[johnminter]

They are quite complex and the consumer versions are commodity items. There are printhead - ink - paper interactions and the electrophotographic process for laser printers requires optimization to print on different media. There are lots of things that can go wrong - and do. I have spent much of my career in an analytical lab analyzing these problems. Such problems raise costs and with commodity items, very high yields are required to be profitable.

Years ago we had a professor (I forget the name) from MIT come to our Research Labs and give a talk on his research. He was using game theory to study product research, development, and manufacturing. When all was said and done, he concluded that if you were not first or second to market, you spent significantly more money to enter the market and your probability of being profitable was much lower.