TORONTO- Hewlett Packard Canada Ltd. is moving into the managed print services market, which it says will provide more opportunities to its resellers.
The company announced its strategy Tuesday in conjunction with the release of several multi-function
products (MFPs).
Key components to HP’s services offering include analysis of current office structure; recommendations for the most effective and productive use of office equipment; implementation of the recommendations; managing of any brand of device; providing on-going support and services; and creating a secure, custom Web portal. Where required, a specially qualified HP professional will be assigned to the company to manage printing and imaging devices.
“”You just can’t replace all the copiers with MFPs. You can’t just replace all the printers with MFPs — it doesn’t do justice to the company’s productivity,”” said Jean-Paul Desmarais, LaserJet and MFP category marketing manager.
Part of the MFP channel strategy includes taking advantage of the converging printer and copier channels. “”This is a unique skill set to help customers properly deploy these products,”” said Desmarais.
“”Printing and photocopying is a big enough expense that it has got the attention of the budget people and they’re looking for anyone who can come out (and tell me) I can save $60 a month by doing all this,”” said Albert Daoust, director of special projects for Toronto-based Evans Research Corp.
“”We like paper. It’s great to touch, but it’s a terrible medium for sharing things on, it’s a terrible medium for sharing information on because you physically have to do things with the paper. All the knowledge, all the value is literally all the information that is on the very top,”” said Desmarais. “”It’s much more flexible when it’s electronic.””
In a survey conducted by Ipsos-Reid, for HP, the research firm said that about 44 per cent of companies surveyed have begun moving to next generation office technology that combines printing and copying in one unit. Another 23 per cent of businesses said they plan on making the switch to multi-function units within the next two years.
New MFPs released by HP include, for the home office, the OfficeJet d155xi, which is a colour flatbed all-in-one unit; the LaserJet 3300, which is a flat-bed mono laser MFP aimed at home office and satellite office environments; the LaserJet 4100MFP (mono laser) and LaserJet 9000, which is a high-performance, wide format MFP released into the shared solutions market. The cc800ps is a large format colour copier with printing and scanning capabilities geared at architects and engineers.
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