Kodak’s advertising claim that buyers can “Save up to 50% on everything you print” with its EasyShare line. Among other things, Canon claimed that Kodak didn’t make it clear that the savings claim was based on ink costs only. This week Canon it lost its challenge when the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus ruled that Kodak “provided reasonable support for the advertising claim.”

Last year, Kodak introduced a brand new low-cost ink strategy with the launch of the EasyShare multifunction printer line. Kodak offered cheaper inks for a higher upfront cost of a printer.

This strategy seems to have bothered Canon USA, which recently filed a complaint with the NAD of the Council of Better Business Bureaus. There are reasons for Canon to worry, even when Kodak has less than 1% of the market for consumer multifunction printers.

First, printer manufacturers hand around the hardware at little or no cost, making major profit on the ink. Second, Kodak’s ink is indeed cheaper.

Kodak’s new pricing strategy that breaks the current business model for consumer printers. Also, it is aiming at those who do a lot of printing of photographs at home — a selected group of Canon’s most profitable customers.

Mass adoption of EasyShare printers and word of mouth about the advantages of using low-cost ink could turn upside down the today market’s business model.

Speaking of the market. Of 61 millions sold printers, Kodak’s share is only 520,000 units. Kodak’s distribution channels are also not so broad. So why would that make a difference to Canon? Because Kodak doesn’t need to get a large overall market share to cause trouble. Approximately, 10% of consumers do 80% of printing, so all it takes is capture a significant portion of that small group to put pressure on the rivals. Perhaps that’s what Canon is worried about.

New cost-of-ink-per-page analysis of ink cartridges is a new way for customers to estimate their printing costs.

QualityLogic, a company providing quality assurance and control services, reported it had completed Cost-of-Ink-Per-Page (CoIPP) Analysis for the Eastman Kodak Company.

CoIPP Analysis uses cartridge cost and page-yield to calculate and compare the cost of ink required to print one page on Kodak EASYSHARE 5100, 5300 and 5500 All-in-One Printers to 11 competing printers.

Page-yield is determined by Certified Page-Yield Test Program, QualityLogic’s special software based on ISO standards determines. Cartridge prices in UK, France, and Germany were provided by IDC, a provider of independent market intelligence.

QualityLogic published a paper that you can view for details, but here is a briefly overview of what results of the analysis show.

Naturally, all three Kodak’s printers demonstrate lowest cost of ink per page in monochrome, color and photo printing. For instance in UK, one page printed on any of Kodak Easyshare printers in mono, color and photo mode costs 0.016, 0.047 and 0.064 GBP, or $0.033, $0.096 and 0.131 respectively.

It turns out the most expensive printer inks among the compared are for Hewlett-Packard’s Photosmart C5280 followed by Photosmart C4280. A page printed Photosmart C5280 in monochrome mode would cost 0.065 GBP; in color mode – 0.148 GBP; in photo mode – 0.311 GBP. Converted into US dollars, that’d make $0.137, $0.302 and $0.636, respectively.

Of course, actual prices in USA will vary, but the example gives us a general idea of cost difference scale.

Not so long ago a study initiated by HP found that HP ink cartridges contain inks twice as much as remanufactured and refilled ones. Some time before that, an ink study sponsored by Epson found that Epson genuine inks provide stronger color-fading resistance and, thus, longer life of printed images.

Just like these studies, the QualityLogic’s analysis is not completely independent and unbiased. However, such CoIPP analysis provides consumers with information that is fair, accurate and consistent. It gives them a new way to look at this portion of the overall cost of owning and operating a printer.