ANTenna Blog -- Hardware & Software

When the going gets tough, the tough... print less. Oh, and they cut back on office supplies, too.

A new a new AMI study, Printing During the Downturn: How the Recession Has Created A Significant Printing Opportunity says 77% of American midsize businesses (companies with 100 to 999 employees)and 47% of small businesses (companies with 1 to 99 employees) have taken measures to reduce office supplies and printing costs. And AMI predicts that small businesses may soon become as stingy as their midsize brethren.

Yikes! They're just figuring all this out?

Anyway, the report is all about how printing vendors can get around the printing cutbacks. But forget that, what about printing users? Anyone who works in a smaller company these days knows that ever since the financial crisis hit last fall, finding a spare pen or new pad of paper is like prospecting for gold.

Per page business printing costs may be going down -- see Why Business Inkjet Printing Is So Cheap -- but in this environment, it remains to be seen whether SMBs will be willing to spend money on equipment now to save money on per-page costs down the road.