Key Printer Industry Issues

Ed Crowley over at Printer Industry News is soliciting feedback from industry members on current issues facing the industry. I encourage participation from any and all interested readers.

Ed's a friend and colleague who I've tapped into for industry intelligence in the past, including my April 2007 Observations, "Corporate Printing, Served and Managed". He's a consultant especially tuned in to the Wall Street view of our business, and his thoughts are expressed occasionally in one of my favorite blogs, Seeking Alpha. (Read Ed's "Are Printer Companies Chasing the Wrong Target?" for background.)

Speaking of Seeking Alpha, their hardware blog has featured a number of provocative posts recently. Eric Savitz has two, including "Bernstein Grants Lexmark Its Sole 'Buy' Rating" which covers beleagured LXK's first analyst recommendation in a long time, and "Street Yawns At HP's New Products", covering HP's (NYSE HPQ) recent NON-Printer (ie PC, server, and cell phone) announcements last week (not to be confused with the pre-Labor Day Print 2.0 announcement). On the same topic, Seeking Alpha's Carl Howe has a post titled "HP's Marketing Mistake", especially for his very creative use of a Newsmap Graphic to make his point. (I use the much cruder "Google News Index" from time to time.)

Again, the latter two posts are not printer-related, but provide an interesting perspective on HP's marketing actions, especially as viewed by the Wall Street crowd.

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