Welcome to the Blogosphere!

At the risk of that title sounding dated (the term "blogosphere" must be passe by now!), I welcome my long-time HP (NYSE: HPQ) colleague into the swim with The HP LaserJet Blog. Vince joins a handful of other HP exec bloggers, with a blog devoted to printers and solutions.

One comment in his most recent entry regarding third-party supplies caught my attention:

Very often those “recycling” bins you see for remanufactured cartridges are actually just giving cartridges to companies so they can sell them back to you, at a greatly decreased level of quality.

While I grant the free market and "caveat emptor" allow for offering consumers a choice for their printing supplies, eliciting used cartridge donations under a "green" banner takes a certain amount, if not a lot, of nerve. When I see these bins in schools, churches, and even our local organic food store, I am disgusted, knowing what I know about the business.

And on the subject of printer blogs? I was at a seminar the other day featuring a blogger from one of our local printer and copier resellers. They're an innovative company, and the gentleman in question is doing some great things with technology. But when referred to as doing a blog about printers and copiers, he quickly corrected the panel's moderator, noting that would be "far too boring" so he blogs about larger IT and business concerns.

So looks like it's just Vince and me for now!

PS -- Kudos to my buddies at Istockphoto.com and their amazing collection of, yes, stock photos. When searching for a graphic to liven up this entry, I was given a choice of 124 different images tagged with "blog". Wow!