With the price point of these machines not allowing much margin, trimming these sort of back-end expenses is essential. With the popularity of Linux ramping rapidly, it provides a great deal of support and is reliable and relatively lightweight. This trend is also affecting the desktop to a lesser degree as users begin to utilize Linux as an alternative to Microsoft Windows. Adding more DSP chips to increase graphics throughput is one important strategy in this category. This trend becomes more important as global connectivity becomees a factor and usage may become significantly higher for certain services.
Color printers are very prevalent especially in the ink-jet technology category.
Color scanners add very little to the cost and are essential as images are scanned for viewing on the web as well as hardcopy. With Color Fax now a reality, we see MFPs that are completely color, and with pricetags that are nearly equal to non-color equivalents, with manufacturers making up the difference with higher consumables revenues. Soon, nearly all equipment will be color capable. To Workflow Enabled Manufacturers of MFP and office equipment see that elegant integration with workflow technologies can make their equipment a good citizen instead of a workflow bottleneck. In the recent past, all applications ran on a desktop platform, such as Microsoft Windows.