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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.
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Nice "editing", Zonk. I hope Slashdot is paying you what you're worth.
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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...
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.
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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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.
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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.
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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.