TCPglobal - news, views and issues on total cost of printing

Issue #1005/2 – Following the unrest and strike action by Hewlett-Packard Staff (EDS employees) in the UK and parts of Europe over recent months (see "Hewlett-Packard’s need to return profit is showing cracks"), it is now reported that Hewlett-Packard’s rejection from the public sector bidding list in the UK has been confirmed – despite appealing against the original decision.

Issue #1004/2 – While on the subject of delivery, a couple of packages received recently emphasised one aspect of the product cycle and environmental argument that I suspect is not considered to be as important in certain circles as it should be. With a 16x volume difference for shipping identical products, we analyse the packaging a little further.

Issue #1004/1 – Guess what? A full eight weeks after placing the order for Dell supplies from the Dell website ("Reasons to buy printers from Dell – are there any?"), the order was finally delivered! This is only eight weeks of printer downtime – what is wrong with that? Can you imaging not being able to print an invoice for your customers for eight weeks? Or print a proposal, quotation, business intelligence report, or any number of other business-critical documents for eight weeks? Having just completed a series of articles on the costs associated with unreliability, let’s consider the potential impact of not being able to print for nearly two months.

Issue #0937/2 – As we’re just in the throes of launching into a series of articles on reliability, printer downtime, hassle and customer satisfaction, current experience on buying from Dell is appropriate! While some Dell printers can be less costly to own and operate than other brands, others are not and the whole customer experience angle may not be all that we might desire as Dell takes almost a month to deliver supplies!!

Issue #0937/1 - During a round table session at a recent industry briefing, a guest presenter made that – oh, so classic – comment, “I just want to print”. Although there are many, many different aspects to this simple statement, it often seems as if it just isn’t going to be like that.