HP’s Enterprise Printing Blog : Edgeline

Awards

Anonymous — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:02:00 GMT

Mike Feldman
VP, IPG Global Enterprise Business

The Golden Globes, the Academy Awards, the CMT (Country Music) Awards; the Tony Awards, the MTV Movie Awards, and finally, six months into 2008, the biggest award of them all: The BLI (Buyers Laboratory Inc.) Spring “Pick” Awards.

And the winner of the BLI Special Achievement Award for Innovation goes to:

The HP CM8060 Color MFP with Edgeline Technology

This acknowledgement from BLI, coming a full year after the product hit the streets and started to aggressively capture copier pages for HP, is especially gratifying. A few quotes from the review:

“The CM8060 Color MFP proved itself admirable in BLI’s testing, separating itself from the pack with innovative features not regularly seen on its copier MFP competitors for a price that is the lowest of competitive models. Featuring a very large, well-labeled color touch-screen control panel, the CM8060 Color MFP also raises the bar for ease of removing misfeeds, providing live-action video on the control panel and LEDs throughout the device to guide users.

“The HP CM8060 Color MFP takes leaps and bounds forward in regard to being an environmentally friendly machine as well. Whereas the photoconductors used by competitive models have to be disposed of, with the HP CM8060, the imaging unit is the print head. The device also ships with no Styrofoam and no cardboard.”

Buyers Laboratory Inc. is the world’s leading independent evaluator of document imaging products and solutions. Presented semi-annually, BLI’s prestigious “Pick” awards identify the best products tested in their respective categories in a wide range of performance areas, through a series of rigorous evaluations.

Since the blockbuster launch of HP’s Edgeline MFPs in April of 2007, we’ve racked-up considerable acclaim for its high-performance and innovative design. The HP CM8060 Color MFP with Edgeline Technology garnered a “Must See ‘em” award at the recent Graph Expo trade show and received the “Technology Award” from the Microsoft Vendor Program (MSVP) Excellence Awards.

Awards are great, but the most important acknowledgement is the one we receive for helping solve a customer’s business problem. The best type of acclaim is when our innovation adds value – whether it’s a breakthrough in print quality and total cost of ownership, or a software solution that streamlines a billing process.

Click here to read the case study and find out more about how California-based law firm, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati realized immediate benefits with Managed Print Services from HP, and by replacing its previous generation of MFPs with the HP CM8060 Color Multifunction Printers with HP Edgeline Technology.

Technorati tags: enterprise printing, hp, Hewlett Packard, BLI Spring Pick Awards, edgeline technology, CM8060

HP Gets Customer Feedback from Shanghai

Anonymous — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 19:17:00 GMT

Mike Feldman
VP, IPG Global Enterprise Business

Greetings! My worldwide travels on behalf of HP’s enterprise imaging and printing business continue. Today, I’m in the port city of Shanghai – the largest city in the People’s Republic of China, on the banks of the Yangtze River Delta.

After a successful HP press and channel event last week in Budapest, I traveled from Budapest to Shanghai (didn’t the Mongol army of Genghis Kahn make a similar trip in about 1220?) Luckily, I’ve been able to rely on modern transportation and comfortably arrived here for our pan-Asia Pacific Enterprise Advisory Council and press event.

The advisory council brought together customers from Australia, Indonesia, India, Malaysia, and Singapore. Our enterprise customers gave us great feedback at the two-day meeting and reinforced that HP is on the right track with our “Print 2.0 Alternative Thinking About Printing” strategy. They also agreed with their peers from the Americas and Europe that HP’s environmental stewardship – and our work to support their commitment to the environment -- while it has always been important, is increasingly timely and topical. Many customers are taking steps to reduce their carbon footprint by setting their devices to duplex printing, sleep mode in low use times, and are recycling their toner and ink supplies. This was great to see. Everything helps. The customers also reinforced that our solutions, services, and new MFPs are hitting the mark, but they want to see even further leverage with the rest of HP. Good feedback indeed.

By the time this blog entry gets posted, we’ll have already kicked-off our press event here in Shanghai. We are expecting 125 members of the press to join us for a two day event where we will unveil the solutions we introduced last week in Budapest. We are excited to host the press and communicate our continued progress on Print 2.0.

Technorati tags: enterprise printing, hp, Hewlett Packard, multi-function printer , MFP

Final Impressions of the Office Printing '08 Event

Anonymous — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 13:51:00 GMT

Mike Feldman
VP, IPG Global Enterprise Business

The Experience Center, where the delegates interact with the new smart devices and solutions, is always one of my favorite parts of HP events.

Attendees check out the features of the HP LaserJet P4510 Printer series

In addition to the new products launched at the event, delegates also had the opportunity to see the HP CM 8060 Color MFP with Edgeline Technology, a remarkable color MFP that HP launched last year to rave reviews. And just this week, Buyers Laboratory issued its final testing report about the HP CM8060 where it garnered a superb rating of “Recommended".

And rounding out the live blog from this event, I would like to highlight the launch of HP’s Accreditation, Certification and Test Program (ACT). The program is the industry’s first to accredit partners’ internal processes, review their designs and certify their solutions. It’s important for our customers because it can give them confidence in the quality and feature richness of solutions, while reducing their implementation time and support costs. My colleague John Johasky discusses the ACT program in this podcast.

Through the ACT program, HP ensures that the partner’s internal development and support processes are pre-qualified using HP’s stringent criteria, and that applications have been tested to work with HP devices and software. Using the HP Open Extensibility Platform, development partners can customize their software to work across the entire fleet of HP MFPs.

I’ve enjoyed sharing my perspective on the event and especially telling the stories of how customers are using HP solutions and services to reduce costs, increase marketing effectiveness, and improve workflow.

Technorati tags: enterprise printing, hp, Hewlett Packard, multi-function printer , MFP, Office Printing 08, edgeline technology, CM8060, LaserJet P4510

Podcast from the International Spy Museum

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 23:02:00 GMT

David Murray
Enterprise Marketing Program Manager

I wanted to follow up Andy Stento's January 24, 2008 post "HP Technology Day Event at International Spy Museum" with some additional insight via a podcast.

I also attended the event and had an opportunity to interview one of the event’s keynote presenters, HP MFP Product Manager, Jim Montgomery. If you tune into the podcast, you can learn more about what Jim presented in terms of discussing industry trends like the "paperless office" and the convergence of technologies and how these trends are shaping HP's strategies in developing MFPs and printer security solutions.

Technorati tags: enterprise printing, edgeline, edgeline technology, hp, Hewlett Packard, multi-function printer, MFP

Edgeline Technology Inspires Passion in Customers

Anonymous — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 16:15:00 GMT

Mike Feldman
VP, IPG Global Enterprise Business

The first time I started writing this blog posting, I kicked-it off with, “Happy Holidays.”’ The second time, I changed it to say, “Happy New Year.” Now, what’ll I say? “Happy Super Bowl?” I guess that works if you’re a fan of the Giants, the Patriots …or the commercials. (*Random fact: 36.3% of consumers will tune in primarily to watch the commercials).

What’s my excuse for taking a month to write 500 words? Well, 2008 came out of the gate with a bang for HP’s enterprise imaging and printing business. As my peer (and blogging role model), Eric Kintz, says in one of his latest Digital Mindset Blog postings, “Phew, what a busy few weeks.”

Before I write anything else in 2008, I’ve got to talk about the technology that got the Enterprise Printing blog started: Edgeline. HP introduced two color MFPs with Edgeline technology back in April ’07, and I want to call attention to this awesome device and what customers are saying.

I’ve never seen a device inspire such passion from customers. I hear the word “love” a lot when they’re talking about the MFPs with Edgeline. They love the color cost per page and the various color clicks we offer (professional mode, general office mode and incidental color), which we charge as mono click. With no-penalty mono click, for the first time ever, customers can buy one device for mono and color and not pay any extra for mono, and save significantly on color. And it is fast, with a burst speed of up to 71 pages per minute in mono and 50+ pages per minute in color. They love that speed.

What else seems to rock their world about the Edgeline MFPs? The huge color VGA user interface with video streaming, and that it’s a workhorse with networking, drivers, language, security and Web Jetadmin (to name a few features).

Customers aren’t the only ones giving props to Edgeline. Selected by a panel of 16 leading industry consultants and trade magazine editors, the HP CM8060 Color MFP with Edgeline Technology was chosen for its leading-edge technology designed to produce excellent results with increased speed and excellent output quality at a lower cost.

While 2007 was a great year for HP enterprise printing, based on what we’re seeing so far in ’08, it’s a safe bet that this year is going to be even better. Here’s a short list of the topics I plan to write about in the coming months: security, compliance, HP and industry news, software and solutions, environmental stewardship, workflows and Enterprise 2.0. Mostly, I’ll write about what I’m hearing from customers. Add your comments to this blog and let’s get a dialogue going.

I promise, you’ll hear from me again before “Happy St. Patrick’s Day” or “Erin-Go-Bragh!”

* According to a recent survey conducted by the Retail Marketing and Advertising Association.

Technorati tags: enterprise printing, edgeline, edgeline technology, hp, Hewlett Packard, multi-function printer, MFP, web jet admin, cm8060

HP Technology Day Event at International Spy Museum

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 21:55:00 GMT

Andy Stento
US IPG Enterprise Marketing Director

Over 100 Public Sector customers braved the snowy weather in our nation's capital yesterday to hear the latest from HP's Imaging and Printing group. I was there also - and pleased to see the enthusiastic response to HP's presentations on the recently introduced HP CM8060 MFP with Edgeline Technology, Secure Printing, and Print Management offerings. Several of the customers I spoke with confirmed that they are printing more - and copying less in the office - as reported by IDC's continued tracking of this office trend. Do you see this playing out in your office as well? And how is this trend impacting your office equipment procurement decisions? It was also affirming to hear that customers are using their MFP devices primarily for 8.5 x 11 printing, as also reported by IDC, and, that customers are truly recognizing that many of their large departmental devices and features are largely underutilized causing them to commit to smaller, printing centric MFP devices upon lease expiration of their existing copiers.

IDC's research has played a large role in HP's MFP product development strategy and, thankfully, customers have responded enthusiastically to our approach of providing "printer based" MFPs that have the right feature set to handle the majority of our customers’ print, copy, fax and scanning needs at breakthrough prices. The recently announced HP CM8060 MFP with Edgeline Technology is the latest addition to HP's MFP product lineup. It was fun to see customers’ reactions to the disruptive color pricing for this device, as well as the response to the award-winning control panel - including live video for end-user friendly diagnosing of problems should they occur. Have you seen this product? If not, I'd highly recommend visiting http://www.hp.com/go/edgeline to learn more about this amazing MFP, and potentially even order a demonstration if you are in the market for a breakthrough, departmental color device.

Changing gears, I was duly impressed with the number of Federal, State and Educational customers who have internalized the risk that unsecured network printers and MFPs can play and have already taken action to secure these devices on their network. How is your organization addressing this security risk? Are your printing and MFP devices secure? As noted in this Computer World article, security breaches through network based peripherals are becoming more and more prevalent.

Finally, several customers mentioned to me yesterday how they are managing their printing environments more efficiently with HP's print management tools - including the recently updated HP Web JetAdmin 10.0 and HP’s Universal Print Driver. HP’s Web JetAdmin is powerful management software that can alleviate the majority of printing related help desk calls that your IT organization receives - so check it out and download it for free. In addition, Universal Print Driver will free up your organization from the task of managing multiple print drivers. I'd encourage you to check out this innovative application for consolidating your printer drivers into one. Let us know what you think.

Technorati tags: enterprise printing, edgeline, edgeline technology, hp, Hewlett Packard, multi-function printer, MFP, web jet admin, universal print driver

HP CM8060 MFP Wins Microsoft Vendor Excellence Award

Anonymous — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 21:04:00 GMT

Posted by Peggy Valenti

Everybody loves an award, and HP is no exception. It’s that gold star that quickly tells others you stand out. And so it is very exciting to all of us at HP who have worked on the CM8060 to receive an award from Microsoft for a product that we think rocks.

Yes, it’s big. HP was selected from among more than 15,000 vendors whom Microsoft works with in the United States. These Microsoft® Vendor Program (MSVP) Excellence Awards are given out annually to vendors for outstanding service and results to Microsoft.

The HP CM8060 MFP received the “Technology Award” for the integration of the Microsoft Windows® XP Embedded operating system within the device. Microsoft is thrilled to have this capability in one device because it provides better integration with Microsoft products, improves manageability, is easily supported, and provides an overall better user experience.

“Selecting the MSVP Award winners is always a challenge, and this year proved no exception,” said Tim McBride, general manager and chief procurement officer at Microsoft. “It’s my privilege to say that the six vendors we recognize today truly stand out, and the exceptional service they deliver is invaluable to our company and our customers.” (Redmond, Wash, Oct. 5, 2007)

You can hear more about Microsoft’s experience with the CM8060 MFP at the upcoming Image Print event next month in Phoenix, Arizona.

Technorati tags: enterprise printing, edgeline, edgeline technology, hp, Hewlett Packard, multi-function printer, MFP, MSVP excellence award

HP LaserJets help keep your Business in the Green

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 19:52:00 GMT

Dave Lobato
Environmental Initiative Manager

Want to cut the carbon footprint of you printing equipment and supplies by more than half? One of our large enterprise customers did, and maybe you can too. While this customer would rather remain unrecognized for this effort (I will say that they are a large company with approximately 100,000 employees)—such relative savings are available to your organization as well.

Operating a green business is not only good for the environment, but good for your business' bottom line because conserving resources and cutting down on waste saves money. Currently, over 80% of enterprise customers evaluate environmental performance as part of the purchasing decision (from internal HP report on Global Environmental Market Trends). The good news is that whether you run a home-based business or a multi-site enterprise, there are a number of simple things you can do to run an environmentally-friendly business.

Here are our top ten easy-to-implement ideas for running a green business that you can put into practice right now to make your office a more environmentally-friendly place:

1) Conserve energy; turn off equipment when it's not being used. Turning off equipment during “off” business hours can save up to 66% of their normal power consumption. Also these HP LaserJet tools can help you conserve:

HP’s Web Jetadmin helps you manage your fleet by presetting sleep and wake modes so equipment does not consume power during evenings, over weekends and holidays.
Use HP’s printing products with Instant-on Technology. Not only will you get your first page out in just a few seconds from ready or powersave modes, but also save as much as 50% in power consumption versus our competition while printing.

2) Produce double-sided documents whenever possible. Internal studies show companies can achieve at least a 25% savings by setting duplex as a standard:

Utilize HP’s Universal Print Driver in your environment to set duplex as the printing default . Users can opt out of duplex mode when printing items that require single-sided printing.

3) Reduce fax-related paper waste by using digital images that can be captured and sent directly from a scanner or computer without requiring a printed hard copy:

Utilize HP’s scanners, digital MFP’s and digital sending software to capture and send images through the workflow process, reducing the need for paper and supplies

4) Recycle--Choose suppliers who take back packaging, supplies and hardware for reuse:

HP’s industry-leading Planet Partners program, established in 1991, allows free and convenient return and recycling of toner and ink cartridges. More than 106 million HP LaserJet print cartridges have been returned and recycled since 1991. If you laid these cartridges end to end, starting at the equator, you would circle 85% of the circumference of the Earth.

Also, for a small fee, HP will take back and properly dispose of any vendor’s hardware, in most countries. To date this program has take back over 1 billion pounds of equipment.

5) Detoxify-- Many offices have toxic substances, such as used batteries and copier toner, on hand. Talk to suppliers about alternatives to toxics, and make sure you properly dispose of the ones you can't avoid using:

Utilized HP’s desktop MFP’s with Instant-on Copy which uses LED copy technology instead of a fluorescent tube. This technology saves energy and reduces the hazardous particles found in fluorescent tubes.

All HP LaserJet printing products are now RoHS compliant, meaning all lead-based materials have been removed as of July 2006.

Using HP’s chemically-grown toner is more environmentally-friendly than competitive alternatives.

Recycle hardware and supplies through HP Planet Partners program (see above).

Use media with recycled content

6) Utilize energy efficient products in your environment. Choosing the right product
for the environment can help reduce your overall Total Cost of Ownership (TCO):

HP works very closely with ENERGY STAR® to ensure our products are optimized to meet and exceed energy consumption levels .

7) Buy green--Tell suppliers that you're interested in sustainable products and set specific goals for buying recycled, refurbished, or used. Make the environment, and not just price, a factor when purchasing

HP has been the tech industry’s environmental leader for decades. Our Design for the Environment strategy informs our operations, R&D investments, customer solutions, and relationships with our supply chain partners. This results in a comprehensive set of business decisions that are good for our customers, good for business and good for the planet. With our broad portfolio and extensive partner relationships–HP can more effectively reduce our carbon footprint, limit waste and recycle more responsibly than our competitors.

8) Use a Balanced Deployment Model--Using a model where selective desktop, centralized workgroup and data center printing exist will reduce your overall power consumption and supplies costs.

9) Get employees involved--Create a team to lead the company's eco-efforts and determine where you can have the biggest impact for the least amount of money.
Going green is something each and every person in the organization is responsible for. Set specific programs, owners, and metrics and periodically review your progress.

10) Communicate--Inform suppliers and customers about your efforts. And get in touch with local regulatory agencies, many of which offer financial incentives to businesses that make progress on local, state, or municipal green initiatives

Going green doesn't necessarily require a radical makeover. A series of small steps--many of which don't cost a dime--can add up to a new way of doing business.

Technorati tags: enterprise printing, edgeline, edgeline technology, hp, Hewlett Packard, multi-function printer, MFP, green business, environment

Reactions from Print 2.0 Event

Anonymous — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 21:55:00 GMT

Peggy Valenti

Last week, Mike Pervere, Product Manager for the HP CM8060 Color MFP, spent two days talking to hundreds of analysts, press, channel partners and customers in New York City at HP’s 2.0 Print event. He engaged in a lot of great discussion and received positive feedback on the breakthrough that the HP CM8060 represents for the business customers.

HP’s Print 2.0 strategy focuses on three areas:

Delivering a next-generation digital printing platform that increases print speeds and lowers the cost of printing for high-volume commercial markets
Making it easier to print from the web
Extending HP’s digital content creation and publishing platforms across all customer segments.

An example of this last point relevant for enterprise businesses is what HP is calling an “Open Extensibility Platform.” This is a web-based software development kit that enables developers to tailor their software, whether Java- or .NET-based, to integrate with its devices for features such as scan-to-print, paper-based processes.

For many of the analysts, this was the first time they had actually seen the CM8060 MFP. According to Mike, “There was one particular industry analyst who was thrilled with the HP CM8060. He was impressed with the speed and print quality. It was fun to see his reaction when I showed him how easy it is to use the onscreen video to clear a paper jam. Oh that is so cool! You guys have really done something useful with technology that makes machines like this more interactive.”

Getting first hand experience interacting with the HP CM8060 gave many of the people at the event a chance to match up their expectations. According to Mike, “the technology broke their existing paradigm about speed, especially in an ink-based MFP.” Another concept that impressed people was the idea that Edgeline could help their businesses advance, especially controlling costs with the color printing modes. And they liked the fact that they didn’t have to sacrifice quality either. Edgeline technology offers them a simple solution to manage their infrastructure, their environment, and cost.

Mike met an HP dealer who was passionate about the Edgeline technology and he shared this enthusiasm with others resellers at the Edgeline booth. Stephen Allen, a Principal at Integrated Technology Systems had this to say about the CM 8060:

“The print quality is fantastic. The ink makes color graphics stand out and it doesn’t smudge like other ink-based printers...”

Overall, Mike thought the event was a great success. Many customers, resellers, press and analysts walked away with a better picture of what Print 2.0 is all about, and how the CM 8060 MFP is changing the enterprise world.

Want to hear what Microsoft is saying about the CM 8060? Watch the video.

Technorati tags: enterprise printing, edgeline, edgeline technology, hp, Hewlett Packard, multi-function printer, MFP, print 2.0

The Copier Alternative or Multi-function Printer?

Anonymous — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 16:10:00 GMT

Michael Turner
Edgeline MFP Marketing Director

A peculiar question came up recently in some discussions with customers about how they describe the lineup of what HP calls Multi-Function Printers or “MFPs”.

We talked about our lineup of devices, ranging in price, size, speed and functionality-,from office devices that are used as personal printer/fax replacements, clear up to larger machines used to support the printing, scanning and copying needs for larger groups of users.

What was interesting to me was how customers responded in describing the value of the larger devices from HP- particularly how they used the words “copier alternative”. I think this is a reflection of what customers are telling us regularly. They are looking at how they optimize their office imaging devices with the right amount of printers, fax machines, copiers, and scanners. In many cases, there is a class of products that combines these capabilities into one device. The fact that these machines can copy and print in one device makes them a copier alternative.

I want to pose some questions to readers out there: What do you call devices that pull the functionality of printers/copiers/scanners/fax machines into one device? What vendors do you think of based on how it’s described (multi-function printer, copier, copier alternative?) If you think of multi-function printers and copiers differently, what is the major difference? Are there features or services you would expect with a “copier alternative” vs. an MFP?

I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.

Technorati tags: enterprise printing, edgeline, edgeline technology, hp, Hewlett Packard, multi-function printer, MFP, copier alternative

Ease of Use

Anonymous — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 16:12:00 GMT

Craig Tinder
Edgeline Product Marketing Manager

How many times have you walked up to your MFP hoping to pick up your printed pages, but what you find is an error message flashing on the display screen telling you there is a paper jam? You poke around, but can’t figure out how to fix the problem. “What paper tray?” “Where is that button?” Frustrated, you walk away without your copies. Sound familiar? The CM8060 was designed to eliminate this scenario.

HP’s recognition for best "Ease of Operator Maintenance" MFP from Office Products Analyst (OPA, vol. 31, Issue 6) and Buyers Laboratory “Pick of the Year” award, validates the effort we’ve taken to make our MFPs easy to use. The CM8060 is a good example of the headway we’ve made in this area with its radically simplified touch screen interface and control panel. But we didn’t develop this outstanding user interface in a vacuum: the design was based on the experience of every day workers. Getting real people involved not only allowed us to validate the control panel design, but also provided a true user experience that reflected most customer interactions. We tested various design concepts around the globe with an array of user groups, thus allowing us to refine the design "on the fly" based upon actual feedback.

Providing an experience that combines intuitiveness with simplicity is not an easy task. By creating an interface that allows tasks to be completed with minimal assistance, providing a straightforward approach to navigation, and giving clear feedback, the HP Easy Select Control Panel offers users a way of managing more complex tasks with ease.

The CM8060 control panel has large graphics, an intuitive navigation structure, and a video-based help system, so a user is able to resolve issues that might be overwhelming on other products.

Here’s what Michael A. Lindstrom, Group Vice President, Engineering of the ECCO Group had to say about the CM8060 he’s been testing:

“We’ve been testing the HP CM8060 Color MFP in the office for a few months and without a doubt it is better than other devices we’ve seen before. It's extremely user friendly and intuitive which is a nice change because for the first time we didn’t feel like we needed an engineering degree to use it. Even though we have a beta version of the HP CM8060 Color MFP, we’d keep this device as is rather than switch back to a copier machine. HP has hit a homerun with this one.”

And another quote from Ryan Barnhart, Micro Systems Manager, WinCo Foods, Inc., who has been testing the CM8060:

“The user interface on the HP CM8060 Color MFP is incredible. We’d buy it just for that. I’m in IT, but our other users are not and on our previous non-HP device users got lost in the menus. With this new HP MFP it’s self explanatory to breeze right through it. Every business wants speed and efficiency and this printer offers both. Usually we give instructions on how to use a new machine and we didn’t even hang a sheet for this one. It’s just plug and play. We directed people from all over the company to use it because it was just so easy.”

Our products are about serving our customer's needs and our goal and commitment is to continue to lead in customer experience. Because ease of use can determine how much a device gets used, as well as the satisfaction customers get when the MFP works the way they expected, it is getting noticed as an important component in the purchase criteria priority list. How important is it to you?

Technorati tags: enterprise printing, edgeline, edgeline technology, hp, Hewlett Packard, multi-function printer, MFP, CM8060

The Value of Color Printing

Anonymous — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 19:37:00 GMT

Michael Turner
Edgeline MFP Marketing Director

In a prior blog about the “Cost of Color Printing", I talked about how MFPs with Edgeline technology were delivering lower cost of color printing through reliability, color printing modes and the ability to control access to color.

While lowering the cost to create color documents is a huge request, I was (somewhat impolitely, yet appropriately) reminded by a colleague and an analyst that our job is also to talk about the value of printing in color.

At the most basic level:

Color documents are easier to read - people understand your point better and more quickly
Color documents make it easier to sell – people respond to a request or take action more often
Color documents make it easier to compete – people give their attention to color documents first

Easier to read
Did you know that readership of a document goes up 40% when a document uses color ?¹

Color highlights a point visually – “Who said that?” “What is the important point?” “What number do I call?” “What part of the company is in the red?” “Green is good, Red is bad.”

Easier to sell
Take a look at what you respond to in your daily life, whether it be email, office documents, mail or signs. Color increases learning by 55-78% ² and increases brand recognition by up to 80%.³

Ever been at a presentation where no color was used? Remember the days when graphs had to have different crosshatch lines to differentiate one piece of data from another? You had to pause for a moment to understand what the graph was trying to convey. A color graph or chart tells a story quickly.

Easier to compete
Try this one – next time you pick up your mail, including email, see which one you read first or give your attention to. Customers are 42% more likely to pick up color mail first.⁴

Why is this important? Because I think it highlights the role color plays in how IT managers make decisions about deploying color devices to make their workforce more productive.

Using color helps an organization communicate clearly. If you believe that printing in color is one tool to enable more effective and efficient communication, then look at what we’re offering with HP’s lineup of Color LaserJet MFPs and MFPs with Edgeline technology. These devices have the ability to deliver printing of your mono and color documents in a cost effective way. They give you the value of color printing so your organization can communicate more effectively, and at a price you can afford.

So what about you? Can you share some examples of how you see color printing becoming more important? I’d like to hear from you when you think the use of color is beneficial, and when it’s not.

1 "Business Papers in Color. Just a Shade Better", Modern Office Technology, July 1989, Vol. 34, No. 7, pp. 98-102.

2Embry, David, "The Persuasive Properties of Color", Marketing Communications, October 1984.

3University of Loyola, Maryland study.

4White, Jan V., Color for Impact, Strathmoor Press, April, 1997

Technorati Tags: enterprise printing, edgeline, edgeline technology, hp, Hewlett Packard, multi-function printer, MFP, color printing

HP's View on MFP Security

Anonymous — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 16:28:00 GMT

Rebecca Campbell
Edgeline Solutions Product Marketing Manager

Customers often ask us what security features we’ve built into our MFPs with Edgeline technology. We know how important it is to safeguard your business, so I’d like to point out some of the tools we’ve included in our MFPs to help you easily manage security issues.

User Access Control: Edgeline provides you with a flexible access control framework on the device through an authority-based security model. This industry first solution allows you to create up to 20 customizable profiles with 24 unique features. This unprecedented level of access control enables prevention of unauthorized color usage (copying or printing), control over administration menus, and control over cancelling and promoting jobs. And HP’s MFPs with Edgeline technology easily integrate with existing profiles created in Active Directory and user-created directory groups.

Authentication and Authorization: We recognize that user profiles are only as good as the enforcement they receive. HP MFPs with Edgeline technology support a number of authentication protocols, including Windows (Kerberos/NTLM) and LDAP. And, you can create up to 1000 local user accounts on Edgeline, giving you a simple way to control device access.

Using these authentication and authorization tools, you have the flexibility to configure the appropriate level of device access control for your specific environment. For example, you can require users to:

Sign-in before any walk-up usage of the device
Sign-in only when accessing a particular feature
Not sign-in at all

Data privacy and protection: To protect data in transit, HP MFPs use IPSec through the JetDirect 635n card, which provides point-to-point encryption to ensure secure data flows from the MFP to other data repositories on the network. To protect data at rest, HP’s MFP Secure Storage Erase and Disk Access Locking features provide critical control points around securing the data stored on the internal hard drive.

Secure Management:The JetDirect wizard makes secure network configuration a snap by providing step-by-step instructions. Security on Edgeline can be configured and monitored with Web Jetadmin (a robust fleet management tool) as well as with the embedded web server, which provides quick and easy setup for a single device.

We know that in today’s enterprise environments, state-of-the-art security is a key factor in managing your business. If you have other security concerns that you’d like to discuss, please use the comment link below to post your question.

Technorati tags: enterprise printing, edgeline, edgeline technology, hp, Hewlett Packard, multi-function printer, MFP, web jetadmin, JetDirect

The Cost of Color Printing

Anonymous — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 14:25:00 GMT

Michael Turner
Edgeline MFP Marketing Director

Lowering the cost of color printing is one of the top priorities for printing purchasers. The people who pay for color printing understand it costs more because there is more coverage (ink or toner) on the page, but they always ask: “What can be done to get that page cost as close to printing it in black only?” There is something that can be done…

There are several ways we help lower and manage the cost of color printing with unique features in the MFPs with Edgeline Technology that we believe give us a leg up versus the traditional copier technology using laser imaging.

Simplicity and reliability of the device.

In the majority of MFP purchases, people buy on a ‘click charge’ basis – 1 click for monochrome and 1 click for color pages. A part of this click is usually a charge for service and maintenance of the device. Higher reliability keeps click charges down.

In our original Edgeline Technology white paper, we talked about how we leverage the physics of ink printing to create a more reliable device:

• Edgeline MFPs’ print mechanisms are simpler, have fewer moving parts and endure much less friction than do laser MFP print engines. No contact between the print head and the paper causes less wear and fewer parts to replace. Print head configuration is designed to last the life of the engine resulting less parts wear and fewer failures.

• Higher print quality is delivered and maintained over life by high nozzle density and precise droplet placement, automatic optical drop detection and nozzle recovery or substitution, and special pigmented inks and bonding agent for excellent mono and color printing on plain paper.

• Ease of use designed into our HP Easy Select Control Panel and our AutoNav functionality that reduces calls to the help desk and the MFP service organization.

To learn more, see my previous blog entry about our HP Easy Select Control Panel,or see the on-line demo

Delivering higher reliability with Edgeline Technology products enables a lower cost as a part of the click price. Consider the following:

Printing Modes that save you money when you don’t use as much color.

We have 3 types of color ‘click charges’ in MFPs with Edgeline Technology. Current copier technology products use 1 click charge for any type of color document.

Professional Color Print Mode gives you print quality that you expect from your office color MFP – excellent quality to use in your color prints. This is what professionals use when printing color for “high-stakes” communication documents.

General Office Color Print Mode simply reduces the saturation of the color in an office document. This is nothing like a traditional draft mode. Monochrome text is identically dark and opaque as in professional color documents, and color is printed with equal resolution but less saturation on general office color pages than on professional color pages. I expect that General Office Color Print Mode page pricing to be nearly 20 percent less than Professional Office Color Print Mode pricing.

Both of these modes can be selected at the driver or at the control panel of the device by the user. Or you can limit certain users and some applications to the mode you desire. For example: limiting Word document printing to General Office Print Mode, or defaulting PowerPoint to Professional Color Print Mode. (See Color Access Controls below).

Additionally, we have a Color Accent Print Mode. Have you ever thought “Why should I pay 7 to 10 times the amount of a monochrome page click price for color when there’s only a small amount of color on this page? This print mode automatically counts any pages with a small amount of color and offers a monochrome -type price when you print only a small amount of color.

These three modes are unique to MFPs with Edgeline Technology and are great ways to manage the cost of color printing to be much lower than any other alternative.

Controlling Access to Color

HP’s Color Access Controls are available across HP’s Edgeline Technology and Color LaserJet MFPs and allow you to limit users and / or applications that can print in Monochrome, General Office Color, and Professional Color modes. This enables management of users and output types to minimize costs. Very powerful!

So, three ways of innovation that we give to lowering the actual costs of color printing for customers. Ways that we actually take cost out of the system so customers can save money also.

I’ve had lots of warning from industry analysts saying, in effect, that our competition can just lower their color click price (the equivalent of our Professional Color Mode), and they may close the gap on HP’s offering an up to 30 percent cost of color printing advantage.

Admittedly, you may be able to “negotiate” a lower color click price from those that don’t offer these innovations, but if the fundamental innovation in technology does not support taking costs out of the system, you’ll always be battling a copier dealer that is looking for ways to reduce the amount of time (money) they spend with you, instead of finding more ways to help you. Does that really save you money?

I'd enjoy hearing from you on the value of these capabilities in helping with the cost of color printing. Log in and reply!

enterprise printing, edgeline, edgeline technology, hp, Hewlett Packard, multi-function printer , MFP, CM8060, CM8050, Microsoft

The Edgeline Road Test

Anonymous — Thu, 31 May 2007 02:11:00 GMT

Michael Turner
Edgeline MFP Marketing Director

You may see some posts about HP’s May 29-31 “Print 2.0: Unlocking the Power of Print” press and analyst event about how MFPs with Edgeline Technology play into HP’s ongoing strategy.

You can also see how HP has helped other companies with their enterprise printing when you view the Constellation Energy video - Managed Print Services.

But what is most exciting to me is how our customers are reacting. A great step for our program was having six devices delivered, installed, and used in customer environments for their internal qualification testing. This began in March 2007 and continues through this month. It’s great to see the results of this effort, and one customer agreed to share their comments.

Microsoft:

“As this is a totally new printing technology, we were not sure what to expect besides what we saw in HP presentations. Although we had seen print samples, we didn’t have the opportunity to get a real sense of the interaction experience with the device until it was installed. Once it was installed, our initial impression was great. Configuring it to connect to our network infrastructure and integrating it into our Active Directory® for user authentication was much easier than with other MFP products, even from HP. It took me no more than 15 minutes to have the device connected to the network and configured to interact with our infrastructure.

Based on the benefits in terms of lower cost per impression, high speed and quality, and ease of use and administration we most probably (will) buy this device.

At Microsoft we use different kind of MFPs, from HP and competitors, across the company. The HP CM8060mfp, according to our initial tests, seems to be very reliable. Its print speed outperforms any other MFP we currently have in the company. The way it integrates with our network and server infrastructure is beyond par, while its ease of use and clear display has the potential to increase our users’ productivity and decrease the need of support.”

Question: How does the HP CM8060 Color MFP with Edgeline Technology make your life easier?

· Administration: “It allows me to create user profiles and associate them with security groups in my Active Directory. By doing this, it is easier to manage those users that will have access to Professional color versus General Office color, define who gets access to what, allowing me better permissions management per type of user and technicians.”

· Authentication: “Users validate themselves with our Active Directory infrastructure and can search our company’s address book when using features like Scan to E-mail making them more productive while reducing the need for support.”

· Support: “Users get great visual cues from the device when a paper jam or similar issue occurs, delivered through videos, specific instructions and visual guidance (LEDs) of what needs to be done, reducing the need for Helpdesk technicians involvement, reducing our costs.”

I look forward to sharing more comments from our customers on the value they are experiencing by using our new Edgeline products.

enterprise printing, edgeline, edgeline technology, hp, Hewlett Packard, multi-function printer , MFP, CM8060, CM8050, Microsoft