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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."
"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." So they've innovated their way out of their own ability to gouge their customers? My heart bleeds...
Many businesses have been getting printers they way for a long time. The only difference is that this time it's the printer manufacturer that's getting the service contract, and not some third party company. In my opinion, this makes perfect sense. The company who made the product is probably the one most qualified to fix and service it. Granted, you probably won't be able to shop around, because if you want that printer, there's no competition, but you'll still be able to compare with other printer brands.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
All printers are sold at a loss. Money is made on ink cartridges. This decision just carries it to the logical extreme.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
Yeah, communism rules comrade. There are tons of North Korean printer companies producing printers better than Edgeline that you can buy, not rent.
Seriously, HP did the R&D to make this thing so they dictate the terms. Don't like the leasing arrangement? Don't lease one.
Actually, this is a business class printer, not a home printer.
Which means it's not such a bad decision - businesses seem to like things like this, where the only responsibility to them is to have static per-page cost of the printer.
34486853790
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I've handled printing/copy contracts and also purchases.
Service is great if you don't want the headache of maintaining the equipment.
Products are great if you don't want want to wait on someone to fix it.
This is leasing vs. purchasing. It's more expensive to lease, but allows for less headaches.
To each their own. I think it's a smart financial move with HP. I don't purchase the printers required to print my photography prints.
Nice "editing", Zonk. I hope Slashdot is paying you what you're worth.
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E pluribus sanguinem
COMPANY: Our technology is so good we can't even sell it. But of course if you are willing to pay a premium we might consider it....
COSTOMER: Oh, wow. This shit has to be good if they can't sell it. We have to see if HP will sell it to _us_. We'll even offer them to pay extra.
COMPANY: Suckers...!
Reminds of when I went shopping for cars with my uncle in Odessa, Ukraine. This guy was selling used cars. At the end of the lot he had a car covered under a sheet. My uncle asks, what's model you have there. He said "That's not for sale." He then proceeded to tell us how that was a special model blah blah blah. Then my uncle talked him into selling it, payed extra for the 'special' features. Then as we drove away it, the salesman took the sheet and put it on the car right next to it. Seems like HP is doing the same thing here...
Why free enterprise DOES work:
Another company will come out with a similarly efficient printer that they WILL sell, and HP won't get squat.
+0 Meh
HP is allowed to sell their goods any way they wish. That is capitalism at work.
The catch is, so are their competitors.
How long before you see a Lexmark with this exact same technology at work? Do you think they'll go on a services model? Do you think absolutely everyone in the market will? Even the guys in China?
And when someone finally does start selling the same printer technology rather than leasing it, what will HP have to do to keep up?
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Or rather that they've released a line of printer where they've stopped hiding the monthly charges in the "ink costs".
Maybe the problem with the thing is that it takes significant maintenance support. Xerox copiers and printers back in the selenium drum era were leased, because they cost so much and required considerable skilled maintenance. If this new technology has that problem, a lease-only approach at introduction makes sense.
I'd be willing to bet that they have it in mind to avoid the competition to future models that this model represents.
For example, I'd have a quite nice office class networked, duplexing, HP laserjet 4si printer nestled under my desk at home. It's a 200lb beast that keeps on printing. The $100 cartridges last a year. I got it for $200 off ebay and $50 for a service kit. To buy something similar new would cost me $4-$5k. I expect that it will keep going for years.
Just as test equipment manufacturers know about their old scopes, HP knows that one of it's biggest competitors is not other printer manufacturers, but the installed base of high quality, high reliability, maintainable workhorse printers they sold in the past.
Leasing printing services rather than selling printers means they never suffer from this new model surviving 15 years down the road, competing with their new new model.
Evil people are out to get you.
Because most people won't bother to search out the cost per page printed over the life of the printer. They'll see one printer for $599 and one for $1599 and buy the cheap one. It's the same principle as the "Bad security products drive out good security products" story that posted a couple hours ago.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
TFA didn't say that, and I don't see any source for it. What TFA did say was that it will "lower colour operating costs by up to 30 percent".
30% isn't exactly enough to make inkjet cartridge sales worthless, now is it?
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
When one makes a strong - almost commanding - declaration such as that, he should at least have the courtesy to support his statement with a fact or two.
"Tu fui, ego eris" - Virgil
Better society? Are you kidding me? You're expecting a printer company to go out and better society? Before you start frothing at the mouth at the 'capitalist pigs' trying to make money on their products, consider this: if creating these printers makes them no money, HP will not manufacture them at all. It's not in their interest to offer a product that will put them out of business.
Yes, it's possible that the efficiency of the printer would cause HP to lose money from ink sales of cartridges for this printer. But did it ever occur to you that such efficient technology might cost a lot more to develop and manufacture? The company needs to recoup costs for these aspects too. Like it or not, they are not creating these printers out of the goodness of their hearts. They're doing it in order to run a business. Maybe someone else will take it upon him or herself to create some magical free printer for the masses, but I doubt it.
Lastly, these products don't seem designed to be used in the home. That isn't the market that HP is after. When you purchase a contract for one of these machines, it's not like buying a printer--it's like buying a miniature Kinko's that you put in your office and pay as you go for the service. You don't even have to maintain it, if I understand the article correctly. HP does it for you. Sounds like a deal that many companies would be interested in, but if they're not? Nobody's going to make them buy it. There are plenty of printers for sale on the market. Customer demand will determine whether or not this business model is successful--if someone buys it, there must be someone out there who wants it.
So HP is getting into the market that Canon and Xerox and Lexmark and Toshiba and Kyocera and Sharp and and and are already in? I suppose the interesting deal is that HP would be doing the printer leasing direct from the factory instead of having a local leasing and servicing middleman do it. But it's not like the business model is revolutionary.
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There are lots of excellent choices out there. I'm not sure why you'd choose HP.
Very good linux drivers?
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
Let's go back to the ink efficient days of the DeskJet 400C and fuck these contract based service packages.
Why don't you just buy a laser printer?
I can't believe anyone with a clue is still using ink-based printers, with lasers being the price they are now. You can get a fairly inexpensive Samsung or maybe even an HP laser printer for $100 - 150, sometimes on sale for under 100, and with a full toner cartridge get thousands of pages out of it.
They're so far superior to ink-based printers that I just don't understand why anyone wouldn't use them. The only thing they don't do, or that you have to pay a significant amount extra for, is color. But really, for the occasional color print you can keep one of those more-expensive-than-liquid-gold ink printers around if you really need it. Or pay the $250 or $300 to get a color laser (and probably step up to something that'll do duplexing).
Inkjet printers need to die, as a technology. The only niche market they deserve to keep is for photo printing for the terminally impatient and un-quality-conscious folks who can't or don't want to drive down to their local CVS/WalMart and use a lightjet.
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Perhaps this is HP's response to the full-page-width MemJet technology mentioned earlier on ./?
You are missing something here. In the 1970s a lot of these companies were newer and therefore not completely used to screwing over the customer quite yet. Unfortunately the way corporations operate is by constantly cutting margins and finding new ways to screw the consumer. The problem is that investors want the company to put out more profits while making the same product with, in some cases, the same marketshare. So if your company is making one thing en masse, and everyone pretty much already has one and is satisfied etc, that's a dry market. No growth. No growth, no investors. No investors in public corporate speak and no money, no money, no company. The end result, companies have to keep cutting margins on old things especially if they have few new products, because they have to turn more and more profits. The model is flawed. Every cost must eventually be cut and that's why all major printer makers now follow this model.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
Psst, that's what patents are for. So don't expect to see this on the consumer white market for quite a while.
Laserjet 4's are indeed built like tanks, however over ~2 years they will cost you more in wasted electricity than it costs to buy a new LJ1200. So unless you are doing something to kill printers in less than 2 years you are better off chucking the old workhorse and buying a new printer with an actual low power sleep function and new fast warming fuser. You'll probably get better resolution and faster PPM too. This doesn't apply to businesses that actually use the printer at a high volume obviously.
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No, it is essentially the same model as the way commercial copiers are handled, except from the article, there is no charge for just having the printer in your business.
You see, the current copier leasing model charges you a monthly fee for having the copier, as well as charging you a per-copy rate for each copy you make. The copier has a counter (or two counters for those that keep track of mono and multi color copies separately) and either a technician comes out and physically reads the counter, you are called on the telephone to read off the counter numbers to the company rep, or in some cases, your copier is called directly via it's own connection to your line, and the counters are read without physical user interaction.
So your internet connection has nothing to do with it.
HP is just not going to sell these commercial copiers to the companies that want them. HP is only going to lease them, and then instead of charging a monthly fee, they are going to charge based on the number of prints. They will most likely get these totals by one of the methods I described above, or quite possibly even over an internet connection, but you can be assured they will not have only ONE method of getting these totals. There will be multiple methods available to them to get the total numbers of prints per month, as it is how they are saying they are going to charge their customers.
These are not going to be print services over the internet. You are not going to connect your company computers to an HP server where they mail you the prints you make.
"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." -D. Adams
I'm sure business' will pick this up just for that reason. There will be a more of less defined cost that wont be overrun. If they work into the payment plan to have someone else take care of any problems come up i see a lot of small business' using this that don't have the resources for a dedicated worker.
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Go long enough without the scheduled checks, and the printer shuts itself off.
Depending on what's stated in the contract, this can be a "good thing". Replacement parts are NOT cheap, so by doing proper maintenance to avoid breakdown, money is saved in the long run.
Not having scheduled checks on the printer could be equivalent to not changing the oil in your car. If the engine breaks down from neglect, should the dealership cover the repairs under warranty?
Life is not for the lazy.