The printer was bought to replace a Kodak Digimaster mono printer following Kodak declining to renew service contracts on four Digimaster machines, according to PM.
Kodak has maintained, however, that continued service support was offered, stating: "Kodak continues to offer a fully comprehensive service support program to all Kodak Digimaster digital production system users."
But founder of PM Solutions Ron Davidson commented: "We were simply told maintenance would be ended as of December as this was too expensive for Kodak. I asked if we could pay more for maintenance, so maintenance on top of a click charge, but we were told ‘no.’"
"One cost £175,000 and the rest £80,000 for refurbished machines so that’s a couple of hundred grand that it’s cost me for the machines and I’ve got to replace them now. I’ve now got very expensive doorstops."
Davidson added that, because his Digimasters were supplied direct from Kodak, PM wasn’t able to enlist service support from Ricoh, who now supply and maintain the majority of UK Digimasters.
The 1250, launched along with a new Konica Minolta Bizhub 1052 in February, has a top speed of 125 A4 (70 A3) pages per minute and is 1,200 dpi.
The machine will be used at PM to print a wide range of marketing mailings, and so the printer’s ability to process stock from 40 to 350gsm simplex and 300gsm duplex and up to SRA3 size was a key attraction.
"The company has shifted from being a mainly transactional mailing house to marketing and so it was important to have a flexible machine. With marketing jobs it could be 10,000 postcards or 80, and it needed to be able to process silk and uncoated," said business development director at PM Solutions Brian Purves.
Another key attraction was the overall cost of ownership of the 1250. The press cost £32,500 and has a favourable click charge, reported the company. "It does A3 and A4 at the same click charge," said Purves. "So we’ll end up running most jobs A3."
Having to install a new mono printer in time for a large job scheduled for mid-September, also affected PM’s choice of machine. "We looked at Canon, Ricoh, Kodak and Xerox machines too but this was the first available and in stock," reported Purves.
So though PM feels the 1250 is an "excellent" machine, the company might opt for different models to replace its other Kodak Digimasters. "Moving forwards to replace the other Digimasters we might look at others," said Purves.
PM Solutions is set to expand its premises with the construction of a new £1.3 million purpose-built extension next year.
