HP Stops Selling Printers, Starts Selling Prints

An anonymous reader writes "HP has launched a new line of business printers but there's a big catch — you won't be able to buy one. For the first time in history, the company will make customers purchase printing services, rather than the product itself. At its biggest printer launch since the LaserJet in 1984, HP's new business-class Edgeline printers will only be available through a managed services contract. Pricing will be per page, depending on the quality of the printout. Edgeline technology is said to be so ink-efficient that if HP were to sell these printers, they would never match the money they make from consumables (cartridges etc) now."

Comments

Misleading Summary Title

[EveryNickIsTaken]

So, they're not stopping selling printers, they've just released a new line of contracted/leased service printers. Nice work.

Re:Misleading Summary Title

[gEvil (beta)]

Chalk another one up to Zonkism.

Re:Misleading Summary Title

[shaitand]

'True, it would be stupid to stop selling printers anyway. A printer in which I don't get a print in less than a few minutes isn't very useful to me.'

You do still get the print right away. The printer is physically present in your business but you pay a lease and pay for each page you print.

Re:Misleading Summary Title

[iamhassi]

"A printer in which I don't get a print in less than a few minutes isn't very useful to me."

Did you RTFA? This is the technology we read on /. oh so long ago:
"new Memjet technology can print 60 full-color pages per minute. Instead of having a print head that moves side to side like current inkjets, the print head spans the full width of the page."

From TFA:
"Edgeline uses a page-wide stationary print-head, decreasing wear and tear by removing contact with the paper."

Here's an amazing (unbelievable?) video of the Memjet printer in action
I've been waiting for this ever since I heard of it: All the photographic quality of a inkjet with faster speeds than laser printers and saving ink to boot. Very disappointed we won't see it at home now, but it's only a matter of time before it filters down.

Re:Misleading Summary Title

[Ewan]

On our managed printers, an engineer pops in every month or so to do a 10 minute long "service check", and while he's blowing the dust out of the paper feeders he checks the internal counters, then you get a bill for your months usage. Go long enough without the scheduled checks, and the printer shuts itself off.

Re:How innovative

[Anonymous Coward]

It will still be the same third party companies supporting these printers. They will just be "Authorized HP Printer Service Representatives."

Re:Bad Headline

[SQLGuru]

That's part of the business model of printers these days. Provide a subsidy on the hardware and make it up in consumables (ink, paper, etc.). Keep in mind, that printer that is cheaper than new ink cartridges only comes with "starter" cartridges which hold less ink than the normal ones. So, it might be cheaper, but you also get less ink (and therefore have to replace more frequently). But, you can probably make up the difference by selling the older printer on eBay or something.

I'd like to see the profit point on printers. How many ink cartridges do I have to buy for them to make up the loss on the hardware? Do companies plan for that payback over time? What is their estimate on how long it takes?

Layne

HP doing what Xerox has done for years, Woo!

[spun]

That's news you can use! Thanks Zonk, and thanks for the oh-so-accurate headline. Come on, the only news here is that HP is so late to the game when almost every other big player has offered both options for years.

Re:HP doing what Xerox has done for years, Woo!

[Hes Nikke]

technically, HP has been in the pay per print (we call them clicks) business for years. now they're just moving it down to slight lower end hardware that isn't running 18 hours a day.

Xerox Document Center already does this...

[happy_place]

Xerox has a system that charges businesses per page... It's called their document center, we have one where I work... and you don't own the printers, etc... and you get yelled at by the boss if you print anything in color... Imo, This is really just HP attempting to play catchup. --Ray

Why? Simple

[Master of Transhuman]

The OfficeJet 6310 has SEVEN HUNDRED FIFTY MEGABYTES of support software for it. It installs a DOZEN or more drivers on your machine, some of which appear to PORT SCAN the ENTIRE PORT RANGE OVER AND OVER, with others that will peg your CPU at 100%.

Obviously this new line of HP junk has so much crap associated with it that it can't even fit on a DVD, so they have to sell it as a managed service since no ordinary IT user could possibly control this POS.

I can no longer recommend HP to anyone. Buy Epson, folks. HP is done. Put a fork in it.