New print service linked to Slack application strengthens commercial and industrial inkjet printer business.
On June 29, Epson Sales, Seiko Epson’s distributor in the Japanese market, announced that it would start a print service that links printers with Slack (Slack Technologies), a multi-communication tool application for business. Until now, Epson Sales has provided print environments with popular communication applications using their print application “Epson Printer” to support printing services from the LINE application and printing from Facebook’s Messenger application. Slack, which has a growing number of users, has been selected as one of the company’s new application partners.
Slack is increasingly used in Japan as a secure and productive communication tool for businesses. However, to print data in Slack, it was necessary to download the data once and then output it using the printing application suitable for the data format and the print function of the devices, which was troublesome. The new print service allows users to easily print by simply adding photos and documents to the chat screen after accessing the print application “Epson Printer” in Slack and registering the printer. Because applications cannot be added in the Android version, the print application “Epson Printer” must be added to the device. JPEG and PNG are the printable file formats for photos (up to 10MB), and PDF, Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents (up to 20MB).
Commercial and Industrial Inkjet Printer Growth Strategy
On June 18, Koichi Kubota, representative director, senior managing executive officer, and chief of the printing solutions business division for Epson, announced the company’s growth strategy for commercial and industrial inkjet printers. The company is targeting the high-production segment and plans to expand its lineup in this segment. As I previously reported in my article on Seiko Epson in the June 2020 issue of The Cannata Report, the company announced its intent to focus on external printhead sales. Seiko Epson remains committed to the inkjet printer business and is enthusiastic about expanding its product offerings in this segment.
In the commercial and industrial inkjet printer business, the company plans to rapidly deploy a variety of products for a range of applications, from small lots to large lots with an enhanced inkjet printer platform. The platform design is a method of creating various products. It combines product repertoires for each of the four main components that make up a large-format inkjet printer—printhead, print mechanism (housing/paper handling system), ink supply system, and control system. With this initiative, Epson plans to expand its product lineup simultaneously with high productivity and versatility, and bring to market more than triple the number of models released in fiscal years 2019–2021 compared to 2016–2018.
Epson also plans to release a 76-inch wide high-production dye-sublimation printer for the commercial and industrial print markets in fiscal year 2020.
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