HP's Innovation Summit - Emailing Your Printer

HP Innovation Summit 2010 - Fall Commercial Launch

If you can email it, HP can print it with their ePrint printers. Following the in June, HP held a regional launch event introducing their ePrint Officejet (inkjet), LaserJet and Designjet printers for businesses.

If You Can Email It, HP Can Print It

Using the ePrint service which comes free when you buy an ePrint printer, you can print documents straight to the printer without the need for a PC, simply by email. When an ePrint printer is first connected, the HP ePrint server assigns the printer a specific email address. Send a document to this address from anywhere in the world, it goes through the ePrint server and is immediately printed from the printer.

This means that unlike in the past, you won't need a PC directly connected to the printer with drivers installed to print something. With ePrint, you can hit print from any web-connected device like a smartphone and get your prints immediately without the need to install drivers or software.

Each email address is unique and is never distributed unless a printer owner shares it with others. For security reasons, the email can be reset at any time, and users can also set a "white list" to only accept print jobs from a select list of email addresses. Although users can log into the HP ePrint server to see a list of print jobs, HP doesn't store the actual content of the emails sent for print.

Connect to the Web with Your Printer

HP also introduced Print Apps, which let users print web content with a PC, straight from the printer. HP demoed Print Apps like Google Docs, which let you scan to the web for easy sharing and Biztree, which has a catalog of business forms such as invoices, contracts and legal agreements, 25 of which are provided free.

The New ePrint Officejet and Designjet Printers

HP introduced these new Officejet and Designjet printers at the launch.

HP Web-connected and ePrint-enabled Officejet Printers

The HP Officejet Pro 8500A e-All-in-One series makes quality color prints for up to 50 percent lower cost per page and uses up to 50 percent less energy than color laser printers. The Officejet Pro 8500A is available in Asia Pacific for US$299 while the Officejet Pro 8500A Plus is available at US$399. The more expensive Plus edition come with a larger 4.3-inch touchscreen (as opposed to a 2.36-inch size), Scan to Folder functions and a higher capacity 50-page double-sided ADF (up from 35 on the normal edition).

The world's first wide-format All-in-One device with web connectivity, the HP Officejet 7500A Wide Format e-All-in-One produces quality color documents for a range of paper types and sizes (up to A3+). The Officejet 7500A includes integrated wired and wireless networking for sharing with multiple PCs and comes with a 2.36-inch color touchscreen display. Available in Asia Pacific for US$299.

The wired and wireless HP Officejet 6500A e-All-in-One series prints color, as well as faxes, copies and scans. It uses 40 percent less energy than comparable laser printers and includes a 2.36-inch color touchscreen display. The Officejet 6500A is available in Asia Pacific at US$149, while the Officejet 6500A is available at US$199.

New Large-Format Printer for Professionals

The industry's first web-ready large-format printer with scan, print and copy functions, the HP Designjet T2300 e-Multi-function Printer (eMFP) makes it easy to share and manage content, especially with HP ePrint & Share. This online app allows professionals to automatically create, print, share and manage project files online using PCs and mobile devices.

The New LaserJet Printers

HP introduced several new LaserJet printers at the launch.

The wired and wireless HP LaserJet Pro CM1415fnw Color MFP (offers print, scan, copy and fax functions) is the first HP LaserJet printer that prints from the web and mobile devices and offers a 3.5-inch color touchscreen control panel. Available in Asia Pacific for an estimated price of US$449.

The HP LaserJet Pro M1536dnf is a wired-network monochrome MFP but still offers most of the latest features such as instant-on technology, fax lock-up features to protect business assets and more. Other features includes a flatbed scanner with ADF (though no duplex ),  250-sheet input tray and a 100-sheet output bin. Available in Asia Pacific for an estimated US$299.

HP claims that their new LaserJet Pro CP1025nw is the world's smallest color laser printer and one of the world's most energy-efficient one too. Though its diementions at 400 x 399 x 233mm (L x D x H) don't dwarf the current smallest from Samsung at 388 x 313 x 243mm, it is still one of the more petite color laser printers and it is network printing ready (something that the Samsung doesn't have in this size) with wired and wireless capabilities built-in.The HP LaserJet Pro CP1025nw is available in Asia Pacific for US$299

Other notable printers seen at the launch are as follows:-

New Firmware, Pay Back and Managed Supplies

Besides hardware, HP also had some software and service updates.

The new printers announced and all future networked, office-class HP LaserJet printers are based in HP FutureSmart Firmware. Together with HP's Open Extensibility Platform (OXP), HP promises that they "enable SMB and enterprise customers to use future solutions on hardware purchased today as well as extend those capabilities to OXP-enabled devices dating back to 2005, providing significant investment protection."

Basically, with easy to update firmware and a common development platform, HP sees that the printer you buy today can still be updated with additional features in the years to come, like how your iPhone 3G can play new games even two years after purchase. It's just rolling out, so it's too early to see if HP's vision will pan out, but it sounds like they're big on apps on printers going into the future.

Introduced in April for New Zealand, Australia and Singapore, HP is extending its Printing Payback Guarantee across Korea, Hong Kong and Malaysia. Part of its Managed Print Services service, after HP completes a detailed assessment of a company's printing needs, it then calculates projected printing cost savings from implementing HP's recommendations.

A year after the implementation, HP will do a second assessment, and if the customer hasn't saved the projected amount, HP will make up the difference. To this day, HP tells us that they haven't had to write a cheque yet.

Besides Managed Print Services (MPS), HP is rolling out another service called Managed Supplies Service for businesses not ready for a full scale MPS agreement, which combines original supplies and tech support into a single contract. Services include fleet optimization via annual assessment of use and automatic toner deliveries.

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