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, or Epson, is a Japanese company and one of the world's largest manufacturers of inkjet, dot matrix and laser printers, scanners, timepieces (through their famous Seiko division), desktop computers, business, multimedia and home theatre projectors, large home theatre televisions, robots and industrial automation equipment, point of sale docket printers and cash registers, laptops, integrated circuits, 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.
History
In 1942 Daiwa Kogyo Co., Ltd. was founded in Suwa, Nagano. In 1943 Daini Seikosha Co., Ltd. (now known as Seiko Instruments Inc) established a factory in Suwa for manufacturing SEIKO watches with Dauwa Kogyo. In 1959 Suwa Factory of Daini Seikosha was split off and marged with Daiwa Kogyo to form Suwa Seikosha Co., Ltd. In 1961 Shinshu Seiki Co., Ltd. was established as a subsidiary of Suwa Seikosha to supply precision parts for Seiko watches. 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 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.
In July 1982, Suwa Seiki officially named itself Epson Corporation and launched the world's first handheld computer, the HX-20 (HC-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 Epson 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. As of 2006 the R-D1 has been replaced with its successor, the R-D1s. The R-D1s is available for a more modest price, however the hardware of both cameras is identical. Epson has released a firmware patch to bring the R-D1 up to the full functionality of its successor - the first digital camera manufacturer to make such an upgrade available for free.
Expensive consumables
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 (*), 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 *).
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.
Nonetheless, Epson America, Inc. has decided to settle a class action lawsuit brought before the Los Angeles Superior Court. It does not admit guilt, but has agreed to refund $45 to anyone who purchased an Epson InkJet Printer after 4/8/99 (at least $20 of which must be used at Epson's E-Store). *
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.)
Associated Companies
External links
Electronics companies | Electronics companies of Japan | Seiko Epson
"Seiko Epson"