Wen/Qingshui Officer
Unknown "printer"
One cold knowledge is that the printers and computers we often use were invented in the same laboratory.
In 1971, Gary Stackwise, an American engineer, spent less than nine months at the Palo Alto Research Center to produce the world's first working laser printer. Just 20 years later, it entered major enterprises around the world and became the most common office equipment.
The Palo Alto Research Center is a holy land of computer technology. While Stackwise was working on a laser printer, his colleagues worked on the first computer with a graphical user interface. After successful mass production, it is the personal computer we see today.
Although they are from the same family, people are familiar with computers, and when it comes to printers, they lack knowledge.
In a sense, the printer is one of the most unknown IT equipment.
Yes, printers, like computers, belong to electronic products, even a computer.
A printer has a main control chip, similar to the CPU of a computer; The printer also has an operating system to support multi task operation; Some printers also have monitors, and even support software installation and Internet access.
But it is also much more complex than computers.
From the fault point of view, if the computer breaks down, it is often the motherboard or the system that breaks down, but if the printer breaks down, it is often divided into "mechanical failure" and "optical failure".
Industry insiders once described the complexity of laser printers as follows:
"At the moment of paper feeding and printing, the laser scanning and imaging of the printer should work together synchronously. There should be no deviation between the precision integrated circuit and the mechanical control. The imaging materials synthesized through the cutting-edge fine chemical technology should also fully match the entire printing process to output clear patterns and characters."
Because of this, the development of printers can be described as "hell class". Taking the most common laser printer as an example, its technology covers more than ten fields, including precision machinery, fine chemicals, precision optics, electrostatic imaging, integrated circuit, electronic engineering, software engineering, communication engineering, color science, automatic control, polymer materials, etc.
It is not difficult to understand why most of the enterprises that originally invented and produced printers have been engaged in camera, material science and mechanical equipment for decades.
From a life experience, we have seen many people who can repair computers, but it is difficult to find generalists who can repair printers. Because the printer structure is complex, and the structure of different printers is very different, and the spare parts are basically not universal, the repair and replacement of parts often requires external professionals familiar with the model to visit.
Therefore, if we put the printer at the top of the list of actors, the script presented in front of us will become: "patent war", "high-end technology war", "innovation war" and "security war". If a specific location "China" is added, the story it bears will be more dramatic -- domestic substitution.
"High and airtight wall"
In 2019, China has become one of the major printer manufacturers in the world, and one printer for every 2.5 printers in the world will be made in China.
Like many manufacturing fields, in the global industrial division system, printer enterprises in China are basically at the end of the industrial chain. For example, the core components of printers, such as inkjet heads and engines, laser drums and important components, are basically imported from abroad, and only the peripheral components are mostly processed in China.
Workers produce laser guide drums for printers
There are also people with lofty ideals who are eager to make a move, hoping to further climb up the industrial chain by virtue of years of experience in manufacturing until domestic substitution is realized.
But in the field of printers, this road is particularly difficult.
According to statistics, there are hundreds of thousands of printer related patents in the world, most of which are applied by American and Japanese enterprises. At present, more than 200000 patents are still valid.
200000 vs two countries is a typical collusion between giants.
It is reported that many patents are not related to technological innovation, and some are just technology control methods in specific scenarios.
For example, for automatic double-sided printing with a singular total number of pages, some enterprises have applied for a patent to "treat the last page as single-sided printing", and some enterprises have applied for "insert blank pages at the end of the document in advance, and do double-sided printing on the last page".
Although such "superfluous" patents are ridiculous, they form a kind of ethos and values, that is, in the printer industry, the first mover takes all, and no one can break this rule.
In Japan, for example, Sharp considered selling its copier business (which intersects with many printer technologies) to Samsung, but was pressured by other domestic manufacturers to give up.
After the patent barrier was built, the giants built a hardware wall outside. The "maintenance dilemma" we mentioned just now, in addition to the complex disciplinary background, also stems from the monopoly of giants on the manufacturing of core parts.
For a world-class manufacturing center like China, the supply chain itself is the biggest advantage, but in the field of printers, it is difficult for a clever woman to make bricks without straw.
For latecomers, since China is on the edge of the division of labor system, there are more than 1000 parts for a laser printer. For key parts, printer manufacturers usually develop and produce them by themselves or cooperate with foreign suppliers with exclusive agreements. There is also an opportunity for the appearance of the patent wall, and the parts themselves will also be accompanied by a large number of patent protection.
The airtight patent wall and supply chain barrier finally achieved remarkable results, and printers have become an industry in which no new enterprises have entered for 25 years.
Laser printers were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s. Twenty five years ago, no one entered the market, suggesting a plot trend. More than ten years ago, someone successfully broke through.
First the spoiler and then the ending: In 2010, Bentu Electronics from Zhuhai produced the first laser printer with independent core technology and made its debut in the Great Hall of the People. This also makes China the fourth country in the world to master the core technology of laser printers after the United States, Japan and South Korea.
Note: HP acquired Samsung printer business in 2017, and only China, the United States and Japan have mastered the core technology of printers.
In the 1980s, the first domestic printing consumables factory was established in Zhuhai, driving the upstream and downstream industrial chains to flourish. Zhuhai slowly developed into a "printing consumables city".
Bentu's experience is typical because it has not only achieved technological breakthroughs, but also won commercial success.
Twelve years after the launch of self-developed laser printers, the top four manufacturers of global laser printer shipments in 2022 are Hewlett Packard (USA), Brothers (Japan), Canon (Japan) and Bentu (China).
Two Breakthrough Wars
There are two key points in the experience of copying Bentu, one is related to technology and the other is related to market.
Talking about technology, we can't get around the patent wall.
In the past, Canon spent ten years researching patent breakthroughs in order to enter the photocopier industry. At the beginning of the printer project, Bentu set up three teams to study the patent, core technology and supply chain. After the project was confirmed feasible, a special development team was established for formal development.
The global financial crisis broke out in 2008, which opened a gap for Bentu in the protection of the steel industry. Under the pressure of operation, some manufacturers have opened the door to business cooperation with Bentu. Grasping this opportunity, Bentu chose to start with more advanced contact development technology, combined with the problems in the printer market and user needs, and absorbed advanced technology for technology and product innovation. Three years later, Bentu finally achieved success.
Behind the chance is necessity. As one of the few enterprises that transmit "manufacturing ambition" to the industry, only by successfully implanting it into the supply chain mind can it become the first one to be remembered when opportunities arise.
In order to protect the fruits of victory, the patent team of more than 80 people set up by the R&D team has important decision-making power, including whether the products can be sold in specific regions. At the same time, in the production control stage, the team also has the right to veto. If it finds that the structural patent has been concerned or sued by the original manufacturer, even if the mold has been opened, it can directly request the production line to be stopped, which is expensive.
In this way, Bentu continued to develop its own patented technology while preventing.
One produced two,two produced three,three produced all things. Following a breakthrough, as of December 31, 2022, Bentu had more than 5600 authorized patents, accounting for more than 60% of invention patents, and gradually created China's first independent intellectual property rights black and white printing master SoC chip, color printing master SoC chip and other technical products.
After self research and technical breakthrough, the next challenge for Bento is commercialization, that is, market problem.
Therefore, Bentu began to seek to create "aha moment" for users.
The so-called "aha moment" comes from the definition of Growth Hacker, a book on Internet experience design, The bright moment when users use the product is named "Aha moment".
The first "aha moment" that Bentu gave users was the function of "one button drive installation". In the past few years, it took more than ten or twenty minutes for any giant to install and drive products. However, this function improvement, which even the R&D team thought was "inexplicable", succeeded in making differentiation and attracted rave reviews. Later, more new functions such as "automatic correction of ID card copying", "automatic deepening of scanning and copying", "Bluetooth fast distribution network" were introduced.
In addition, as the country with the richest and most exquisite Internet experience in the world, Bentu's printers are integrated into the ecology of Internet applications, and cooperate with companies such as Staple, WeChat, JD, and Homework to provide convenient printing services such as print on receive, test paper renovation, wrong question book, and massive learning resources.
In practice, users can directly connect to the printer's Wi Fi hotspot through mobile phone code scanning, and complete printing in 10 seconds without network; Remote printing is also not a problem. Users can use their mobile phones to control their home printers in the office to complete printing jobs.
These seemingly subtle improvements actually help users free themselves from the "big brand trap" and re-examine the real value of a product to themselves.
The industry monopolized by giants is often the hardest hit area of user experience. An industry that only cares about intercepting competitors often turns off the voice of users, which also gives new comers huge market opportunities.
In addition, information security, another hidden pain point of the printer, also provides an opportunity for Bentu to further expand.
In a sense, the printer is a computer, but also a naked electronic product that cannot install anti-virus software.
A paper once recorded several methods of using printers to steal secrets or network attacks. Here are some examples that are easy to understand:
◎ Use the Internet to realize remote printing or shared printing of sensitive materials;
◎ Obtain unprinted confidential documents via intranet;
◎ Use the built-in chip to store confidential information in the printer;
◎ Use door-to-door maintenance to trigger the hiding function and carry out malicious attacks on the office network;
◎ Use printing paper to encrypt and print sensitive information, etc.
In other words, the printer is a time bomb in the office and is often ignored by many people.
Before Bentu, the domestic field was a blank. Bentu's success inspired the possibility of domestic substitution. From government agencies to financial institutions, from commercial enterprises to individual families, all scenarios were opened because of the demand for substitution.
In 2018, Bentu turned losses into gains for the first time, just ten years after the opportunity came. In 2024, Bentu released the first self-developed A3 laser copier. According to the official introduction, this is another technical breakthrough after China broke through A4 laser printer technology and color laser printing technology for the first time in 2010, which also marks that China's printing industry has entered a new era.
epilogue
Bentu's success contains most of the classic elements of the success story of domestic substitution: born in an important industrial chain production center; Has accumulated rich manufacturing foundation; Have reliable industrial cluster advantages; At the same time, with the research spirit of Sun Gong and more exquisite market insight, we can find a breakthrough opportunity in the gap.
However, this is a near death path. From consumables to manufacturing, Bentu is the only one among the tens of thousands of printer related enterprises in Zhuhai, even globally.
"Why Bentu?" I hope we can see the detailed explanation of this story in the next case of business school.
