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

Issue #0933/2 – Hewlett-Packard is in acquisition mode again, announcing this week that it has reached agreement with 3Com for a purchase to the value of $2.7billion. While Hewlett-Packard’s largest business is now the Personal Systems Group, rather than the Imaging and Systems Group, as it used to be, and 3Com is a network switching, routing and security solutions company, the purchase does potentially have implications to Hewlett-Packard’s printing business.

Issue #0932/1 – More details have also emerged since the publication of last week’s article ("New Lexmark inkjet range looks very promising for homes and businesses"), regarding Lexmark’s inkjet AiO web-enabled touch screen configuration and its capabilities, particularly with regard to the SmartSolutions. Directly targeting remote fleets belonging to companies with outbound and tele-workers, the inkjet models with the touch screen provide some remarkable facilities and functionality for both remote worker and office-based IT staff. Truly revolutionary!

Issue 0930/1 – Lexmark has also introduced a large number of new inkjet models to market in recent weeks and, like Hewlett-Packard, is attempting to inject a degree of inventive naming into the mix. With all products built on the same print engine and offering exactly the same print speed, all models are built for business use of some sort, whether home office or professional business, indicating a major departure from tradition for Lexmark on several fronts. High-end specifications are high and functionality is extensive.

Issue 0926/1 – Related to the recent article "Hewlett-Packard plugs the gap – Extended alliance with Canon brings MFP hardware to bolster expanding Hewlett-Packard MPS offering", Hewlett-Packard admits that the traditional hardware sales model will no longer work and that the company must do whatever it can to access pages rather than printers. It is the migration from analogue to digital that has prompted this reappraisal of the marketing approach needed but why has the electronic age actually resulted in a rise in the number of pages being printed when we are told that we are supposed to be expecting a paperless environment?

Issue #0925/1 – Making the most significant announcement in some time, Hewlett-Packard revealed plans earlier this week to enable a more thorough Managed Print Services (MPS) offering – through an extended alliance with Canon for use of MFP hardware, which finally plugs the yawning gap in Hewlett-Packard’s printer and MFP hardware line-up, and the creation of a range of on-board MFP solutions designed to streamline and enhance the digital workflow in the enterprise.