Component prices have dropped significantly enough for the makers of printers, photocopier, scanners and fax machines for vendors to begin targeting small businesses and home office with integrated devices, until now the preserve of larger organizations with fatter equipment budgets. Hewlett-Packard Co yesterday introduced a $600 OfficeJet series 600 combination fax, printer, and copier which should enable customers to throw out the three or four separate devices they must currently use. The OfficeJet 600 connects to a PC and provides full-color printing, copying, fax and scanning facilities. It lacks the color-copying of the $900 OfficeJet Pro 1150c. Dataquest says the all-in-one category is the fastest growing segment of the printer market; as many as one in five of all peripherals sold by 2000 will be devices of this type. Xerox Corp introduced a combination color scanner, printer and copier called Document Home Center at $500 last week (CI No 3,229). HP and Xerox are the main players in this market; IBM Corp says its multifunction devices aren’t designed for small office environments.
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