TEL AVIV (MarketWatch) – A popular riddle these days asks: What’s the most expensive stuff on the planet? The answer is supposed to be printer ink, and while a perfume or other esoteric fluid might actually qualify, there is no arguing that the technological containers take a big bite out of consumer and corporate budgets.
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An Israeli start-up, Preton Ltd., produces a software agent, downloadable to a personal computer or server, that trims unnecessary pixels from all documents—images and text—so printers expel less ink and toner to reproduce them. Preton’s patented Pixel Optimizer system works without reducing the sharpness of the printed documents, said Chief Executive Ori Eizenberg.
These days, everyone assumes that since documents can be instantly transmitted over the Net and cellphones, no one will use printers, Eizenberg said. In fact, “world-wide, 1% to 3% of global revenue goes to printing,” simply because the machines are cheap and literally everywhere, he says.
And there is little point to all that printing, since 70% of printed documents are dumped in the trash within they day they’re printed, he said.
Simple question. Unclear answer.
Eizenberg, 42, founded Preton in 2005. (The name is pronounced PRE-tone and connotes pre-toner technological intervention.) He runs it with Yishai Brafman, chief technology officer, and Boaz Katz, vice president of technology support. The company employs 13 at Tel Aviv headquarters, five in Hong Kong and two in Japan, and it recently opened its U.S. office in Boca Raton, Fla., with one staffer.
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