Update: HP adds copiers, digital pen to printer lineup

Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) hopes to duplicate its successes in the printer market with plans Tuesday to announce three new combination copier and printer devices for business customers, alongside new forms automation and printer management software.

The new devices mark HP’s entry into the copier market, building off its successful line of enterprise printers, with the introduction of the HP LaserJet 9055, 9065 and 9085, the Palo Alto, California, company said at Comdex in Las Vegas.

HP is calling the new devices “multifunction products,” or MFPs, since they are based on copier technology but also allow users to print documents off a network, said Greg Wallace, vice president of marketing for the commercial side of HP’s printing and imaging group.

The 9055 and 9065 are designed for workgroup and departmental use, Wallace said. The 9055 can process 55 pages per minute, and costs $18,000, while the 9065 can print or copy 65 pages per minute for $25,000. Both prices reflect base configurations of the printers, which are available immediately.

The 9085 is more of a production level printer for high-volume jobs or specialized documents, Wallace said. It can handle 85 pages per minute, and a base configuration costs $37,000, he said. The 9085 won’t be available until March because it takes time for HP and its customers to integrate a printer the size of the 9085 into a company’s network, although HP is selling the printer as of Tuesday, he said.

Customers who wish to purchase any of the new printers will be required to sign a minimum two-year services contract, Wallace said. Those services can be supplied either directly through HP, through the company’s new service provider Ikon Office Solutions Inc., or other regional partners, he said.

The new printers are part of HP’s overall strategy to help customers consolidate the number of printers on their networks, and reduce their overall costs by improving the software that remotely manages their printers over the networks, Wallace said.

One customer, National Semiconductor Corp., was able to reduce the number of printers on its network from 300 to 136 after working with HP to identify areas in which it could consolidate its equipment, said Katherine Roth, a senior manager in the Santa Clara, California, company’s IS infrastructure group.

Improving its printer management software also helped National Semiconductor reduce the number of weekly trouble tickets related to printers from 100 a week to 15 a week, allowing IT personnel to focus on other tasks, she said.

HP also introduced technology designed to help businesses reduce the costs of form processing. The HP Forms Automation System prints out a company’s forms on special paper that allows information to be digitally captured when a customer fills out the form using a special digital pen. That information can than be uploaded directly to a database without the need for manual data entry, HP said.

The form is printed out onto standard copy paper using a special dithering technique that prints a special series of dots that resemble colors that can be read by the digital pen, Wallace said.

The software fills out the standard portions of the form that are already present in the database, such as the customer’s name, address or telephone number, Wallace said. This allows the customer just to fill out the portions of the form unique to that transaction using the digital pen, which can read the new information against the special background laid down by the printer, he said.

Financial institutions, health-care providers, and insurance companies are expected to be the primary markets for the forms automation software, Wallace said. For a 10,000 user deployment, the software costs $45,000, and each digital pen costs $200, an HP spokeswoman said.

Each transaction made using the digital pen and forms automation software will cost the customer $0.20, compared to current form costs of about $0.90 a transaction, the HP spokeswoman said.

The forms automation software can be used only on select HP LaserJet printers, Wallace said. Customers using the currently available LaserJet 4600 can install the software, and HP will soon introduce the LaserJet 3500 and LaserJet 3700, which can also use the software, in Europe and Asia, Wallace said. The 3500 and 3700 will be available in the U.S. in early 2004, the HP spokeswoman said.

In addition, HP released the next version of the company’s printer management software, HP Web JetAdmin 7.5. The software links to HP’s System Insight Manager server management software, and helps customers reduce help desk costs, HP said.