Way back in the late 1990’s, Kodak and Lexmark used to be buddies. Lexmark made photo printers that had Kodak’s name on them and all was fine and dandy. Well, it turns out that partnership amounted to a whole lot of nothing and they stopped making printers together.

Now, with Kodak’s announcement that they will be selling really cheap ink cartridges, they have become Lexmark’s arch enemy. Lexmark’s spokesman said “there is nothing revolutionary in the Kodak announcement.” That sounds kind of petty considering Kodak announced they would be selling something at half the price that everyone sells it at. If that doesn’t qualify as a least a little revolutionary, then I don’t know what does. It’s not like Lexmark’s been blowing our socks off lately with their announcements.

Lexmark is mad because they have the most to lose. Kodak is focused on selling all-in-one machines, which is the area that Lexmark has decided to focus on lately. Lexmark hasn’t been doing too hot lately and they will always be behind HP, Canon and Epson in terms of market share and quality. So they are afraid that if someone goes into a store and has to chose between a Lexmark and a Kodak, they will chose a Kodak, even if it is a little more expensive. Lexmark claims that Kodak is just ripping you off with a “prepaid” model where customers “pay a substantial premium and put more money in their pocket more quickly whether you use more ink or not.” It’s true that the Kodak printers will cost a little bit more, but not substantially more. Unless you plan on junking the printer after one set of ink cartridges (which, by the way, some people do with Lexmark printers because the ink is so expensive) you will definitely save with a Kodak printer in the long run. Of course, all this is assuming that the discounted Kodak cartridges will be equal in size and quality to cartridges from the other main printer manufacturers. We shall see.

Lexmark, Kodak aren’t so cozy now [Kentucky.com]