Copier/Printer/Software Industry Tidbits

History of inkjet printing:
- In 1867, Lord Kelvin described a process for using electrostatic electricity to control the release of droplets of ink with a pressure pump
- In 1878, Lord Rayleigh discovered how to make droplets of ink from a nozzle that were uniform in size
- In 1946, the Radio Corporation of America patented drop on demand piezo crystal electric device but never produced a product, as they were inventing the television at the same time. Piezo crystals create an acoustic wave as it vibrates through the nozzle and causes stream of ink to break into droplets at regular intervals
- In 1961, Richard Sweet, a Stanford electrical engineer, received a patent which led to the A. B. Dick Videograph 9600 in 1969 to print barcodes on cans.
- In 1962 was invented by C.R. Winston as the Teletype Inktronic
- In 1968, Dr. Cumming and Richard Sweet received patent to generate characters with inkjet
- In 1973, Mead Paper launched the Dijit inkjet printer
- In 1977, the first piezoelectric inkjet printer, the PT-80, was launched by Siemens of Germany
- In 1977, Canon researcher, Ichiro Endo, accidentally dropped a hot soldering iron onto a syringe full of ink, which caused the ink to heat up and spray out of syringe. This led to invention of bubblejet thermal inkjet technology.
- In 1978, Hewlett Packard’s John Vaught , convinced company to use Canon’s bubblejet technology.
- In 1984, Mead Paper sold Dijit technology to Kodak, which became the Diconix
- In 1985, Canon launches first commercial bubblejet product, the BJ-80.
- In 1993, Kodak sold Diconix to Scitex
- In 1993, Epson launches its first piezoelectric inkjet printer, the Stylus 800

*************************************************************************************

Another company which owns obscure patents is collecting money from manufacturers in the printing industry through the courts. Whetstone Electronics, owns two patents that involve the interface between a computer and print engine. The first company to settle out of court with Whetstone is Agfa of Germany for an undisclosed sum.

*************************************************************************************

Xerox reported its last quarter’s financials:
- profit tumbled down 35%
- earnings of $140 million as compared with $215 million one year ago
- revenue fell 18% to $3.73 billion from $4.53 billion
- Xerox’s CEO, Ursula Burns, stated; “we expect revenue will remain under pressure during the balance of the year
- Goldman Sachs reports that global technology spending will drop
another 8% this year
- Equipment sales dropped 29% to $828 million
- Service/supply revenue dropped 14%
- gross margin of 40.2%
- color pages up 12%, b/w pages down 5%

*************************************************************************************

Toshiba’s past was the topic of discussion during a copier bid review in the Town of Randall, Wisconsin. Town supervisor, Robert Gehring, reminded the other supervisors that in 1987, Toshiba was accused of illegally selling technology to the Russans to improve the stealth capabilities of the USSR’s nuclear submarines, thus putting the USA at risk during the cold war. This lead to the arrest and prosecution of two top executives, and was the basis for a best selling novel and movie from Tom Clancy called; “Hunt for Red October”. Mr. Gehring therefore refuses to back any bid award for Toshiba products.