Hewlett-Packard hits print button on new products
Nov 14, 2012 (Menafn - The Idaho Statesman - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --Hewlett-Packard Co. has no shortage of new printer products hitting the market.
The company will introduce 10 printers -- some that can hold printing information in a special queue or in a cloud -- through this year.
In the first half of 2013, HP will introduce an inkjet printer for less than 1,000, aimed at small and medium-size businesses, that is capable of pumping out 70 pages a minute at about half the per-page cost of most printers.
In all of the new products, the HP campus on Chinden Boulevard in Boise played a "critical" role, said Will Barnard, manager of LaserJet and enterprise future products marketing.
"All the LaserJet engineering has happened here," Barnard said.
HP invited technology writers and other media from around the nation on Tuesday to preview some of its new products -- the highest number of new multifunction-printer products the company has rolled out in six years. Multifunction printers can scan, copy, fax, email and send documents to electronic storage.
Barnard said design work done in Boise factors into the company's goal of building its business around reducing the paperwork that still overflows many offices; solving security problems with documents; and helping companies benefit from cloud computing, which allows businesses to print documents anywhere in the world.
The new printers are better designed to catch every sheet of paper and to alert you to misfeeds. And if you put a document in upside down, the printer turns the copy right side up.
HP has a smaller share of the market for multifunctional printers than some competitors, said Von Hansen, manager of the Boise site. But the market is growing.
"There is a lot of potential for HP in this marketplace," Hansen said. "People are seeing the ability to take the document and scan those documents into the cloud. And being able to print them when you want them is just very, very powerful."
The new printers come as the larger company struggles. HP is eliminating 29,000 jobs through buyouts, attrition and layoffs as Meg Whitman, CEO since mid-2011, seeks to right the ship. Until last spring, HP employed about 350,000 people, including about 4,000 in Boise.
The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company has lost most of its market value in recent years because of strategic decisions that turned sour. The company fired CEO Carly Fiorina in 2005. Fiorina was succeeded first by Mark Hurd, then by Leo Apotheker, then by Whitman. The company reported an 8.9 billion loss in its most recent quarter.
Local HP officials won't comment on job cuts.
"Boise is a strong site for HP," Hansen said.
Boise's HP campus is known for developing the laser printer, its most successful product line. The campus is also home to the company's tech support for the U.S. Navy worldwide and for managed-print services, which help companies achieve better control over printing and the handling of electronic documents.
The managed-print services unit has developed programs that keep sensitive documents from spitting out of printers, leaving them vulnerable to viewing by people who shouldn't see them. One program allows someone to send a document to a printer queue, where it is held until an employee flashes a badge in front of the printer showing that the employee has the authority to print the document.
Managed-print services is also working to reduce paper congestion. HP has a contract with DreamWorks that helped the movie studio put all of its contracts for toys and other merchandise based on its movies into electronic form. The documents are easier to retrieve and to update, and the result is that contract approval time is cut by about a third, said Michael Turner, who oversees managed-print services.
The division has notched 9 billion in contracts over the past five years, Turner said.
Bill Roberts: 377-6408, Twitter: @IDS_BillRoberts
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