Kyocera boss slams UK printer dealers

The UK printer market is suffering from lack of focus, lack of interest and lack of expertise, according to Kyocera MD, Phil Murphy.

Murphy, celebrating his firm's 10th birthday by announcing that it's now number two in the UK printer market, told Silicon.com: "There is no mechanism in place driving customers to the correct device". He laid the blame at the door of dealers, who he said have poor knowledge of printers. "They haven't got a clue," he said.

Murphy also claimed that although market leader, Hewlett-Packard (HP) has a 60 per cent market share, "their machines are no better than anybody else's".

Murphy accused IT sellers of pushing buyers towards the safe option of big brands such as HP. "If someone is sitting in front of an IT director, they manage to hide their lack of industry expertise by recommending the market leader. By doing so, they drive down the street price of HP printers in a market where HP already over-distributes its products."

Rob Hailstone, research director at Bloor Research, agreed. "Sounds just about right," he said. "Being Windows driven for such a long time, the market needs to look at new technologies."

Hailstone recommended Sun's mini operating system, Jini, as "the generic way forward. Jini can create a new focus not only for printers but for networking itself."

Kyocera's share of the UK market, according to Dataquest figures released yesterday, jumped from 4.4 per cent to 5.7 per cent.