HP Launch Print 2.0
Yesterday HP announced their own Autumn line up of new printer hardware, but also revealed their thoughts on how the future of printing will be evolving. Printing for HP is the foundation of their whole business, and generates over 26% of HP’s total quaterly revenues, so what they do now all the others will strive to emulate. However printer demand has been shrinking fast in recent years across most sectors. The growth of MFPs (Multi Function Printers) has slowed from 35.3% in 2004 to 30.5% in 2005 and 19.2% in 2006 according to figures from IDC. Sales of laser MFPs and laser single function printers showed similar trends, while single funtion inkjet printes have suffered worst of all with annual global shipments shrinking by 8.4% in 2004, 9.6% in 2005 and a massive 21.6% in 2006 IDC reported. HP currently holds 55% worldwide share of the Laser Printer market which far surpasses second placed Samsung with 10%. In inkjet machines, HP’s share is 45% compared with second placed Canon with a 26% share.
After Brother, Canon and Epson have all recently announced new printers for the new season, HP have just unveiled a raft of new hardware, which will be available during the next few months here in the UK, but Print 2.0 underpins the whole corporate strategy for their future. Embracing change in the way that people use the internet and also changes in the way that we print HP are seeking to offer all of their users ways to enhance their print experience. Bearing in mind the broad customer base that HP enjoys, and the different demands from their customers they are trying to offer common solutions to everybodies unique printing demands with Print 2.0.
HP say that half of all consumer printing comes from the web, and I guess our own experience bears that out, but small business is also trending in that direction. With more and more content appearing on the internet in the form of Web-based applications such as Google Docs, Web pages and even blogs becoming more important the problem that I am sure we have all experienced is formatting them so that they appear OK when printed.
Print 2.0 is conceived to incorporate various services and solutions designed for their customers which range from the average consumer to small and medium sized business right through to the corporate enterprise. “With Print 2.0 we’re leveraging the power of the Web as a gateway for our customers to communicate, collaborate and publish their content in ways they could not before”, Vyomesh Joshi, executive vice president of HP’s imaging and printing group, said today in a written statement.
With colour printing playing an increasingly important role for small business’s enabling them to produce small runs of very professional documents in house, which in the past would have had to be put out to a printing house, HP have created an SMB community online site designed for small business’s. This is a Portal which will give small business’s a place to create their materials and then print them through the medium of their choice – in house, through a retail outlet or a local commercial print shop.
Probably the biggest change that people will notice over the coming months is the ‘Print It’ Button which will be embedded into web pages. You know the problem, you want to print some content, but when it is outputted there are adverts and big blocks obscuring your text and it runs over several pages. Utilising the ‘Print It’ button will automatically layout the page for best printed appearance and also allow you to edit the output so that you only see what you want. This technology is being actively supported by both Yahoo and Microsoft and here at Stinkyink we will be enabling it as we enhance our own website.
Hewlett-Packard has just launched some good value multi function printers. These are the successors to the CM1015/1017, are available in 2 versions and are already on the market.
