01732 759725
Print.IT Reseller
30
interview
HP still has
work to do
in educating
the business
community
about the
merits of
business inkjets
HP Officejet Pro
8610: driving down
the cost of print in
small businesses
HP Flow MFPs have
high speed, dual
head scanners and
large touchscreens
for easy scan
routing
managed print service customers, with the
HP Officejet Enterprise Colour MFP X585
and the HP Officejet Enterprise Colour
X555.
Suitable for workgroups of 5-15 people
printing up to 6,000 pages a month,
these new devices have the same cost
and productivity advantages as other
HP business inkjets, but with the added
benefit of enterprise-grade security, fleet
management and mobile printing options.
They have the same user interface as 12
million HP Enterprise Laserjet printers
and come with HP Laserjet FutureSmart
firmware and the HP Open Extensibility
Platform (OXP), which enables solutions
like HP Access Control and HP Capture &
Route to be accessed through the device.
The multifunctional model is available
in a scan-optimised HP Flow bundle
featuring a dual-head scanner and
best-in-class scanning features for faster,
more accurate scanning and document
processing.
For Tierney, these new products
represent a real challenge to the status
quo and run counter to what many
businesses have been taught.
“The big innovation in office printing
has been bringing ink into the enterprise,”
he said. “It started with the Officejet
Pro X and, this year, with the OfficeJet
Enterprise platform, we are bringing ink
into enterprise-type environments. This
isn’t intuitive to a lot of people, as for
years most people have been trying to take
ink out of their business and move into
departmental laser MFPs.”
While HP still has work to do in
educating the business community about
the merits of business inkjets, Tierney says
that the results so far have been very
encouraging.
“The Officejet Pro X was released last
February and in calendar Q4 it got to 10%
market share in the small work team laser
segment. If it was its own vendor it would
have been number four in the market
from a standing start in February. We were
number one with colour laser and the
Officejet Pro X would have been number
4. If we achieve our share goal in 2014 the
Pro X, on its own, will be number 2 to HP
Laserjet.”
Add in Flow MFP features, says Tierney,
and these device have even more potential
to disrupt existing models.
“OfficeJet Enterprise and Pro X are
really disruptive technologies that change
the dynamic of the laser MFP market. If
we are right and scanning becomes more
central to the way people work today,
spending time at the device scanning
versus printing, I think it is going to break
the model of ‘let’s consolidate everything
down to one big A3 device at the end of
a floor’. Getting functionality back closer
to users, in smaller groups, a more shared
environment but not having to make the
trade-off in cost: that’s the beauty of what
we think the ink in the Officejet Enterprise
does. It brings that high end Laserjet
functionality at a cost per page that was
never available on a laser device of a
comparable size.”
The cloud and MPS
Another area in which the cloud is having
an impact is managed print services (MPS),
as it makes it possible for HP channel
partners to build a flexible MPS offering
utilising HP’s own MPS infrastructure.
“We’ve been investing a lot in our
partner MPS capability, making it more
modular, more flexible, making it very
simple for people to design a fleet, price
the fleet, sell the fleet, close the deal
and move on. That continues to be a big
investment area for us. Our focus is on
simplifying the business model and making
it more modular. If someone just wants
access to our model – this is where the
cloud comes in – they can create a cloud-
delivered billing engine that they plug their
devices into and it handles the controls,
the mechanisms, the servicing on their
behalf. They own it and they control it, but
it's in our environment. Or you can choose
to have our billing engine with our services
and our toner fulfilment and our other
pieces added in. Or you can have variations
between the two. That will continue to be
our big focus area. We continue to spend a
lot of time with UK partners in developing
that channel,” Tierney said.
For the time being, he said that
HP would continue to have an open
distribution model in Europe, unlike the
more selective system in the US, but he
intimated that this could change in line
with changes in technology and buying
habits.
“I think it’s going to evolve; whether
it's a huge dynamic change or not, it’s
going to change. Value added resellers,
retailers, online players all have very
different business models. There are certain
products you don’t want people to buy in
an online environment. There are certain
products people won’t want to buy in a
retail environment. So at some level you
have to provide the right products, for
the right customers, through the right
channels,” he said.
Tierney added: “We are convinced that
over the next few years, the way people
buy equipment or services or supplies is
going to fundamentally shift and change,
and we want to make sure we have the
assets to address it.”
...continued
