HP’S E-PRINT STRATEGY: Life Beyond the Printer

They were men in black. They lined up in front of the media

assembled, to mourn. And writ large on their T-shirts was: "The Printer is

Dead". This comes from none other than the world’s leading printer

manufacturer, Hewlett-Packard. In what is seen as part of HP’s

"reinventing printing" initiative, the company is making a paradigm

shift from product selling to e-services. It also launched its printing

e-services division for the APAC region in Singapore recently.

Accordingly, HP’s vision for the future of the printer is

made up of a three-pronged IT ecosystem in which the printer plays a vital role.

Divided into three main parts (information appliances, always-on infrastructure

and printing e-services), HP’s new drive is towards orienting its future

developments in keeping with these three ecosystems. The company will achieve

this through a combination of strategic alliances, new print appliances and

technology investments. This, it hopes, will ultimately create an e-services

ecosystem that will transform the printer from a mere peripheral attached to a

PC into a dynamic service provider. With this, HP is trying to make the concept

of "print all" a reality, including printing of documents such as

passports and stamps. According to IDC, printing e-services is likely to help

the print and imaging market grow from $40 billion to $130 billion in the next

three years.

The company has started focusing on building solutions for

verticals, rather than pushing boxes or product modifications, parallel with its

new strategy. The key printing solutions identified so far have been in the

areas of financial and banking services, insurance, networking and telecom, and

manufacturing. Solutions such as those for printing e-forms, cheque printing,

barcode printing, megatrack printing, cluster printing and host printing are

some of the solutions available presently in these verticals.

Stating that the "information appliance is born",

Joergen Jakobsen, VP and GM, imaging and print systems, APAC, said, "We

would be having Internet-based services that will make us more productive, and

help turn the printer into a ticket office, postage station or business

information delivery appliance." For example, a tele-worker can send

documents via the Internet to be printed, bound and sent to a client the next

day. As part of its new strategy, HP will build the infrastructure in support of

open standards, enable existing appliances to become "service delivery

platforms", fuel the creation of new appliances and partner with those who

can enhance document workflow.

"On the imaging and printing systems, the three areas of

Internet enabling will include intelligent Internet-enabled appliances,

Internet-enabled infrastructure and Internet-enabled services," says

Jakobsen. HP is investing in projects to design and optimize appliances to

capitalize on the benefits of the Internet, develop "always on"

solutions such as management, tracking and security, both internally and with

partners, and to create and further develop relationships with partners.

The partnership programs are being strengthened by HP’s

JetCaps, which stands for corporate account printing solutions. It is a

comprehensive set of solutions specially designed to add value and functionality

to the HP LaserJet printers The company has global tie-ups with organizations

with domain knowledge expertise for each vertical. With this program, HP

presently offers solutions such as print brokering and remote device usage

tracking. For example, a person who is travelling needs to print a document for

use in an upcoming presentation. A printing e-service is easily available on the

Web and collects parameters for the print request. The service finds the best

printer to accomplish the task, based on the customer’s input. What actually

happens is that behind the scenes, the job gets brokered and the customer is

provided with the top choices.

"We are now focusing on four major trends in the

printing ecosystem. These are: eDistributed Print, eSecurity, eTrack and high

performance printing system," says Ah-Beng Tan, solutions marketing

manager, APAC imaging and printing systems, HP. The cheque printing solution

based on the magnetic ink character recognition method is a case in point. One

of the major problems encountered by banks has been their inability to handle

high volumes of cheques on a daily basis, without compromising on security. The

HP JetCaps MICR cheque printing kit helps a customer print a cheque book on

demand. These solutions, offered with most of HP’s laserjet printers, issue

cheques from multiple accounts on a single sheet and prints cheques with

accompanying letters to simply the mailing process.

Following the launch of the e-services program for APAC,

Nitin Hiranandani, marketing development manager, commercial  hardcopy and

computer products, HP India, says, "Our focus for the Indian market will be

on offering customized solutions in key verticals rather than selling end-to-end

solutions." HP India has identified the financial and banking sector,

extended manufacturing industry and networking and telecom services as key

verticals in the country. Solutions such as cluster printing, SAP printing and

office environment printing will be actively marketed in future.

HP has identified specialized sales groups for each vertical

and is setting up a technical consulting organization to package the right

solutions to the industry requirements, with a bunch of domain knowledge

experts. HP is also in the process of setting up "proof-of-concept"

centers in the major metros in India to showcase the technological innovations

and demonstrate how the technology works for the customers. The company is

working closely with the customers in verticals such as banking and

manufacturing to offer the solutions relevant to the customers. The printing

paradigm is happening, and the new message HP is printing is: HP wants to be

there.

AKILA SUBRAMANIAM



in Singapore