By Paul Korzeniowski

From student worksheets, projects, and permission slips, to school board presentations and agendas, to staff benefits forms and training materials, the amount of information to be printed and stored in school systems each day can be overwhelming--not to mention quite costly. But recent trends and technological advancements in printing and storage solutions are making it possible for schools to save hundreds or even thousands of dollars over the life of the new equipment, and the maintenance of these devices has become much simpler. In this Special Report, we'll examine some of these new trends and developments--and see how schools are saving as a result.

Printers have been used in the classroom for nearly two decades, so these devices carry the earmarks of a mature market. "For the past decade, analysts have been saying that hardware revenue would decrease and vendors would be forced to turn to add-ons, software, and services to maintain profitability, and that has certainly turned out to be the case," said Robin Weber, national sales manager for Brother Industries Ltd.

Suppliers of printers have seen total unit sales become stagnant or take a slight dip during the past few years, yet competition remains intense. Brother, Dell Inc., Epson America Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP), Lexmark International Inc., and RISO Inc. are just some of the vendors vying for a larger slice of the printer pie. As a result of stagnant unit sales and hungry competitors, product pricing and margins have been declining in most markets.

Suppliers are following three main courses to remain viable. The first is to increase sales in growing segments, such as color laser printers. The second is to expand their market segments: multi-function printers (MFPs), which feature copying, printing, faxing, and scanning capabilities, are now available in all price ranges. Yet the high margins and revenues found in these markets are not able to offset price declines in other segments.

"The printer market has evolved into a razor/razor blade business where vendors do not make money when they sell their systems, but instead when users purchase add-on items, such as maintenance contracts and printer cartridges," said Jake Wang, a senior analyst with market research firm Current Analysis.

This represents a good news/bad news scenario for school districts. The good news is they are now able to find attractive, inexpensive, highly capable products fairly easily. The bad news is that sifting through all of the possible repercussions from their selections and choosing devices that are best for their particular environment has become more difficult.

Sifting through the choices

When it comes to printer selections, school districts face plenty of choices: stand-alone printer versus print server, inkjet or laser, black-and-white versus color, and single-function product or MFP.

Traditionally, there has been a disconnect between printer designs and school district needs. Most printers were built to connect to a PC, but schools want to share them in the classroom, among a few classes, in an administrative office, school-wide, or increasingly throughout a district.