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Corporation
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Exceed Your Vision
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Suwa , Nagano , Japan ( 1942 )
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Suwa , Nagano , Japan
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Saburo Kusama , Chairman & CEO Seiji Hanaoka , President & COO
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98,480 (Consolidated, as of September 30, 2005)
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¥ 1479 trillion (Fiscal year ended March 31, 2005)
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Electronics
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Information-related equipments, Electronic devices, Precision products
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Epson Global
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, or , is a
Japan ese company and one of the world's largest manufacturers of
Inkjet ,
Dot Matrix and
Laser Printer s,
Scanner s,
Timepieces (through their famous
Seiko division),
Desktop Computer s, business, multimedia and
Home Theatre Projector s, large home theatre
Televisions ,
Robot s and industrial automation equipment,
Point Of Sale docket printers and
Cash Register s,
Laptop s,
Integrated Circuit s,
LCD Components and other associated electronic components. Based in
Nagano Prefecture ,
Japan , they have numerous subsidiaries worldwide. The current CEO is
Saburo Kusama . Net sales over 2004/2005 amounted to
¥ 1.479 trillion.
In
1961 Shinshu Seiki Co. (now known as Epson), Ltd was established to supply precision watch parts to
Suwa Seikosha Co., Ltd. (now known as
Seiko Instruments, Inc ). When Suwa Seikosha was selected to be the official time keeper for the Tokyo Olympic games in 1964 a printing timer was required to time events, and Shinshu Seiki Co. started development of an electronic printer. In September
1968 , the company launched the world's first miniprinter, the
EP-101 , which was soon incorporated into many calculators. In June
1975 , the name Epson was coined after the next generation of the EP-101 was released to the public ("Son of EP-101" became "Son of EP" which in turn became "Epson"). In April of the same year Epson America Inc. was established to sell printers for Sinshu Seiki Co.
In June
1978 , the TX-80 eighty-column
Dot-matrix Printer was released to the market, and was mainly used as a system printer for the
Commodore PET Computer. After two years of further development, an improved model, the MX-80, was launched in October
1980 . This was soon the best selling printer in the
United States , despite the fact that it could only print text characters and symbols.
In July
1982 , the company officially named itself Epson Corporation and launched the world's first handheld computer, the
HC-20 (HX-20), and in May 1983 the world's first portable color LCD
TV was developed and launched by the company.
In November
1985 , Suwa Seikosha Co., Ltd. and Epson Corporation merged to form Seiko Epson Corporation.
In
2004 Epson introduced their digital
Rangefinder Camera , the R-D1, which takes
Leica M mount lenses and Leica screw mount lenses with an adapter ring. This camera is notable for being the first digital rangefinder on the market. Because its sensor is smaller than the standard
35 Mm film frame for which the lenses it takes are designed, lenses mounted on the R-D1 have the field of view of a
Lens 1.53 times as long as their stated focal length would have on a standard 35mm camera.
In recent years, Epson has been accused of manufacturing expensive consumables for their printers. It is also said that the company is forcing customers to purchase replacement ink cartridges before they are truly spent by using 'intelligence chips' to count how many pages have been printed in order to estimate the remaining ink, without actually monitoring the true ink levels.
One disgruntled customer Bob Powell (
{Link without Title} ), claims to have dismantled an apparently empty ink tank from his Epson printer and found over 2 milliliters of ink remaining in the tank (25% of the original capacity).
In July 2003, A Dutch Consumer Association it advised its 640,000 members to boycott Epson ink jet printers. The Netherlands-based organization alleged that Epson customers were unfairly charged for ink they could never use. Later that month however, the group retracted its call for a nationwide boycott of Epson products and issued a statement conceding that residual ink left in Epson cartridges is necessary for the printers to function properly. (PC World Friday, October 24, 2003
{Link without Title} ).
Epson leaves ink in the cartridges (and in fact have done so ever since they developed the piezo-electric head) due to the way the capping mechanism works. If the capping mechanism dries out, then the heads risk getting clogged, and thus an expensive repair will be necessary. The reason that the Dutch Consumer Association retracted their statement was because it was pointed out that Epson actually states how many pages (at usually a 5% coverage of a A4 sheet of paper) each cartridge can print. Further tests revealed that Epson did not mislead consumers.
Epson's ink is still, to say the least, expensive. A set of ink cartridges, sometimes only two and sometimes as many as eight, can cost over $100. One study demonstrated that while using non-OEM inks(e.g., from eBay) automatically voids the warranty of the printer, the user can save as much as $10 per cartridge($28 for high capacity black ink) by buying non-OEM inks. After buying twenty non-OEM cartridges, saving $10 apiece, the user would have saved enough money to buy an entirely new printer and still have saved money. (The printer studied was a CX6400 All-In-One whose color ink cartridges normally cost $12.34 and whose high-capacity black ink cartridges cost $33.24.)
