Color-Blind? They're practically giving away color laser printers, but watch out for those toner prices.

Hard to believe, but there was a time when color laser printerscost $10,000 to $25,000. You really needed to be a graphic artsfirm to justify that kind of expense. But today, just about anyhome office can afford an even better printer. Color lasers arepopping up like eggs at Easter, with price tags as low as $400.

Of course, we're so accustomed to getting more for less inevery office product category that it's easy to overlook themagnitude of the accomplishment. But clearly, some kind ofaffordability threshold has been reached, and everything is comingup color.

"Around here, we use the analogy of a dam breaking,"says Vince Ferraro, vice president of Hewlett-Packard'sbusiness imaging and printing division in Boise, Idaho."That's how fast people are buying inexpensive colorlasers."