3 ms·

I think the main problem for buisness printers is the inclusion of proprietary software on the device. This means that it is very difficult for third parties t

by 7952 10y ago

I think the main problem for buisness printers is the inclusion of proprietary software on the device. This means that it is very difficult for third parties to innovate. I would prefer printers to be a dumb IO device that connects to a full computer than can provide a good UI. Instead they have evolved to have an onboard computer of appalling quality.

petra 10y ago
This is a general problem of the embedded industry, where products could greatly benefit from openness. But how do you align the incentives for the hardware manufacturer ,to commodify itself(to a large extent, unless there's some sort of app ecosystem or some other network effect setup) ?
- zanny 10y ago
  In theory, consumer outreach to only support good actors, but there are two issues there: * It is chicken and egg. You don't get the better UX until you have quality open products to market, and manufacturing the devices may not be that expensive for a new line (at least compared to silicon) but you still need the resources of a billion dollar company. * Consumers buying devices like this will not research quality much before buying. To my knowledge, the vast majority of muggle printer buyers are just picking up something based off a feature list at Best Buy. So you need to persuade a company to invest in innovation in a market without any, and then you need to persuade consumers to actually care about quality. It is the exact same issue with less horribly insecure mobile devices without rootkit backdoor class modems, or more open motherboards, or open hard drive firmware, etc. We would see much higher quality with open development drivers for almost everything, but to see attitudes change you need to present financial incentives, and its really hard to promote something when no product at market exists yet.

3 ms·

I think the main problem for buisness printers is the inclusion of proprietary software on the device. This means that it is very difficult for third parties t

by 7952 10y ago

petra 10y ago
This is a general problem of the embedded industry, where products could greatly benefit from openness. But how do you align the incentives for the hardware manufacturer ,to commodify itself(to a large extent, unless there's some sort of app ecosystem or some other network effect setup) ?
- zanny 10y ago
  In theory, consumer outreach to only support good actors, but there are two issues there: * It is chicken and egg. You don't get the better UX until you have quality open products to market, and manufacturing the devices may not be that expensive for a new line (at least compared to silicon) but you still need the resources of a billion dollar company. * Consumers buying devices like this will not research quality much before buying. To my knowledge, the vast majority of muggle printer buyers are just picking up something based off a feature list at Best Buy. So you need to persuade a company to invest in innovation in a market without any, and then you need to persuade consumers to actually care about quality. It is the exact same issue with less horribly insecure mobile devices without rootkit backdoor class modems, or more open motherboards, or open hard drive firmware, etc. We would see much higher quality with open development drivers for almost everything, but to see attitudes change you need to present financial incentives, and its really hard to promote something when no product at market exists yet.