New line of printers, company’s first mobile scanner enable business productivity on the go

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- HP (NYSE:HPQ) today bolstered the HP LaserJet Pro printer line with a new ”plug and print” technology that allows customers to begin printing in as little as two minutes by simply connecting a netbook, notebook or desktop PC to the printer with a USB cable – no CD required.

“Our customers demand easy printing and we’re giving it to them – no clumsy CD-ROMs to install, no drivers to download”

.New monochrome printers featuring HP Smart Install include the HP LaserJet Pro P1100 Printer series – the most energy-efficient laser printer on the planet(1) – the HP LaserJet Pro M1130/M1210 Multifunction Printer (MFP) series and the HP LaserJet Pro P1566/P1606dn Printer series.

HP also unveiled the HP Scanjet Professional 1000 Mobile Scanner, the company’s first portable scanner for fast, on-the-go scanning without the need for batteries or an AC adapter.

“Our customers demand easy printing and we’re giving it to them – no clumsy CD-ROMs to install, no drivers to download,” said Ron Coughlin, senior vice president, LaserJet and Enterprise Solutions, Imaging and Printing Group, HP. “HP Smart Install offers the future of printing, today.”

Did you know that color is one of the easiest ways to increase sales?

Research indicates that using color and graphics increases interest, retention, and improves comprehension.

The facts:

• Color improves comprehension by 75%
• Color increases retention 40%
• Color accelerates learning by 20%¹

According to Kathleen H. Seelye, “Color and graphics add 78% retention, while a photo can result in a 130% increase in retention.”²

Use an Image to Almost Double Your Persuasiveness

A study conducted by the University of Minnesota found that the use of simple graphics increased the persuasiveness of a message by 47%. To measure the effect, they had a group of people read a passage of text and rate it for persuasiveness. Then they had another group rate the exact same text, only this time it included a graphic. The score jumped by 47%!³

HP today introduced two digital press solutions with capabilities that improve photo printing quality and color consistency.

The company also announced that output for HP Indigo presses has received a Wilhelm Imaging Research (WIR) Display Permanence rating of approximately 45 years, the first of its kind for a digital press.⁽¹⁾

The new press solutions are designed for photofinishers, professional photographers, yearbook publishers, print service providers and other graphic arts professionals.

• The HP Indigo WS6000p offers professional portrait output quality as a high-quality, low-cost replacement to silver-halide systems.
• The enhanced HP Indigo W7200 Digital Press improves color management and consistency for high-volume printing of photo specialty products, including photo books.

HP additionally launched a partner solution from M-photo to manage professional lab workflow for HP Indigo presses and silver-halide output devices. HP also announced the general availability of the ARTtrust self-certification system for photographers and artists using HP Designjet Z Series Professional Photo Printers.

“Digital has crossed the gap between traditional and digital photofinishing in terms of quality, productivity and consistency, and now digital printing surpasses silver halide for photo permanence,” said Christopher Morgan, senior vice president, Graphics Solutions Business, HP. “HP’s solutions are accelerating the shift to digital, creating new business opportunities for print service providers, publishers and photographers.”

The world is focused on recycling. One of the best places to start may be with your office laser printers and multifunction systems.

Here are three simple steps to cutting waste and saving money:

• Recycle Paper Put recycling bins next to your printers and copiers. Most municipalities have recycling services. You can also use recycled paper in your printers and copiers. Make sure to select a good quality of recycled paper that is rated for laser printers and copiers.
• Duplex Printing A great way to immediately cut paper usage is to set your printers and multifunction systems to default to duplex (two-sided) printing. This is especially helpful for long print jobs because duplex printing literally cuts your paper usage in half.

HP today introduced a records management solution that enables customers to significantly reduce the business risks associated with the growing regulatory compliance and legal discovery demands.

HP TRIM 7 – an advanced records management solution built on 24 years of experience and best practices – enables organizations to transparently manage all of their Microsoft SharePoint Server records in a single environment, regardless of the source. This includes documents as well as information found in SharePoint Server blogs, wikis, discussions, forms, calendars and workflows.

Widespread adoption of SharePoint Server provides the opportunity to consolidate and simplify the management of content stored across multiple SharePoint instances. HP TRIM 7 enables the transparent capture, search and management of all types of physical and electronic business information, including Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and the upcoming SharePoint Server 2010.

“Organizations today need solutions to manage the explosion of large volumes of information,” said Mark Gilbert, research vice president, Gartner. “New solutions are growing rapidly for authoring and managing enterprise content in various formats and sources, and this trend is truly changing the way organizations do business.”

“The explosion in Content 2.0 blogs, wikis and discussions creates new information management challenges for organizations trying to meet an escalating set of regulation,” said Jonathan Martin, vice president and general manager, Information Management Solutions, HP. ”HP TRIM allows customers to marry records management best practices and governance with dynamic collaboration platforms such as SharePoint.”

Technological advances have resulted in many different printers, but of course not all printers will print the same quality. There are many different types of printers on the market, and all of them have different functions and characteristics.

Some questions you may want to ask before buying a printer are:

· Are you a large or small company?

· What will this device be used for?

· What quality and performance features are you looking for?

· What is your budget?

All too often, we hear and even use terms assuming others know exactly what we mean. One term used in the document industry is workflow- but what does it mean?

According to Wikipedia

A workflow consists of a sequence of connected steps. It is a depiction of a sequence of operations...

The flow being described often refers to a document that is being transferred from one step to another.

A workflow is a model to represent real work for further assessment, e.g., for describing a reliably repeatable sequence of operations. More abstractly, a workflow is a pattern of activity enabled by a systematic organization of resources, defined roles and mass, energy and information flows, into a work process that can be documented and learned. Workflows are designed to achieve processing intents of some sort, such as physical transformation, service provision, or information processing. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workflow )

HP today introduced a security services portfolio and new solutions that offer increased vulnerability assessment, enhanced data protection and improved compliance controls, enabling customers to reduce infrastructure risks.

The addition of new services and solutions to the HP Secure Advantage portfolio helps customers establish a comprehensive security strategy encompassing key areas of the technology infrastructure – from the data center to desktops and printers – across the enterprise and via the cloud.

Everyone knows how bad the economy was this past year and this downturn caused many companies to put their IT strategies on hold. Others however, saw this as an opportunity to be proactive and begin implementing automation and moving forward with new ways of getting the job done. As we head into the New Year, look at these strategies to think about re-organizing and working smarter.

1. Be proactive! While companies need to react quickly to industry trends and changing economic and world environments, they also need to formulate strategies for the future. Think about creating a team who will think ahead and make sure the company will get where it wants to go in the next few years.
2. Follow a business strategy roadmap. Don’t just jump blindly expecting the technology to magically work for you. Build a business strategy that will clarify and outline the issues you’re trying to solve. Be sure that your company is starting with a good foundation for their infrastructure that can be further built upon.
3. You don’t have to implement everything at once. In fact, it is much more practical automate your business according to a strategic plan—focus on what needs attention first. Look at your industry specific government regulations to see how they expect a company to handle information management.
4. Don’t wait to “play it safe” and have other companies experiment with new technology. If you stand back and wait for another company to make the first step and prove automation as a valuable investment, the next generation of technology will already have hit the business world. Your company will remain one step behind other innovating companies and will lose competitive edge.
5. Think about your return on investment (ROI). If you’re worried about staffing and hiring issues, realize that once automation is implemented, people used to working manually with documents can be re-deployed to other valuable tasks. While automation still needs staff to run it, the amount of personnel can be greatly reduced. This feeds right into the ROI. Create a flowchart and see how much faster your product can hit the market with new technology. That’s savings.

Mahwah, NJ, January 21, 2010 -- Sharp Imaging and Information Company of America (SIICA) today introduced the new MX-C400P and MX-B400P color and monochrome laser printers. Augmenting Sharp’s Frontier Series, these new workgroup printers provide dealers and end-users with an easy-to-use printer that provides a low total cost of ownership and a robust feature set. Based on the award-winning engine of its MFP counterparts, the MX-C400P and MX-B400P deliver speed and functionality in a single function product that can meet the output needs of mid-volume business workgroups with integration and networking features that make them extremely versatile.

The new MX Series printers are an extension of the award-winning A4 Frontier Series from Sharp. Engineered using a common architecture, the MX-C400P and MX-B400P employ the same engine, print controller, supplies and maintenance items, paper drawers and finishing items. These printers have been designed for workgroups with a monthly print volume of 5,000 to 8,000 pages and can yield up to four times more pages than traditional stand-alone units that employ mono-unit consumables, which are, ultimately, limited by toner yield.

“Because these new printers utilize the same engine as our Frontier MFPs, end-users who don’t need scanning and copying capabilities will still get the same powerful controller, output quality, throughput, paper handling, connectivity and security features, but at a fraction of the cost,” said Gary Bailer, Associate Director A4 MFPs, Sharp Imaging and Information Company of America. “These products provide our dealers with the ability to provide a full, end-to-end Frontier solution that will greatly reduce an end-user’s cost of ownership. By blending the cost per copy between fully-networked MFPs and printers, offices operate more efficiently and manage their document processing more effectively.”