Kodak
Print-room royalty, sold to Danka
KODAK
Entered at the top in 1975, invented the feeder this magazine venerates, owned the corporate print room for two decades — then sold the salesforce, kept the factory, and watched the buyer sink. Three acts, immaculate registration.
Kodak arrived twelve years late, in 1975, and landed at the top. The Ektaprint 100 copier-duplicator was the industry’s first microprocessor-controlled copier, ran at 70 copies a minute, and introduced the recirculating document feeder — originals cycled past the platen for every set, so stapled, collated sets emerged with no sorter in sight. IBM, Xerox and Canon all licensed it. Regular readers know this magazine’s feeder doctrine; know now where it was written. One observer likened the debut to “having the first plane you built be a four-engine jet.”
Its line owned the corporate print room for two decades: the Ektaprint 235 (some 5,100 copies an hour) and 300 (6,000) of 1986, the 95 at 60 cpm — built like tanks and serviced like aircraft. Kodak never contested the small office; at the 60–110 cpm summit it was Xerox’s only real rival. The mid-nineties ImageSource machines added High Definition Imaging, and the digital 70cp answered Xerox’s DocuTech with scan-once-print-many and network printing.
Then the accountants finished their own set. On 10 September 1996 Kodak announced the sale of its Office Imaging sales and service operations to Danka Business Systems: $684 million cash, some 10,400 people changing badges, Kodak keeping Rochester manufacturing and supplying Danka. Danka, doubled overnight, choked — shares collapsed in 1998 — and in 1999 the remaining manufacturing went to Heidelberg, whose Digimaster 9110 carries the Ektaprint bloodline out of our decade (see the Epilogue).
THE VERDICT — KODAK
Invented the correct feeder, built machines like aircraft, then sold the airline and kept the hangar. The loyalty stays here.
Kodak — Selected Range
| Model | Year | CPM | Notable |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ektaprint 100 | 1975 | 70 | Invented the RDF |
| Ektaprint 235 | 1986 | ~85 | 5,100 copies/hr |
| Ektaprint 300 | 1986 | ~100 | Classic-line summit |
| Ektaprint 95 | early 90s | 60 | ADF + sorter |
| ImageSource 110 | mid-90s | ~110 | HD Imaging |
| ImageSource 70cp | c. 1996 | ~70 | Digital; networked |
TWO WAYS TO BUY A KODAK
Every other marque in this issue sold a ladder: something for the den, something for the department, something for the print room. Kodak sold the top rungs only, and never once apologised. What follows is the shortest range review this magazine will ever run, and the most reverent.
The entry ticket
Confession first: there wasn’t one. Kodak never made a small copier in this decade — no cartridge machine for the den, no 15-cpm box for the solicitor’s front office. The church office that rang around in 1993 asking after a little Kodak was gently sold nothing, went away, and bought Canon’s PC-320 — four copies a minute of snap-in cartridge — like everyone else. The low- and mid-volume office was Canon’s and Ricoh’s ground, and Kodak had the rare corporate discipline never to contest it.
The entry ticket, in other words, started at the print room door. The cheapest way into the marque was to work somewhere serious enough to keep a reproduction department, or to befriend its operator. This magazine regards that not as a gap in the range but as a standard to aspire to.
The engine room
The working floor of the range was the Ektaprint 95 — surviving units document it at 60 cpm with document feeder and sorter — flanked by the 85 and the 90/90E, machines so unglamorously employed that their precise speeds barely survive. They persist today chiefly in toner cross-reference tables, which is what immortality looks like for a workhorse. Configurations ran to sorter or finisher; the buyers were the insurance head office’s repro room, the university printery, the quick-printer’s dependable second machine — all under maintenance contract, many running double shifts.
Against Canon’s NP-6060, the departmental spine of its rival’s range at the same 60 cpm with ADF and sorter, the Kodak’s argument was the house argument: the Canon fed originals; the Kodak, properly optioned, finished the job.
The summit
The summit is where Kodak actually lived. The classic line’s peaks — the Ektaprint 235 at some 5,100 copies an hour and the 300 at 6,000, both of 1986 and both still earning well into the nineties — gave way mid-decade to the ImageSource 110: around 110 cpm (the period press is thin; the figure stays unverified), High Definition Imaging for continuous-tone photographs, accent colour, and duplex registration tight enough to please a company that measured everything photographically. The digital ImageSource 70cp of about 1996 added scan-once-print-many and network printing — Rochester’s answer to the DocuTech question.
Against Xerox’s 5090 — 135 cpm, touch-screen, an inline bindery — the ImageSource conceded speed and answered with image quality. That argument is staged in full overleaf; readers are advised it takes place under a closing-down sign.
If You Bought One — The Shortlist, 1996
| Model | Tier | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Ektaprint 95 | Engine room | 60 cpm, sorter or finisher configurations; built like a tank, serviced like aircraft |
| ImageSource 110 | Summit, analog | High Definition Imaging, accent colour, immaculate duplex registration — a photographic company’s idea of a copier |
| ImageSource 70cp | Summit, digital | Scan-once-print-many, network printing, stapled sets inline — the DocuTech answered |
From 1 January 1997, all three invoiced by Danka Business Systems of St Petersburg, Florida. The machines did not notice.
Head to Head — The 60-CPM Department
| Ektaprint 95 (Kodak) | NP-6060 (Canon) | 2400 (Océ) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Speed | 60 cpm | 60 cpm | 60 cpm |
| Feeder | ADF or RDF configurations | ADF | ADF; full auto duplex |
| Finishing | Sorter or finisher configurations | Sorter | Sorter–stapler options (unverified) |
| The call | Three ways of saying sixty. The Océ duplexes unattended and the Canon sold by the yard, but only the Kodak could be optioned to hand you a stapled set — and by the time your order was signed, the badge on the invoice read Danka. | ||
Head to Head — The Summit
| ImageSource 110 (Kodak) | 5090 (Xerox) | DocuTech (Xerox) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Speed | ~110 cpm (unverified) | 135 cpm | 135 ppm |
| Feeder | RDF | 250-sheet document handler | Scanner + feeders |
| Finishing | Inline finisher; accent colour, tight duplex registration | Inline thermal bind, stitch, tabs, covers | Inline finisher, signature imposition |
| The call | Xerox brings twenty-five more copies a minute and a bindery; Kodak brings photographs — continuous tone at production speed, from the one company that meant it. The 5090 won the demonstrations, the DocuTech won the decade, and the ImageSource was sold twice before it was superseded once. | ||
BUYING ADVICE, 1990s
Buy the machine, not the letterhead: the Ektaprint will outlast the name on the invoice. By 1997 it already had, and it wasn’t finished.