The large-format tidal wave swarms with a large number of races. First of all, large-scale printing of the first most commonly used CAD and GIS areas, Hewlett-Packard is the first to enter these two areas of the printing manufacturer, is a well-deserved leader. It not only can introduce rich and varied products with the first technology, but also can make use of powerful advantages in software, consumables, etc., and integrate advanced solutions. Taking HP's GIS solution as an example, it provides powerful mapping, mapping and analysis tools through advanced GIS software, making its large-format printers in the field of mapping, dynamic map display, interactive graphics applications, path selection applications, real-time traffic In the application of management systems and other aspects, the unique advantages of combination of measurement and mapping and GIS technology are fully utilized. On the other hand, its continuously improved printing technology has enabled greater precision in large-format output, and the accuracy of printing accuracy has been controlled within two thousandths, which can well meet the mapping requirements of the surveying and mapping industry. In addition, Hewlett-Packard has also developed special consumables to achieve perfect output. Its chemically formulated black and color inks interact with the media surface and achieve accurate dot positioning, and can be quickly dried without losing color. . Also has an excellent color proofing system, so that the output of the color is more realistic, consistent with the screen color, to ensure that the print output image to fine tune the network, so as to achieve a delicate line of clear, sharp edge effect. Due to HP's leading hardware and software technology and professional supplies, it has been firmly in the top charting market, in 2000 even reached 70% market share in the graphics market. As a result, HP's absolute advantages in CAD and GIS are evident.

Second, in addition to the CAD and GIS markets, large format printers are also widely used in the advertising inkjet market. The advertising inkjet market in the early years was basically occupied by manufacturers such as ENCAD, MIMAKI, ROLAND, and MUTOH specializing in this market. Among them, ENCAD was the first manufacturer to introduce thermal ink-jet technology into the inkjet field. Before 1995, it occupied almost 100% of the inkjet market share. Even in 2000, ENCAD was still more than 1.5M indoor inkjet printing. The only brand of the machine, ENCAD is a small factory that specializes in advertising printing machines. It is also impressive to have achieved such results. The advantages of ENCAD mainly reflect the large output format, followed by its powerful ink system. For example, the NovaJet 850 has two models, 42′′ wide and 60′′ wide, with output widths of 1.08 meters and 1.52 meters, respectively. Its unique eight-color ink system can greatly improve the tone gradient and extended color gamut, and due to the simultaneous installation of two sets of indoor and outdoor ink, has brought great convenience to users.
Although ENCAD products have a considerable advantage in the advertising inkjet market, but as the market has grown exponentially in China (31.73% growth rate in 1997, 66.33% growth rate in 1999), this coveted cake has attracted With many competitors, HP is one of the most powerful challengers. In 2000, Hewlett-Packard introduced the industry-leading HP designjet 5000 series of large-format printers and launched a fierce attack on ENCAD. The HP designjet 5000 series uses three generations of "Furtu" color grading technology that enables each primary color to print 17 different levels of color intensities that can be reconciled to add 100 colors to the printer's palette. Times, and achieve 1200 × 2400dpi print accuracy. Since smart color technology can control the amount of ink of each color ink in each printing position, it can make the color range wider and the transition between colors smoother, which can significantly improve the print quality. Large-format inkjet printers with smart color technology can not only automatically select the color or background with the best effect, but also increase the printing speed, effectively control the color by color gradation, and achieve fast printing and high-quality image output. The HP designjet 5000 series has 3072 nozzles, which increase the printhead's inkjet frequency to 15000hz and print speeds are increased by 4 to 6 times or even higher. At the same time, it adopts continuous ink supply technology, which greatly improves work efficiency. At the same time, the output speed is up to 52.86 square meters per hour. The HP designjet 5000 not only advances the graphic printing technology, but also accelerates the speed of printing. The uniqueness of color makes it extremely competitive in the advertising printing industry.
Since the introduction of HP's 5000 series, the competition in the advertising printing field has become more intense. HP's product line is longer and can adapt to customers with different needs. After the market saw wars around 1998, the competition between HP and ENCAD has become clear. After the launch of the 5000 series, the market share in the advertising inkjet market followed ENCAD. In 2001, the market share of the two companies was almost the same, all around 30%.
In addition to these two rivals, there are several heavyweight players. In ROLAND's business, inkjet accounted for two-thirds of the business. MIMAKI's market share has also increased since the use of oil ink, but its technology still needs to be improved. To further mature, EPSON should not be underestimated. The success of EPSON in traditional ink jet printers is largely due to its superior technical advantages, such as micro piezoelectric print head technology, ultra-fine micro ink drop technology, and intelligent ink drop conversion technology, all of which envy the industry. In large-format printers, EPSON certainly will not let their own unique skills stumble. EPSON's four large-format printers, the STYLUS PRO 7000/7500/9000/9500, enable 1440dpi high-resolution output. Recently, EPSON has launched a new product, STYLUS PRO 10000/10000CF, and has significantly reduced its price in an effort to bring impact to the inkjet market. However, due to HP's absolute leadership in graphics printing, EPSON can not form an advantage in the graphics printing, can only focus on renderings that emphasize color rendering, in addition, there are some high-end areas in the graphic printing users EPSON's technology has the advantage of precision In the graphics market, EPSON is only a small profit. The requirements of the advertising market are all above 1.3 meters, and the EPSON models are all within 1.1 meters. Therefore, EPSON is still in a wait-and-see mode for this market.

Finally, EPSON can be said to be the first step in the other two emerging large-scale printing markets - photography and print proofing. Let us first talk about the printing market, EPSON large format printers have achieved great success in Europe before entering the Chinese market. Its A3-format PRO-5000 has become the mainstream of the printing industry in Europe through the binding with BESTCOLOR software. In Japan, EPSON has occupied 40% of the space in the printing market. However, the development of China's printing market is still lagging behind, and it is still difficult for EPSON to achieve such a result. In the printing market, EPSON's awareness is higher than that of HP, because the gray scale of piezoelectric technology can better meet the needs of the printing market. What EPSON does in the printing industry is the mainstream market, such as digital proofing and direct plate making.
Hewlett-Packard has also been keeping an eye on the development of the printing and proofing market. The digital proofing solution combining the Dijet system and the HP designjet 5000 is favored by many print output centers. Recently, Hewlett-Packard has invested a large amount of financial and energy to launch the A3 format “Photography”. "Hand" series is a solution specially designed for small design studios, periodicals, etc. It is uniquely designed. In addition, competitors such as Agfa and ROLAND have differentiated in the traditional printing industry.