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Xerox has really fallen. Just a month ago I returned a $12,000 Xerox DocuMate scanner because it lacked the features a $500 Fujitsu scanner had. No joke, this i

Xerox has really fallen. Just a month ago I returned a $12,000 Xerox DocuMate scanner because it lacked the features a $500 Fujitsu scanner had. No joke, this is a fallen American company. They outsourced so much of their software development they don't have proper "auto-straightening" and have the most terrible "auto-crop to length and width" I've ever seen. I toyed with the $12,000 hunk of garbage for a week. Reading manuals, visiting forums. Turns out that's the way it ships. Twas returned and I learned a very valuable lesson. This is why tech companies from Asia are winning, not only are they cheaper, they're better in nearly every way. This era of CEOs outsourcing and downsizing to temporarily increase profit and stock is going to have very long term consequences. Mainly the downfall of their own companies. This is what happens when you lack pride, lack loyalty, and lack long term vision.

tonyedgecombe 10y ago
The whole industry has been struggling with quality issues for years, printer software is atrocious.
- mgkimsal 10y ago
  10 years ago I was hoping apple would get in to the printer business. It seemed(s?) ripe for disruption with a new entrant that simplifies aspects, has better hardware/software pairings and 'just works'. Given apple's swing in the last few years, it might not be a great idea now, but it felt like an area they should have entered 10 years ago.
  - mschuster91 10y ago
    Printers are insanely complex, you need a huge amount of skilled people (in addition to patents, which no established printer company will license to a newcomer anyway!) to design all the neccessary parts. Plus they're cheap. A new printer can go for 50€ these days... there's no way to make a profit if you don't have a massive buyer base. And for the software side: I believe that most printer manufacturers, like many IoT/plastic-router manufacturers, just take the firmware from a previous model, bolt on some "new" features and off it goes...
  - tonyedgecombe 10y ago
    Apple used to sell printers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apple_printers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apple_printers
    - digi_owl 10y ago
      Why their bedrock market is in the publishing/print media segment. The Mac had a companion printer that was set up to match the screen. Thus you got WYSIWYG editing of documents etc. This i think was a massive contributor to the attention Apple got regarding their iPod, because it was a known brand for all the newspapers and such. And since then Apple has been basically leveraging that attention into what it is today. But by ignoring what go them that attention, the near ubiquity of Macs in all manner of media production, they may well be in for a harsh fall indeed.

tonyedgecombe 10y ago

The whole industry has been struggling with quality issues for years, printer software is atrocious.

mgkimsal 10y ago
10 years ago I was hoping apple would get in to the printer business. It seemed(s?) ripe for disruption with a new entrant that simplifies aspects, has better hardware/software pairings and 'just works'. Given apple's swing in the last few years, it might not be a great idea now, but it felt like an area they should have entered 10 years ago.
- mschuster91 10y ago
  Printers are insanely complex, you need a huge amount of skilled people (in addition to patents, which no established printer company will license to a newcomer anyway!) to design all the neccessary parts. Plus they're cheap. A new printer can go for 50€ these days... there's no way to make a profit if you don't have a massive buyer base. And for the software side: I believe that most printer manufacturers, like many IoT/plastic-router manufacturers, just take the firmware from a previous model, bolt on some "new" features and off it goes...
- tonyedgecombe 10y ago
  Apple used to sell printers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apple_printers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apple_printers
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    Why their bedrock market is in the publishing/print media segment. The Mac had a companion printer that was set up to match the screen. Thus you got WYSIWYG editing of documents etc. This i think was a massive contributor to the attention Apple got regarding their iPod, because it was a known brand for all the newspapers and such. And since then Apple has been basically leveraging that attention into what it is today. But by ignoring what go them that attention, the near ubiquity of Macs in all manner of media production, they may well be in for a harsh fall indeed.