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| With a couple of months to think about it, plus expert help, I offer some more thoughts |
Going back several months now, to the beginning of June, I
was honored to spend the better part of two days with HP’s large-format
printing team at an analyst event in San Diego. And while not the heart of my
current “beat” in the industry (I am more often studying office and home
printers, with a special emphasis the last few years looking at broader mobile
technology and its interactions with printing and imaging), it was a pleasure
to become reacquainted with the large-format offerings HP was emphasizing
during that event.
I posted at the conclusion of the event (see “HP Designjet and Market Segmentation”), not with anything particularly
insightful about the individual products, but with kind (and sincere) words
about the skills and discipline this group of HP product designers and planners
has shown in understanding and targeting specific market segments. The details
and “aha’s” concerning the new products, the HP Designjet T3500 Production eMFP
and HP Designjet T7200 Production Printer, and a new software solution, the HP
Designjet SmartStream Pre-Flight Manager and Controllers, as well as the “star”
of the show, at least in terms of covering new ground, the large-format HP
PageWide printers, I felt should be left to category experts and not me, more
of an industry generalist at least with respect to this space.
PageWide products by HP are nothing new to me, of course. I
have covered the Edgeline, OfficeJet Pro X, and most recently, the
enterprise-ready models earlier this year, HP Officejet Enterprise Color MFP
X585 and HP Officejet Enterprise Color X555. I posted regarding the latter on
their official launch day, March 24, 2014 (see “HP Offers “Ink for theEnterprise” and Innovations, big and small”). And as far as being surprised to see
PageWide in the wide format space, anyone paying attention to HP’s
communications over any number of years has heard repeated statements that the industry
leader could be counted on to pursue PageWide in most if not all of their
far-flung areas of interest in printing.
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| Who better to help on some insight than category expert IT Strategies? |
Hoping that last paragraph doesn’t come across as too smug (a
known pitfall for veteran analysts), the reality is, despite my background, I
could use some education regarding the precise importance of some of the
details of the announcement. And who better to provide me sector-specific
expertise than my long-time friend and large-format expert Marco Boer of IT Strategies?
In the weeks following HP’s event, Marco provided me first his
draft and then the final version of his take on the announcements. And learn a lot –
I did! I can summarize a few of those findings here, with much thanks to Marco
and IT Strategies for the education.
The focus of the new PageWide products (going back to that
masterful segmentation mentioned earlier), as reported by Marco, is the
technical drawing market, where monochrome toner-based LED printers rule today.
And the timing, for delivery (and a few minor details like price, exact specs
and even model numbers) in the second half of 2015? In this market segment, HP
currently does not have a presence, so stirring the pot and letting potential
customers know something better is coming does not hurt HP, unlike announcing
too soon in a market where delayed sales might come at HP’s expense.
And keeping more with HP internal concerns, what about the importance
of PageWide with respect to the company’s bottom line? As I have clearly seen
with their “Ink in the Office” efforts over multiple years now (and really
flowering with their PageWide offerings), ink profits contribute to profits,
which Marco points out fared well in the recent quarter even with flat supplies
revenues year-to-year.
Back to the customer, what of the value proposition from
PageWide machines replacing those monochrome LED models? As HP made clear in June,
“free color” opportunities abound in a market segment which until now (or more
accurately, the second half of 2015), has not even has had few color options,
and no affordable one. Though as Marco emphasizes in his report, it may be the
entrenched habit of mono-only will inhibit this move to color, regardless of
cost and pricing. One option that came to my mind, as a way to break those old customer
habits, is to offer the “free spot color” option which HP brought back for the “Color
for the Enterprise” PageWide models I covered in March.
So with the guidance of Maro Boer, I have indeed learned a
lot based on my recent and very memorable exposure to the large-format world of
HP and its customers. A few things are very much the same as in my “comfort
zone” of home and office printing, with a few things quite different. And
optimistically, I can see where a few innovations can move back and forth
between the different worlds!
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