Xerox Versant...

[kdw75]

Anyone planning to purchase? Have you talked about pricing and click charges yet?

 

[Craig]

I am waiting on both!

 

[jdiggy]

anyone yet?

 

[kdw75]

We had an initial consultation. We have had our C75 for 6 months, and we have over 800K large clicks on it. The salesman is telling us that it is going to bring us heartache down the road with that kind of volume, and that the Versant was what we needed.

He said that he would look into the incentives available and get back to us with better pricing in the Fall. His prices right now were around $5K a month, which seems outlandish to me, considering we could get 3 C75s for less than that per month.

 

[jdiggy]

what about service contract quote?

 

[Craig]

I just sign for a 1000 over the 2100. Shockingly the cost wasn't much more and I wont be a beta tester for the 2100.

 

[kdw75]

I just sign for a 1000 over the 2100. Shockingly the cost wasn't much more and I wont be a beta tester for the 2100.

It does worry me a little, that the Versant is a new design, loosely based on the Color Press 800/1000. I suspect it will have a fair number of bugs because of this.

The advertising was that it would be around half the cost of the Color Press 1000, but so far that doesn't seem to be the case. Maybe they are making deals on the 1000, since it has been around a while, where as the Versant is their new baby, and they are trying to recoup the design charges on the initial buyers.

 

[Craig]

No where near 1/2 the cost. They didn't really want to barter on the 2100 much at all. More of a here it is, take it or leave it attitude.

 

[UK Printer]

I saw some of our work printed on this press just last week, rep came in with samples. We have a Kodak Nexpress, very expensive machine to run, considering using the versant for the commodity print (leaflets, flyers etc) and using the Nexpress for the very high accuracy stuff (spot UV work and large sheet stuff).

Click price was rock bottom, very impressive costings (this is in the UK) and the quality was really good too, bearing in mind this press is RATED to handle 350gsm, very interesting machine, could do well for Xerox methinks.

Thats my 2 cents (well 2 pence anyways )

Tim

 

[kdw75]

At our present volume of 130K clicks per month, and with the initial figures they gave us on the Versant. Each color click would cost us almost twice as much as they do on our C75. The machine cost and service were 3 times what the C75 was, both had external Fiery's, OHC feeders and square fold trimmers. And the click charge was over a penny more per click. Now if our volume was higher, the machine, and labor cost wouldn't be so bad, but according to Xerox, 130K/month is right in the target range of this machine.

And I guarantee you that 3 of the C75s could turn out more work.

They need to get some reasonable discounts on this machine, or cut the click charge.

 

[arossetti]

Craig:

Did Xerox finally come off there click pricing for the x1000? I know that they had a hard click rate floor that they wouldn't go below that always annoyed you.

 

[Craig]

Got it to 0.049 for large sheets. It is still annoying, but it is comparable to other companies in the production arena.

 

[arossetti]

Small sheet around .041?

 

[kdw75]

Small sheet around .041?

We are at .038 for all sheet sizes up to 13x19 on our C75. I had expected the click charge to be the same or less on the larger machines, but I was wrong.

I talked to someone, who claimed they were getting .03 per click on their 1000.

 

[Craig]

.039 for small sheets. kdw75, if you find that person, let me know.

 

[kdw75]

It makes me curious just what the click charge pricing and structure is on the iGens. I know they run a larger sheet. I had thought that maybe it worked out to being a cheaper rate since you could get several up, but I haven't ever heard.

 

[arossetti]

I think on the igen large sheet of around .045 is normal.

 

[jdiggy]

Have any of you seen samples off the Versant? I saw some and all pages seemed a bit wavy. Like the toner just dried up the sheet, almost brittle. I hope just bad samples. Samples were coated text weight sheets....

 

[Craig]

The samples they sent me were fine. Of course they are designed not to show any flaws of the engine.

 

[jdiggy]

Any updates from people looking at Versant? Quality/pricing thoughts?