Eltron launches low-end printers

Products offer resellers superior margins, says vendor

Specialist printer vendor Eltron has launched two new low-end machines, claiming that its products offer resellers superior margins to those of traditional hardware vendors.

The 205 and 210 printers, part of Eltron's new 200 series, are aimed at the small to medium sized enterprise marketplace. They are capable of printing cards in four and 10 seconds respectively at 300dpi resolution for bar codes, graphics and text.

Mark Thomson, marketing manager at Eltron, said: "We are trying to move away from the niche market. We have an advantage over traditional hardware vendors in that our market is new.

"We have a high number of consumables which create on-going revenue streams for our resellers. We take other vendors' struggles as a chance to offer resellers diversity, especially in light of recent security issues."

Phil Bowe, sales director of the systems division at reseller TSSI, agreed. "There has been a heightened awareness of the need for ID systems. Security and access control has become an important issue, which has been accelerated by the 11 September tragedy," he said.

Thomson admitted that the company does not include software in its offering, which other hardware vendors are starting to do.

However, he said: "Not every company that sells hardware is equipped to sell software. We prefer to give our partners the chance to provide the appropriate software for their customers' needs. We help our partners put together their product offering."