Deluge of printers from HP

Stephen Withers
Friday, 18 April 2008 05:48

Your IT - Home IT

For most printer vendors, debuting three or four new models at once would be a big deal. But Hewlett-Packard has announced a raft of 18 laser and inkjet printers and multifunction devices that are relevant to markets ranging from the high end of SOHO through SMEs to enterprise customers.

According to Herbert Koeck, vice president, commercial printing at HP's imaging and printing group, a common goal among SMEs is to increase their marketing effectiveness, and ten of the new products have been optimised for the in-house production of marketing materials including brochures and other collateral.

The new laser printers are "the best you can get," he bragged, and give a high-gloss finish at up to half the cost per page delivered by other printer vendors.

To encourage the in-house creation of marketing materials, some the new models are packaged in the Asia Pacific region with a print cost estimator (to help compare the likely cost of a print job allowing for toner coverage with a quote from a print shop), an expanded collection of "professionally styled" templates for various types of collateral, preview software to reduce draft printing by showing the effects of changing various settings, a sample pack of specialised media, a selection of free images from iStockPhoto, and a discount on LogoWorks design services.

The traditional office printing market has not been ignored - HP also unveiled eight new mono LaserJets, including a model rated at 62 pages per minute, the fastest HP has ever offered.