HP lays out the colour carpet for SMBs

Colour printing has finally become more affordable even for small businesses. Vendors are offering more options, better technology to manage TCO and pricing colour printers aggressively, says Brian Pereira

VIBHOR BANSAL says that the running cost of the new colour printers is close to that of monochrome printers

Two years ago, owning a colour laser printer was the privilege of a few large enterprises, mainly from the publishing industry. A lot has changed since then and colour is finally going mainstream. Inkjet and laser printing technology have improved vastly, there are more options, and prices have slid below the sub-50K mark for colour lasers. Vendors such as Hewlett Packard are aggressively pushing colour printing into the mainstream business environment.

“We are driving home the message that colour makes all the difference. Businesses can opt for colour now because it’s more affordable,” says Vibhor Bansal, country category manager, Colour Lasers & Business Inkjets, Hewlett-Packard India.

To increase the adoption of colour, HP is intent upon persuading existing customers to migrate from consumer inkjets (DeskJet models) to business inkjets. It is offering such customers the HP Business Inkjet 1100D, an A4 printer with a street price of Rs 14,000. “This model is for the small and medium business (SMB) and corporate customers. The CPP (cost per page) is very low—Rs 1 per page at 5 percent coverage on A4-size paper,” informs Bansal. “Compared with consumer inkjets, the business inkjets have a higher duty cycle (typically 6,000 - 8,000 pages per month), are more manageable and can be shared over a network.”

Colour lasers for SMBs

HP is serious about making colour laser printers affordable even for small- and medium-sized businesses. In the past, colour lasers were considered high-end technology products and were targeted only at large corporates. The HP Colour LaserJet 2550 (street price Rs 35,000) is set to change that.

“There are certain mono lasers on which the cost of mono printing is very close to printing mono on a colour laser printer such as the LaserJet 2550. That [cost] difference is hardly five percent. We think that the LaserJet 2550 would be a sensible option for customers who are considering mid-range mono lasers,” says Bansal.

In a typical business environment there is a mix of mono laser and colour inkjet printers. Having dedicated printers for the occasional colour job can result in a high TCO, a concern for most enterprise users. Bansal informed Express Computer that HP had done a study and discovered that the LaserJet 2550, which offers mono and colour printing, can actually lower TCO over a two to three year period. The duty cycle of the LaserJet 2550 is 30,000 pages per month.

Lower running cost, please

A major concern for most business users is the cost of consumables and other running costs such as maintenance and hardware costs. Expecting the same concerns from the SMB segment, HP devised a two-fold strategy to address the issue. Firstly, it is introducing the dual cartridge concept for the LaserJet 2550, which is positioned at SMBs. The LaserJet 2550 offers a choice of a low-yield, low-price cartridge system and a higher capacity, low cost per page (CPP) system. The standard cartridge set prints about 2,000 pages (per month), while the higher capacity system prints 4,000 pages. “We have introduced this [feature] only on the LaserJet 2550 model, and will gauge its acceptance before applying this to other models in the future,” says Bansal.

HP is also tackling TCO issue through new features that supposedly enhance productivity. TCO includes the cost of hardware, cost of management, operational costs, maintenance cost etc. 40-45 percent of TCO goes toward hardware servicing and consumables and 55-60 percent is related to manageability, reliability and robustness of the printer, and availability (uptime). “We have introduced features that address this. For instance, there’s a feature called Smart Printing Supplies wherein a manager can track toner usage through a Web interface and plan accordingly. This reduces printer downtime,” says Bansal. Then there is another feature called First Page Out (FPO). With the 4600 model it takes 17.5 seconds for the printer to warm up and print the first page. “We have reduced that to 15 seconds,” adds Bansal.

Customer and partner programmes

HP has planned marketing campaigns as well as programmes for its customers and partners, to drive home the message that ‘colour is now more affordable.’ “We are telling our customers to have mono printers for high volume output and colour printers for in-house printing. A mix of devices will help them get the best RoI on their printing infrastructure,” says Bansal. On the anvil are upgrade programmes for its most valued customers (with a large installed base of HP printers). HP is also educating its channel partners about the advantages and utility of colour.

SMB Focus

Small and medium-sized businesses are the next target area for most vendors, and that includes HP. “We had all along addressed the corporate segment with our high-end printers. But we are now pursuing SMBs with the 2550 printer and 3500 series (both under Rs 50,000),” says Bansal.

HP is planning specific programmes targeted at SMBs. It is targeting verticals such as travel, education, fashion houses, jewellery designers and other verticals that can use colour more effectively. The SMB initiative is dubbed DIY (do-it-yourself) as HP sees a lot of do-it-yourself marketing in the small business segment. HP is offering these customers specialised tools (CDs with templates). These have been developed through its partnerships with Microsoft, Adobe, and Quark.