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He described the overall UK picture for the printer market as 'stagnant', and as 'reaching saturation point'. But the increased performance and decreasing prices of colour laser printers means they are an increasingly attractive proposition to SMEs looking to save money by doing more print jobs in-house.

'The market is now ready to take off,' he said.

He predicts that while today you can pick up a 16ppm colour laser for around £1,200, by 2007 that figure will have moved to £700 for

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a printer churning through 36ppm.

And over that period he expects shipments to increase 34 per cent every year, and sales to pick up 36 per cent every year.

He said that the small print houses will start to feel the pressure as the shift gets underway, although he added 'We are never going to print all our prints in house', as the quality, speed and specialised finishing that some print jobs require will always demand specialist attention.

However, he said many firms, however tempted by the decreasing costs of hardware, still have concerns over the actual costs of colour printing and the expertise needed to manage it in-house.

To address this, Oki has released its PrintWizard software suite which guides users through the process of many standard print jobs in simple steps and includes software that can monitor, authorise and cost printing activities.

It's current a Windows-only version. A spokesperson told us that Mac users are generally more astute when it comes to printer management as it is the standard platform for many design-led vocations.