HP Stops Selling Printers, Starts Selling Prints

An anonymous reader writes "HP has launched a new line of business printers but there's a big catch — you won't be able to buy one. For the first time in history, the company will make customers purchase printing services, rather than the product itself. At its biggest printer launch since the LaserJet in 1984, HP's new business-class Edgeline printers will only be available through a managed services contract. Pricing will be per page, depending on the quality of the printout. Edgeline technology is said to be so ink-efficient that if HP were to sell these printers, they would never match the money they make from consumables (cartridges etc) now."

Bad Headline

[cashman73]

I don't see that HP will stop selling printers. They just won't sell this one. You can still buy other HP printers, though. But the Edgeline does seem like a nice printer, though. $50 says that in 5 years, every office will have one (that they own).

That printer sounds like its based on the tech

[rolfwind]

of this company here:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/ 22/1241222 [slashdot.org]

Basically the ultrawide print head and instataneous drying times, etcetera. Any confirmation?

Re:cartridge refills

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. They claim only a 30% ink saving ... kind of hard to believe that they can't makee it up by increased demand, same as everyone else does when they lower costs.

Re:Bad Headline

[garcia]

But the Edgeline does seem like a nice printer, though. $50 says that in 5 years, every office will have one (that they own).

I'm not sure why they are now just claiming that they are ink efficient. My HP DeskJet 400C was so ink efficient that I used the same black and white cartridge for 5 years in college until it completely broke down and several hardware rollers came out with the final page of my Senior Thesis.

I replaced it with another HP DeskJet expecting the same kind of service level but found that the printer hardware was cheap, the ink needed to be replaced MUCH MORE often (every two months at my levels), and that it was sometimes less money to buy a new DeskJet each time at Walmart than to replace the ink cartridge.

I don't own a printer any more and only use a printer at work when I absolutely must have something printed out (tax time is about the only thing I can think of in recent memory).

Let's go back to the ink efficient days of the DeskJet 400C and fuck these contract based service packages.

Re:Misleading Summary Title

[Jeff DeMaagd]

True, it would be stupid to stop selling printers anyway. A printer in which I don't get a print in less than a few minutes isn't very useful to me.

Ink for business printers is a lot cheaper than with consumer printers anyway. That's the nature of the business, you want a cheap printer, they want you to pay for the ink. If you want cheap ink, then you pay for a more expensive printer. HP and many other companies treat their consumer products differently from their business products because they are different markets with different expectations.

China factor?

[owslystnly]

I noticed that the product launch was in China, and that had me thinking...

The chinese are notorious for buying something, reverse engineering it, and within a period of time having a duplicate chinese version for sale. Maybe HP is trying to prevent that from happening?

Copying Xerox

[flightrisk]

Xerox has this program too. They even use a spam-like domain name [freecolorprinters.com] for their program.

Broken model?

[a_nonamiss]

Here's a new idea. Why not make a printer, and sell it for what it costs to make, plus fair profit for the company? You could even use this same wacky business model for the ink! I know it doesn't quite follow the over-simplified model of selling a printer at just enough to cover your costs, then soak the end user with grossly overpriced consumables because that ensures a source of renewable income, thus making the your budget spreadsheet nice and pretty, but I think people have made it work in the past. Like every company that ever sold anything before the 1970's.

I realize this is the new model that many manufacturers are using since Polaroid started giving away cameras in the 1970's so they could sell the film at insanely high margins, but that's a seemingly short term business model. Eventually, people get wise to your plan, and you start pissing off your loyal customers, who realize full well that they are taking it up the pooper. I wish some company would come out and break this business model. I, as an informed consumer, would pay a little more for a printer if I knew I wasn't getting ripped off on the ink. I can't be the only one out there.

Since 1959

[Anonymous Coward]

leasing their 914 instead of selling it was the decision that catapulted them into the Fortune 50. Few offices could afford to buy a 914 (at many thousands), but leasing one for a few hundred, and paying a few extra for those extra prints was fine.

Good riddance

[Safety Cap]

Ever since the Engineers were forced out (early retirement/riffed) and replaced by people who didn't know or work under Bill or Dave, HP's products have sucked.

Their calculators have become a laughing stock. The lucky folks who still have a functional 12c from the days of old (early 80s) will enjoy them for decades more to come. I'd sooner use a bag of rocks than a 12c built during/after the Lewis Platt (successor: Carly) regime.

While this announcement is for a business printer, expect this trend to continue. Cheap printers are a commodity, so squeezing pennies out of the market will eventually lead to "virtual printers" or somesuch idiocy. Smart people are willing to pay for quality, someone just needs to offer a quality printer.

HP isn't the company to do it. Not any more.

Re:That printer sounds like its based on the tech

[rolfwind]

I'll answer my own question, due to the similarities in technology features, boasts of print speeds, and memjets unwillingness to make a product but rather license it - it seemed plausible that HP licensed it but that is probably not the case.

In the article on the /. article I linked to above about memjet, it says:
"HP's competing printer costs $16,000

While Edgeline could be the closest competitor to Memjet in terms of speed, it appears to be far more expensive (than memjet)."

Interesting competition coming up, if memjet is indeed the real thing and not a hoax.

Re:The HP Channel ain't gonna like this...

[swb]

They have been pissing on their channel for a long time with online sales; this is just them dropping drawers and shitting on the channel, too.

HP just realizes that they participate in a functional duopoly with a direct-sales competitor who doesn't really have a channel and that they don't need to be slaves to theirs.

I'm surprised that they would approach this printing market, though. One of the advantages owning your own printer has is that its much cheaper to own than any of the "managed services" pay-per-page copiers already in the market.

Re:What a pity

[shaitand]

Those are starter cartridges. Some brands like HP try to trick you now. They sell the starter size cartridges (and call them 'normal') in addition to a normal size cartridge they now call 'large'. That way the salesman call tell you they come with a full cartridge and the part number matches. It still has the same amount of ink in it as the starter cartridge of old.

This isn't new

[Anonymous Coward]

Many companies such as xerox and canon have been doing this for a long time. I work at staples, and in our copy and print centers we have printers that are leased from both companies. These printers have an "odometer" that tells how many prints have been done from that machine. We then get billed for what we use it for. On the flip side of that coin, canon and xerox are responsible for providing us with ink, and servicing the machines should they fail.

Staples has done a cost/profit analysis, and has found that this gives them much better profit margins than owning their own printers. Likewise, it increases the profit margins for canon and xerox as well. Both companies win.

HP is just now jumping onto this bandwagon, probably because they see that they are missing out on quite a lucrative market.

Re:Cost per page printed

[shaitand]

'I'm in IT, and we measure all costs per page, managed or unmanaged. Most people don't even think of cost over the life of the printer, and choose inkjets because they are 1/5 the price of laser, and spend much more over the life of the printer buying ink.'

True but its an artificial increase. Once upon a time I printed 500-2000 page books on my HP deskjet printers. Not one printer died and the cartridge lasted. Now you'd run out of ink if you printed a 200 page book.

Re:Bad Headline

[vimh42]

$50 says that in 5 years, every office will have one (that they own).

Sort of. People will decide they don't want to pay the service contract and some entrepreneurs will come up with ink refills and firmware hacks (in case there is some on-line killswitch). A new round af lawsuites will hit.

It Depends...

[superbrose]

Thanks to the excellent Linux support by the HPLIP Project [sourceforge.net] I am faithful to HP, at least for the time being. I am quite impressed that pretty much all features of my all-in-one printer have been working for years, without any major glitches.

I have seen the Windows HP drivers (quite a while ago) and have to say that at the time they were far too intrusive for my liking and I would not have used the HP software under Windows. So I'd buy an HP printer for Linux, but if I were using Windows I'd probably compare lots of makes first and my choice might be different.

This may just be a touch of sensationalism...

[AaronPSU777]

"Edgeline technology is said to be so ink-efficient that if HP were to sell these printers, they would never match the money they make from consumables (cartridges etc) now."

Got a link for this? I fail to see how an ink-efficient printer would affect their current business model. If anything it would improve their margins. Let's say the edgeline uses 50% less ink than other printers, simply put 50% less ink in the edgeline cartridges and charge the same price for them, problem solved.

I think we're all aware that current pricing structures for printer cartridges is a joke, it has little or no basis in what the cartridges actually cost to manufacture, so it's not like an edgeline printer would be some disruptive force in the marketplace.

Re:Misleading Summary Title

[Lars T.]

I've been waiting for this ever since I heard of it: All the photographic quality of a inkjet with faster speeds than laser printers and saving ink to boot. Very disappointed we won't see it at home now, but it's only a matter of time before it filters down.

It would filter down a lot sooner if printer manufacturers would adopt this fantastic new business model where you charge what products are actually worth and not adopt this "buy this cheap, pay for extras to keep us afloat" mentality. This is just another version of a company wanting a constant, consistant revenue stream verses having to actually innovate and keep product lines fresh to get new sales.

Everyone wants to be a utility,

Well, the problem is - that's what the public bought, the cheap printers over the expensive ones with the low priced consumables. Of course now they cry over the price of ink - but we all know the public is stupid.