Written by Kan Shimizu
The unknown "printer"
A piece of trivia is that the printers and computers we commonly use were invented in the same lab.
In 1971, American engineer Gary Starkwither built the world's first working laser printer in less than nine months at the Palo Alto Research Center, and just 20 years later, it has entered the world's major enterprises and become the most common office equipment.
The Palo Alto Research Center is a mecca for computer technology, and while Starkwither was tinkering with a laser printer, his colleagues tinkered with 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 have a lot of knowledge about computers, and when it comes to printers, there is a lack of knowledge.
In a sense, printers are one of the least known IT devices.
That's right, a printer, like a computer, is an electronic product, or even a computer.
A printer has a main control chip, similar to the CPU of a computer; There is also an operating system in the printer to support multitasking; Some printers also have monitors and even support software installation and internet access.
But it's also much more complicated than a computer.
From the perspective of failure, it can be found that if the computer is broken, it is often the motherboard or system that has a problem, but if the printer is broken, it is often divided into two types: "mechanical failure" and "optical failure".
Industry insiders once described the complexity of laser printers as follows:
"At the moment when the printer feeds the paper for printing, the laser scanning and imaging must work together synchronously, the precision integrated circuit and mechanical control can not be deviated, and the imaging material synthesized by cutting-edge fine chemical technology must also fully match the entire printing process in order to output clear patterns and text."
Because of this, the development of printers can be described as "hellish". Taking the most common laser printer as an example, its technology covers more than ten fields such as precision machinery, fine chemicals, precision optics, electrostatic imaging, integrated circuits, electronic engineering, software engineering, communication engineering, color science, automatic control, and polymer materials.
It is not difficult to understand why the companies that first invented and produced printers have a background in cameras, materials science, and mechanical equipment for decades.
Starting from a life experience, we have seen a lot of people who can repair computers, but it is difficult to find generalists who can repair printers. Because the structure of the printer is complex and the structure of different printers is very different, and the spare parts are basically not universal, the maintenance and replacement of parts often requires external professionals who are familiar with the model to come to the door.
Therefore, if we put the printer at the top of the cast, the script presented in front of our eyes will become: "patent war", "high-end technology war", "innovation war", "security war", if we add a specific location "China", then the story it carries is more dramatic - domestic substitution.
"Impenetrable walls"
In 2019, China was already one of the world's leading printer producers, with one out of every 2.5 printers in the world being made in China.
Like many manufacturing fields, in the global industrial division of labor system, printer companies in China are basically at the end of the industrial chain, such as the core components of printers, inkjet heads and engines, laser drums and important components are basically imported from abroad, and only peripheral components are mostly processed in China.
Workers produce printer laser light guide drums
There is a stuck neck, and naturally there are people with lofty ideals who are ready to move, hoping to rely on the accumulation of manufacturing experience for many years, so as to further climb up the industrial chain until the realization of domestic substitution.
But in the field of printers, this road is particularly difficult to follow.
According to statistics, there are hundreds of thousands of printer-related patents in the world, most of which are applied by American and Japanese companies, and there are still more than 200,000 patents in force.
200,000 vs. 2 is a typical conspiracy between giants.
According to reports, many patents have little to do with technological innovation, and some are just technical control methods in some specific scenarios.
For example, for automatic double-sided printing of the total number of pages of the document, some companies have applied for a patent for "treating the last page as a single-sided print", while others have applied for "inserting a blank page at the end of the document in advance, and the last page is also double-sided printing".
Although this kind of "redundant" patent is ridiculous, it has formed a culture and value that in the printer industry, the pioneer takes all, and no one wants to break this rule.
In Japan, for example, Sharp considered selling the copier business (which crosses many printer technologies) to Samsung, but was pressured by other manufacturers in the country to abandon it.
After the patent barrier was built, the giants built a hardware wall on the outside. The "maintenance dilemma" we mentioned just now, in addition to the complex disciplinary background, also stems from the monopoly of giants on the manufacture of core components.
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 cook without rice.
For latecomers, because China is on the edge of the division of labor system, the number of parts of a laser printer is more than 1,000, and the key components, printer manufacturers usually develop and produce their own products, or cooperate with foreign suppliers who have signed exclusive agreements to develop and produce. There are also opportunities for patent walls to come out, and the components themselves will come with a lot of patent protection.
The impenetrable patent walls and supply chain barriers paid off, and printers became an industry that hadn't been entered by a new company for 25 years.
Laser printers were popularized in the eighties and nineties of the last century, and no one has entered for 25 years, suggesting a plot trend, and more than ten years ago, someone successfully broke through.
Spoiler the ending below: In 2010, Pantum Electronics from Zhuhai manufactured 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: In 2017, HP acquired Samsung's printer business, and the only countries that have mastered the core technology of printers are China, the United States, and Japan.
In the 1980s, the first printing consumables factory in China was established in Zhuhai, which led to the vigorous development of the upstream and downstream industrial chains, and Zhuhai slowly developed into a "printing consumables capital".
Pantum's experience is also typical in that it has not only achieved technological breakthroughs, but also won commercial success.
Twelve years after the release of self-developed laser printers, the top four manufacturers in global laser printer shipments in 2022 are HP (USA), Brother (Japan), Canon (Japan), and Pantum (China).
Two major breakout battles
Looking back at Pantum's experience, there are two key points, one is related to technology and the other is related to the market.
When talking about technology, you can't get around the patent wall.
In the past, in order to enter the photocopier industry, Canon spent ten years researching patent breakthroughs. At the beginning of the printer project, Pantum set up three teams for patent, core technology, and supply chain to conduct research respectively, and only after confirming the feasibility of the project did a special development team be set up for formal development.
The outbreak of the global financial crisis in 2008 opened a hole for Pantum in the protection of the steel plate industry. Some manufacturers are forced to open the entrance to business cooperation with Pantum due to business pressure. Seizing this opportunity, Pantum chose to start with more advanced contact development technology, combined with the problems existing in the printer market and user needs, absorbed advanced technology and product innovation, and finally achieved success after three years.
Behind chance is inevitability. As one of the few companies that transmits "manufacturing ambition" to the industry, it is only by successfully implanting it in the supply chain mentality that it can be the first to be remembered when the opportunity arises.
In order to protect the fruits of victory, the patent team of more than 80 people formed by the R&D team has important decision-making power, including whether the product can be sold in a specific region. At the same time, in the production control stage, the team also has a veto power, if it is found that the patent on the structure has been concerned or sued by the original manufacturer, even if the mold has been opened, it can directly request the shutdown of the line, which is very costly.
In this way, Pantum continues to develop its own patented technology while preventing it.
One life is two, two is three, and three is everything. As of December 31, 2022, Pantum has more than 5,600 authorized patents, accounting for more than 60% of invention patents, and has gradually created China's first black-and-white printing main control SoC chip with independent intellectual property rights, color printing main control SoC chip and other technical products.
After achieving self-research and technological breakthroughs, the next problem for Pantum is commercialization, that is, market problems.
As a result, Pantum began to seek to create an "aha moment" for users.
The so-called "aha moment" comes from the definition of "growth hacking", a book on Internet experience design, which names the moment when users use the product as "aha moment".
The first "aha moment" that Pantum gives users is the function of "one-click driver installation", and in the past few years, it has taken more than ten or twenty minutes to install the driver for any giant's product. However, this functional improvement, which even the R&D team found to be "inexplicable", successfully differentiated itself and attracted rave reviews. Subsequently, more new functions such as "automatic deviation correction of ID card copying", "automatic deepening of scanning and copying", and "Bluetooth fast networking" have been launched one after another.
In addition, as the country with the richest and most delicate Internet experience in the world, Pantum's printers are integrated into the ecology of Internet applications, and cooperate with DingTalk, WeChat, JD.com, Homework Bang and other companies to provide convenient printing services such as instant printing, refurbished test papers, wrong question books, and massive learning resources.
In practice, users can scan the code through their mobile phones to connect directly, and in the absence of a network, connect to the printer's Wi-Fi hotspot in 10 seconds to complete printing; Remote printing is not a problem, and users can use their mobile phones to control the home printer to complete the printing job.
These seemingly subtle improvements actually help users free themselves from the "big brand trap" and re-examine the true value of a product to themselves.
Industries monopolized by giants are often the hardest hit areas of user experience, and an industry that only cares about intercepting competitors often turns off the voice of users, which also gives newcomers huge market opportunities.
In addition, another hidden pain point of the printer, information security, also provides an opportunity for PANTUM to further grow.
In a sense, a printer is a computer, and it is also a streaking electronic product that cannot install antivirus software.
In a paper, several methods of using printers to steal or cyber attacks were documented, but here are a few easy to understand:
◎ Use the Internet to realize remote printing or shared printing of sensitive materials;
◎ Use the intranet to obtain confidential documents that have not been printed;
◎ Use the built-in chip to store confidential information in the printer;
◎ Use on-site maintenance to trigger the hidden function and carry out malicious attacks on the office network;
◎ Use printing paper to encrypt and print sensitive information, etc.
In other words, printers are a ticking time bomb in the office that is often overlooked by many people.
Before Pantum, the domestic field was a blank here, and the success of Pantum stimulated the possibility of domestic substitution, from government agencies to financial institutions, from commercial enterprises to individual families, all scenarios were opened up by the demand for substitution.
In 2018, Pantum turned losses into winners for the first time, just ten years after the moment of opportunity. In 2024, Pantum will release its first fully self-developed A3 laser copier. According to the official introduction, this is the first breakthrough in China's A4 laser printer technology and color laser printing technology in 2010, and it also marks that China's printing industry has entered a new era.
epilogue
The success of Pantum contains most of the classic elements of the success story of domestic substitution: it was born in an important industrial chain production center; Accumulated a rich manufacturing base; It has the advantage of reliable industrial clusters; At the same time, with the research spirit of the day arch and more delicate market insight, we can find opportunities for breakthroughs in the gaps.
But this is a road of life and death, from consumables to manufacturing, among the thousands of printer-related enterprises in Zhuhai, and even from a global perspective, there is only one company in Pantum.
"Why Pentu?" Hopefully, next time in the case of the business school, we will see a detailed explanation of this story.