HP Launches New Imaging and Printing Solutions

MEPrinter August 10, 2012

5 minutes read

Entering into the UAE corporate print space, HP Middle East presented their latest printing solutions at an event held in Dubai recently. The press meet gave a first-hand look at HP’s 8 new imaging and printing products, and included a practical hands-on session supervised by HP technicians.

The conference was lead by Salim Ziade, General Manager, Printing and Personal Systems and Ernest Azzam, Business Manager, Laser Enterprise Solutions of HP Middle East. Salim Ziade was recently appointed as the General Manager of the newly formed Printing and Personal Systems Division (PPS) in HP. Talking at the event, he said, “We are here today to launch some of our new products. The print industry, which some people say is flat, is actually alive and kicking. There are a lot of innovations coming in to this segment. Our focus currently is on three major platforms: innovation, technology and mobility. HP had revolutionized printing sometime back. What you see today is real evolution in terms of printing and our next step is on enhancing the mobility features of printers.”

He said, “The new products will feature flexibility and security at the same time, enabling businesses of all sizes to capture, connect and communicate more securely and efficiently.”

Explaining their latest developments in the field, Salim Ziade said, “Recently, HP was featured by Interbrand as a leading green brand in the IT world. Interbrand is a worldwide research company that evaluates brands, companies and products. No other brand in the IT segment has the credential that we have. We have been on top of the list for two years on a row, and we also secured top ranking at the annual Newsweek Green Rankings. All these didn’t happen by chance, but happened by design. Forty one years ago, when HP was formed, Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard had announced that the company has a role to play as a citizen of the world and will contribute to preserve the resources of the planet. Since then, we have been working hard to make a difference in terms of preserving the environment. The results are clearly visible in those rankings. Being greener means more savings for our customers, because you use less energy and less paper. We continue our commitment to the printing community by investing in further research and development and by bringing innovations to the printing world. We believe that there is lot more to do and we are committed to bring innovative products month after month.”

innovations in print

Taking over the presentation from Salim Ziade, Ernest Azzam explained in detail about the newly launched products. “If you talk about market trends, people are now looking to increase their savings. They want to cut costs, especially in view of the economical situations these days. Second thing that we focus is on workflow and cloud. Everybody is now mobile and everyone wants services that are easy on their purse.”

He added, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation, while it takes only 5 minutes to ruin that. When you start thinking on this aspect, you will begin to do things differently. If you look at the cost of printing, you can see that for each 10 dollar spent; around 1 dollar is the cost of the actual device and supplies. The 9 dollars are related to expenses like administration, management, monitoring and the whole eco-system around printing. So, only 10% of the cost is related to hardware and supplies.”

He added, “There are a couple of new features that have been added on to our printers, it includes auto on/auto off and instant on features. Earlier, in laser printers it took about 30 to 40 seconds for the machine to warm up, but now it takes less than 7 seconds. Most of the printers stay on throughout the night and even during weekends. They consume a lot of energy. While, HP Printers are switched off completely. Only the network card stays on and listens to the commands prompted in the network. This technology saves up to 63% of your energy bills compared to other competitor products. The first page out from the printer comes out much faster than any other competitor product.”

Ernest continued, “With our technology we are saving energy, cost and are improving the speed of our products. These are technologies that you don’t see on the data sheet. Another interesting technology that we have introduced is ePrint. This technology allows every printer to have an email address. When you have to print something, you can attach the file and send it to the email address of the printer and you can print it from wherever you are, even if you are in a different country. We have introduced these technologies in all of our new products. Not only do we offer savings on the hardware and supplies side, but we have offered a lot of features to make the savings even bigger.”

Ernest Azzam pointed out that it’s up to the customer to decide, whether to use these features or just go on with the simple function of the printer. “If the customer wants to use a printer just by connecting the device with a USB cable, they can do so. But if they want to use the additional features for more mobility and saving, they can opt to use the additional features provided. Depending on their requirements, everything is made available.”

The new offerings

The HP LaserJet Pro 400 M401 is HP’s new web-connected mono single-function laser printer, and the HP LaserJet Pro 400 MFP M425 is the company´s first web-connected mono laser multifunction printer (MFP). Both include support for all HP Print solutions with wireless direct capability and support for Apple ™AirPrint and Google CloudPrint, which allow employees to print from their Smartphone or tablet from virtually anywhere. In addition, the 8.89 cm touch screen control panel allows users to manage print functions and access business applications directly from the device.

The HP LaserJet Enterprise 500 colour MFP M575 and the black-and-white HP LaserJet Enterprise 500 MFP M525 feature a larger 20.32 cm full-colour touch screen with HP Quick Sets for one-touch workflows. HP Quick Sets include send-to options directly on the control panel and allow users to preview, edit and zooming images for accurate results. HP FutureSmart 2 firmware enables businesses to simplify software updates and centrally manage tasks across their entire fleet with HP Web Jetadmin. The MFPs also support ePrint and Apple AirPrintTM, and Google CloudPrint. HP Auto-On/Auto-Off Technology automatically turns the printer off when not in use, resulting in reduced energy use.

The HP Scanjet Enterprise 7000 s2 has a compact, desktop design with HP Precision Feed and HP AccuPage technologies, while the ability to “Scan to Sharepoint” and “Scan to Cloud” extends its capabilities beyond the desktop. The HP ScanJet Enterprise 8500 fn1 is a robust scanner able to scan in most business documents trouble free for distributed, shared, document management environments.

HP ePrint Enterprise is a mobile printing solution which simplifies accessing and printing documents across the enterprise landscape while on the go. HP Access Control Printing Solutions has newly added features, including server-less pull printing, which lowers costs; dual-factor authentication, which adds an additional level of security; and the ability to send prints via email, which increases productivity.